April 22, 2025 • 36 mins
Featured during Hour 4 of the Tuesday April 22, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Jobs That Can't Be Filled
- Coffee Lawsuit Meh to Wow
- Ezra Klein on Dems
- Blue States New Attitudes About School Closings
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the
George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Katty Armstrong, and Kattie I know Hee Armstrong and Getty
strong Man.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Philadelphia Zoo announced last week that a pair of nearly
one hundred year old tortoises recently welcome their first hatchlings.
You may have seen the tortoises on the MTV show
ninety nine and.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Pregnant markets are surging.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
If you're listening to us live, so the bounce back
has begun, and get into that later. Also, latest polling
on the whole tariff thing, get into that later also.
And oh and I just saw the real ID deadline
is a month away.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is going to be my all time greatest.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Hit screw up because it's been I've seen it coming
for so long and known the entire time for years
that at some point I will be at an airport
ready to get on a plane someplace I need to go, yes,
and they'll say, we no longer accept your driver's license,
you need your real ID. Even though I knew it
for years, I am that is going to happen to me.
(01:31):
I like your high school teacher.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Assigned you a book report due in twenty years and
you waited until the last night and you're up all night, right,
that is going to happen to me? Yeah, it's funny, Judy,
And I heard that report, and I have a feeling.
I spoke for many, many millions of Americans when I said,
do we have real IDs?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I've completely lost track? Is ours real?
Speaker 5 (01:55):
She looked at it and said, yeah, yes, we do.
How that happened? I don't record?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, I sure don't have one.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Are you sure? I'm positive you might. When did you
last for new year license? I don't know so. Uh
so your driver's license? Is it?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah? Oh it is?
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well, maybe I did have a real like the updated
does it have like a hologrammy looking thing on there?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Or yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Yeah, maybe I do have it done and done, sir.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
That's my point. Nobody has any idea part Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
So, speaking of economics and that sort of thing, which
a lot of people are doing these days in reference
to the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But to this too shall pass, I hope eventually. Uh
And and.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Some of the support and lack of support are coming
from some interesting areas for the tariffs, and we can
talk about that more later, but I'm kind of tariffed out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
We brought this up kind of briefly at the end
of the show.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
You see, I could talk about tariffs for many more hours.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well you should feel free. How about one room over anyway?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I found this so interesting, big survey of America's employers,
especially manufacturers. They cannot find reliable, conscientious workers who can
pass a drug test. A good worker, like a good man,
can be hard to find these days. And who is
(03:23):
this writing in? Alicia Finley, who I think is a
terrific writer, But she says, blame government, which showers benefits
on able bodied people who don't work well at the
same time subsidizing college degrees that don't lead to productive employment,
and the result is millions of idle men and millions
of unfilled jobs, what an economist would call a dead
(03:44):
weight loss to society.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
So failing the drug test?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Is it mostly the marijuana, the Mary Jane, the lettuce,
the hippie?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Yeah, I don't know. I suspect so though. Sure I
think it's mostly pot. But I think that's just brilliantly.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Simply put, we are showering benefits on able bodied people
and subsidizing useless college degrees as as a people because
the government is theoretically doing our work right, Well, I
for one don't like either end of that anyway. Forty
percent of small business owners and March reported job openings
(04:25):
they could not fill. Construction companies fifty six percent said, yeah,
we have unfilled jobs and we can't find anybody.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Transportation, I have.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
A feeling that's mostly truck drivers fifty three percent manufacturing,
which the President is, according to many people, admirably trying
to shepherd back inside the country. More forty seven percent
of manufacturers say, no, we've got openings we can't fill.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Well.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
So, according to the last week's National Federation of Independent
Business survey, that might.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Be a flaw in the president's plan that hasn't been
discussed enough. He wants to bring back the fifties or
seventies or whatever golden era of manufacturing that we used
to have. But back then people would do those jobs.
If half the manufacturing jobs out there you can't fill. Now,
(05:15):
what if manufacturing did come back to the United States, who,
in theory is going to do those jobs? Well?
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Not illegal immigrants, because thank god, the border has been
closed and the statistics are astounding Biden was a scoundrel anyway.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Was it going to be the woman's studies major from
your local university that goes works, They're probably not. Well.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It could well be the dudes who have no disability
on disability who are heaved off of that system, but
that would take some tough love, and that's not very
popular politically speaking. I mean, if you go into one
of the districts of the rust Belty places or Appalachia
or whatever where you have just ludicrous levels of people
(05:54):
on disability. Happened to read a couple things about this recently.
Didn't flog you with it on the air. But if
you go into those places and say we're kicking it
off everybody on disability who's not like missing a limb,
you will lose an election by seventy points, if that's
even possible. Once people are on the dole man, once
(06:16):
people have a benefit, whether legitimate or perhaps questionable, taking
it away as political poison. As you know, Labor Department's
job openings and labor turnover survey businesses tell a similar story.
There are twice as many job openings in manufacturing now
than in the mid two thousands as a share of
employment save for the pandemic, America's workers shortage is the
(06:37):
worst in fifty years. Decades ago, productivity, enhancing technology and yes,
inexpensive imports costed men who worked on shop floors to
lose their jobs and drop out of the workforce. But
that generation is sailing into the sunset, and there are
many fewer young Americans who want to work in factories.
Listen to this now, the labor force participation rate among
(06:57):
young among working age men is now about five percentage
points lower than in the early eighties. Okay, this is
not like the nineteen tens. This is the nineteen eighties,
five points lower. As a result, there are about three
and a half million fewer men between the ages twenty
five and fifty four in the workforce, and one point
three million between the ages of twenty five and thirty.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Four in a significantly bigger population than we had in
the eighties. Right then there would have been were it
not for this decline. Labor participation among working age women,
on the other hand, recently hit a record in part
because they are having fewer children, and then people aren't
coupling and that sort of thing. At the risk of stereotyping,
(07:40):
women are more inclined toward helping professions such as services
than those that require physical labor. Well, that's just true,
it's undeniable. So I've not done a manufacturing sort of
job before, so I don't know what it's like, but
I certainly feel like there's a social stigma around it
(08:00):
that doesn't help true.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Why it is?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Why there's not a social stigma around having a meaningless,
soul deadening paper pushing job in a cubicle.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I don't know why that is.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I mean, maybe the other way around should be there
shouldn't be any stigma around any jobs. Working for a
living is considerably better than not whatever the hell you're doing.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
So why I at least the vestige of the twentieth
century where a job where you used your brain as
opposed to your back was seen as a higher status job.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
God, I don't know some of these jobs or you
use your brain.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
That's barely not much, I mean, but they certainly don't
seem like they'd be much more enjoyable as starter jobs.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Right, Tedious is tedious.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
I had a sort of manufacturing job for one summer
and it was pretty tedious, honestly. But I'm sure it is.
You know why I go and went ahead and took
it and kept it. It was because it paid pretty good.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It was my best option, right, So yeah, you got
and and well you should have to make a living.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You got to support yourself somehow.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
No, you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
What kind of monster are you listen to this? Would you?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
So?
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Where have all the good working men gone? Some are
subsisting on government benefits, are living off their parents. About
seventeen percent of working age men are on Medicaid, seventeen percent,
seven and a half percent on food stamps, and six
point three percent on Social Security, many claiming disability payouts.
According to the Census Bureau. Many spend their days playing
video games and day trading, well, day trading hilarious, speculating
(09:35):
on meme stocks, or you tell somebody your day trading.
I don't know how often you're actually trading and making
any money, because you don't want to say I just
play video games and live in my parents' basement, So
you say you're your day trader. So I don't remember
our a good friend, Craig the healthcare Genius's statistics. But
if I remember correctly, originally Medicaid was only supposed to
(09:58):
cover like a tiny percent people period.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Now it's covering.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Now it's covering, And that would have been like the
old and you know people that I got all kinds
of physical or mental problems.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Now it's seventeen percent of.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Working age men, not not like senior citizens.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's nice.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, a couple more stats. Other missing men are taking
longer to finish college or pursuing graduate degrees. Only about
forty one percent amen complete a bachelor's degree in four years,
even though study after study shows they don't teach, you
don't have to work.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
There's great inflation. It's dopey.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Only forty one percent and a quarter take more than
six years.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Wow, because you're in no hurry to get out of college.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
My dad used to comment about perpetual college students, and
I never really understood what he was talking about. And
I'm sure it was a small number of people back
when he was in college, but now it is a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Apparently. I'll just stay in college.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I'll just keep borrowing money and because I'm too young
or unwise to understand what I'm doing, and I'll just
keep this game going. Of I get to sit around
with my friends and discuss the world without ever having to.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Engage in it. Yeah, and I have disability. My thumb
hurts on Thursdays. Final stat then I will I will stop.
We're just we are a fat, lazy, comfortable society. We're
headed to front denial, right, we are headed straight toward France.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
The unemployment rate Jack considered this among recent college grads
with a sociology degree is about seven percent, and their
medium wage, if they do have a gig, is forty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
According to the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Bank, Social grads can earn twice as much working on
an auto assembly line, which pays an average hundred thousand
dollars a year. Good gig, but not many want it.
The reality is that masses a young people, writes Alicia Finley,
who again as a genius, has been taught that capitalism
is exploitive. They don't want to work in factories. They'd
rather mooch off taxpayers or their parents. How CHORL Marx
(12:03):
is that?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Some of it is that, I'm sure, But I just
I think a lot of it is just the cultural
that would be embarrassing for your parents and for you
if you worked over it the whatever factory. Yeah. More
embarrassing in our current society than if you just live
at home and you know you say you're a day trader.
It's more embarrassing to have a job at a plant
(12:28):
than to live with your parents.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
But I think it is.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Or having taken six years to get an undergrad degree
in gender studies, you're now getting a master's degree in
the theoretical decolonialization of art, or whatever the s.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
They sometimes think for soft people. Man, there is no
more iron law of humanity than that.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Thank You.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
In Los Angeles, jury has awarded a man fifty million
dollars after he was seriously burned by a Starbucks drink. Now,
the person got burnt pretty good, but I had to
on his junk, on his junk and says he can't
have sex anymore. Although you would make that argument if
you're trying to get fifty million dollars. So whether that's
accurate or not, I do not know. But and I'm
not a lawyer, but I don't know how you work
(13:34):
this out in society. On one hand, I'm going through
the drive through at Starbucks. I don't deserve to be
maimed for life.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
No, certainly not in my privets.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
On the other hand, it's an impossible expectation that nothing
ever goes wrong ever, And you know, nailing down whether
it was the employee's fault or the person in the
car's fault is difficult. I mean, if you ever go
to Starbucks and you get more than one drink, they
give you that cardboard holder that the drinks fit in,
and this person claimed that they didn't secure the tea in.
(14:08):
It was sitting at an angle and then it spilled.
Oh maybe it was or maybe you hit it on
the window or with youurob or whatever. I don't know,
but anyway, you can't get everything perfect all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Fifty million dollars.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
The problem with this, to me is what it's what
drives so many of the things that make us nuts
in life. The fact that the school won't let your
kid play if it's rained the last two days, you
have to stay inside for reassss because they might slip,
and some jury will award one hundred million dollars. I mean,
it's just it's an unworkable situation for society. So I
(14:41):
don't and you know you wouldn't want Starbucks to be
able to like, here comes my girlfriend's ex boyfriend. I'm
gonna throw hot tea in his face at the drive through,
and there'd be no penalty for that.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I mean, so there's gotta be a ligne somewhere obviously.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
I just think we've gotten so far off tracks a society,
because it's very different than virtually any other legal system
on Earth. You're not going to get a fifty million
dollar reward like this in Argentina or or probably Britain.
I don't think, but I don't think we as people
understand how far off we've gotten.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
And a big reason for that. What is the number
one profession among legislators.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's not even close. You know, it's an attorney, right,
And the whole jury thing where this is one of
the reasons that we regularly say, you know, don't make
those jokes about how to get out of jury duty.
Show up on the jury so you could say, so
you could be there as a smart person, say fifty
fifty million dollars is insane, Yes, because you got to.
(15:44):
I'm guessing you got a jury fro of peoples of
Starbucks is rich, they can afford it. I don't like
them anyway, you know that sort of thing, right, Yeah, yeah, boy.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
If there's one technology mankind has not perfected, it's the
getting the cup lid to click on the cup thing
in the world of coffee. And you know, granted, I'm
an older fellow now, and I've learned the hard lessons
of life, sometimes more than once, usually more than once
before I absorb them. Boy, anybody who has boiling hot
(16:14):
coffee and assumes that lid is on their right, you
are a bold man and a foolish one.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah. I just when I heard that, I just thought,
oh crap, this is going to lead to even more Sorry,
we can't allow you to do this stuff, or you
get like room temperature coffee, right, coffee can't ever be
That might be the reaction from Starbucks, no more hot coffee.
I know lots of people order stuff extra hot, because
I've known Barista's order stuff extra hot. It's already so
(16:42):
hot you can't drink it. But it's the idea that
it'll be it's so hot that by the time you
get to work on your fifteen minute commute, it'll still
be hot. Well, I'll bet that goes out the window
after this settlement.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah, So I shouldn't say this, but everybody's thinking about it,
so I will. So, this guy got fifty million dollars
because he could never have sex again?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Was he any good at it? I mean, does that
factor into the juries?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yeah? I mean you think they should interview previous lovers
and say, so, how much of a loss is this
for humanity? Well?
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah, I mean because it's obviously lost to him, no
matter his skills, but to humanity, because shouldn't that be
a fifty to fifty thing on asco Consortium, et cetera
on a scale of me to wow?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Where was he exactly?
Speaker 4 (17:26):
I'm just I'm asking these questions. I don't have the answers.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, God dang it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Getty Show, The arm Strong and Getdy Show.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
So I mentioned this last week and we never got
around to it. I'm glad we are now, and I'm
looking forward to Joe's reaction to this. So this is
Ezra Cline of The New York Times on Lex Friedman's
podcast from a couple of weeks ago. And Lex Friedman's
an interesting guy if you've never heard his podcast. First
of all, they're all two to four hours. And I
don't know who listens to those whole things, but he
(18:03):
has people on of all different kinds of political stripes
and worldviews and stuff like that, and he just wants
to hear what they think. And he opened with this
great question for Ezra Kline of the New York Times, who,
if you don't know his act, he is a columnist, writer, liberal, progressive,
not a bomb chucker though that's just his I mean,
(18:24):
he's a really smart, he's an intellectual, but he's a progressive.
And Lex had him on to say the first question
was basically lay out the progressive point of view or
the democrat point of view of the worldview. And I thought, okay,
this is fantastic. I'm going to hear this from a
smart guy. And I thought, I am going to listen
(18:45):
to this podcast in my earbuds as I was like
doing laundry or something like that, and I thought, I
am going to, like in a relax manner, listen to this,
see if I can find any common ground, like fully
understand you know where they're coming from, right, not the
cable news version, but like the intellectual version of how
they see the world. And I didn't make it more
than like thirty seconds before.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I said out loud in my bedroom. Oh, you've got
to be effing kidding me. So this is how it went.
Speaker 7 (19:16):
You can define the left in different ways. I think
the left has a couple fundamental views. One is that
life is unfair. We are born with different talents, We
are born into different nations. Right, the luck of being
born into America is very different than the luck of
being born into Venezuela. We are born into different families.
(19:37):
We have luck operating as an ominive presence across our
entire lives, and as such, the people for whom it
works out, well, we don't deserve all of that.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
We got lucky.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
I mean, we also worked hard, and we also had talent,
and we also applied that talent. But at a very
fundamental level, that we are sitting here is unfair, and
that so many other people are in conditions that are
much worse, much more precarious, much more exploited, is unfair.
And one of the fundamental roles of government should not
(20:12):
necessarily to turn that unfairness into perfect equality, but to
rectify that unfairness into a kind of universal dignity. Right,
So people can have lives of flourishing. So I'd say
that's one thing. He has a very low voice for
a child. Yeah, I'll hold back for now.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I see what you mean. Though my eyes were wide.
You don't deserve that.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
That's when I said in my bedroom, Oh, you gotta
be effing king.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Well, and I want to hear the next part, obviously,
but he kind of denied his own purpose there at
the end.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We're not trying to come up with some perfect equality.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
But yeah, let's hear a little more and then we
can discuss The left is fundamentally more skeptical of capitalism
and part of the unchecked forms of capitalism than the right.
I was like, this is hard to talk about because
what we call unchecked capitalism is nevertheless very much supported
by government. So I think in a way you have both,
Like markets are things that are enforced by government. Whether
(21:17):
they are you know, how you set the rules of
them is what ends up different between the left and
the right. But the left tends to be more worried
about the fact that you could get rich building coal
fired power plants belching pollution into the air, and you
can get rich laying down solar panels. And the market
doesn't know the difference between the two. And so there's
(21:37):
a set of goals about regulating the unchecked potential of
capitalism that also.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Relates to sort of exploitation of workers.
Speaker 7 (21:46):
There's very fundamental questions about how much people get paid,
how much power they have. Again, the rectification of economic
and other forms of power is very fundamental to the left.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
It reminded me, of course, when Obama said, you didn't
build that, that attitude, and I thought, okay, Aszra Klein
just laying that out a little more clearly.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I heard a.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Podcast with this guy. He's got the most famous economics
podcast in America. I can't remember what his name is,
but anyway, and he's he leans left, but he his uh,
his take on the whole. Okay, even if you've got
a situation where where you like, in the most blatant example,
it's not fair that this person, you know, they're born
(22:35):
with a better brain, their parents got him a tutor,
they had connections to get him into a better school.
Whatever it is versus someone else, how is the government
going to weigh in to fix it? He said, Even
if I buy all the lack of fairness. In what
sense could you structure a government that's gonna even that out,
(22:56):
that doesn't do more harm than good? Well, exactly that
the phrases the key one.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
And it is interesting to me to hear somebody who's
obviously fairly intelligent, like Ezra Kleine, be so narrow in
his vision, so incredibly unwise to not recognize that if
you empower somebody, I was going to summarize his creed
with as the following, I'm so smart, I and people
like me should be in charge of everything because.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
We will make it good.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
But a guy who is reasonably intelligent to lack the
wisdom to see that a government empowered to right all
of these pick a un wrongs or equalize somehow or other,
even if not a perfect equality, but like getting us
halfway there, that government would be so awesome and not
(23:46):
in the modern word like causing awe and horror, so
powerful and monumentally huge.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It would be terrifying. How do you miss that?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
As, oh, no, we would just do the good thing,
not the bad stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, right, And then.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
The problem being that where you draw the line between
unfair advantages that people didn't earn and choices that you
make because lots of people make really really bad choices
in life. I've made bad choices in life that damaged
me a lot, and some people keep doing them. I
don't dismiss the ideas. I haven't told my story about
(24:26):
the uber driver I had the other day. Maybe I'll
do that for the podcast today. But I was thinking
in that trip, which was really sketchy, that this poor
guy is never going to be able to do very
well in life. So I got a better brain than
he did. That is unfair, that's not his fault, it's
not my credit. But then he got all the life
(24:46):
choices that people make. And I've seen so many smart
people make horrible life choices. What is the government gonna
do to even out results there?
Speaker 5 (24:55):
And I've known the proverbial c student, Oh yeah, absolutely,
and I'm not gonna go with the old trope that
but they're very straight smart and blah blah blah.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
No.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
I've known some people who aren't very bright, but they
make good, sound moral decision after decision, and it benefited
quite nicely from those decisions.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Anyway, what makes.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
A person though again in the morning and want to
pursue the idea of that person has more than that person.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We need to get them closer together.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
What is that well, and the means that they use
to pursue that goal or are often horrible from my
point of view. I mean, if you have a charitable
view of the world and you think I ought to
do something to help those people, you have my full
blessing until it becomes And what I am going to
do is, at the point of the government's gun, take
money from people and compel them to do these things,
(25:51):
because that's the opposite of generosity, that's, you know, totalitarianism.
I hate to even use the word fairness any context
in this because it's become such a cliche, rhetorical cliche
of the left, because people have an instinctive view of
what fairness is from childhood on.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That is, everything should be fair. That's at least the ideal.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Whereas you know, being born with a better brain or
a worse brain, or a taller, good looking or talented
or whatever, that the difference.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Among people is one hundred percent fair. It's a very
definition of fairness. Nothing has been done by anybody to
pervert the natural unfolding of it. Nobody cheated anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Right The Jefferson idea of just you go as far
as your talent and effort will take you right exactly
that it's there could be nothing more fair than you
get dealt a.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Hand in life.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
And then you've got to go from there with you know,
the help of the people around you, and the people
care about you, and the government protecting your rights. That's
why the government exists, and off you go. Read Harrison
Berger on the Great Kurt Vanna Gets Short Story. If
you don't have a lot of time, read Thomas Soul's
Conflict Divisions if you have more about this sort of thing.
But I hate and it breaks my heart that my
(27:24):
daughter is autistic and life will always be extremely difficult
for her.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I hate that. I adore her, but I wouldn't use
the word unfair to describe that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It just is.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
I got kicked off of a jury before I made it,
the only time I've ever made it this far to
like actually get into the courtroom and they started the
lawyer start asking me questions, And the question that got
me kicked out was looking back to the starting point
of your life where you've end up now, is it
more or uh, the circumstance you were born into or
(28:04):
your life's choices, and I went with life's choices and
that got me kicked off jury that I think life's
choice is unfair, unfair good vlun fair good good vocal
fry from Ezra Klein. I don't know why, uh, socialism
goes with vocal fry. I don't know why those two
things go together. But I still think life choices have
more to do with it than where you were born,
(28:26):
who you were born to in brain power you have
in terms of where you're gonna end ultimately end up.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And he obviously does not believe that. Uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And then even if you agree with Azra Kleine, you're
still at the point.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of how could the government fix that? Anyway?
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Right, And my response to all of it would be
so what, So now what are you going to do?
That is always the question at every moment of your life. Okay,
so now what are you going to do?
Speaker 6 (28:50):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, Borgia Orgio podcasts and
Our Hot Lakes, the Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And Getty Show.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
So speaking of policy, and this is so incredibly important,
Jack is afraid it will vanish into the dustbin of history,
and I think he's probably right. But now even for instance,
the New York Times is admitting keeping the schools closed
was a horrific idea and utterly unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I called it a disaster before.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
No Mount Krakatoah, covering your village in Lava is a disaster.
This was a crime, a partisan political crime, and the
victims were children in society as a whole.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
And one of the worst things our government has ever done. Yes,
I would agree absolutely. It was like the internment of
the Japanese or whatever. You could even make a case
for that. The scientific case for keeping the little kids
out of school was null and void. Within a few
months of the beginning of COVID.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Anyway, New York Times writing paying the price, school children
in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are still about a half
year behind tip pre COVID reading levels. In Florida and Michigan,
the gap is about three quarters of a year. In Maine,
Oregon and Vermont, for instance, it's close to a full year.
This morning, Group academic researchers released their latest report card
(30:12):
on pandemic learning loss and it shows a disappointingly slow
recovery in almost every state.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
And maybe closures, yes, and maybe you're going to get
into this, or they get into this. But that's just
measuring the learning without measuring the disruption to classes.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
We've heard from lots of teachers of kids are different now.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They missed a couple of years of having to sit
there and pay attention and get homework done, and they
just they're not You can't get them back in the group.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They don't really get into that.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
And I'm really glad you brought that up, because the
socio psychological damage to kids, hell, that might make the
reading scores look like you know, Irish school closures during
COVID set children back in most districts have not been
able to make up the lost ground, obviously, partly because kids,
when they're that young, they absorb information in a way
(31:00):
that I envy with every fiber of me. And you
can't just have them not do that for a while
and say, all right, now we're going to do it
even more than usual. It's not the way kids work. Yeah,
does everybody not know that or whatever?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
But anyway, up until about age eight, your brain runs
about a thousand times faster and does after that. You
take a kid out of school for two years before
age eight, oh my god, you've done damage.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
To them, Yes, that's a horrifying yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
So and here we get into a couple of the
more interesting specific aspects of this other A reason for
the lack of, you know, catching up progress is school absences.
The huge rise has continued long after COVID, says Thomas Kane,
Harvard Economists, member of the research team that we're going
to talk about a little bit, said, the pandemic may
(31:46):
have been the earthquake, but heightened absenteeism is that tsunami.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
And it's still rolling through school, right, that part, not
just not showing up to school, is still a problem.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
And as I've said many times, when the New York
Times isn't being just unforgivably idiotically biased, they actually do
some pretty good deep dive reporting and they look into
the state variations. According to a new report from scholars
at your big name universities comparing performances across states.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I hope you're not going to tell me that blue
cities and states even got poorer performance than red I
hope you're not gonna come.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I'm going to need you to sit down, need you
to brace yourself.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Michael Jack's about to need a big hug, all right,
and you know how he loves that from other males.
So today's report shows a wide variety of outcomes. In
the states that have made up the most ground, they're
getting close to how they were doing five years ago,
but the overall picture is not good. And I will
(32:42):
skip some of the specific stats and get to what
they call the Blue Red divide. Political leaders in red
and blue America made different decisions during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Gavin Newsom, I'm.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
Looking at you, you lying monster, Chris Ker, child grooming
scumback because.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Red death Santus and people like that wanted kids to
die for some reason. They enjoy stacks of dead children
at their schools right exactly.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
Many schools in heavily democratic area stayed closed for almost
a year from the spring of twenty twenty to the
spring of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Or long.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It was longer than that around here were cal Unicornia.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
In some Republican areas, by contrast, schools remain closed only
for the spring of twenty twenty and opened right up.
And this helps explain a partisan gap in learning loss.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
How you get in the specific status.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I can't believe this wasn't more fairly reported on or
discussed or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I use this example all the time because I got
it in my own life.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
I got two schools seven miles apart, the public school
and the private school. My son's now in. The private
school barely shut down at all. The public schools closed
for like two years. And there were not I was joking,
there were not stacks of dead children everywhere. Teachers, our teachers.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
The private school was fine.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Now, how do you explain that, teachers union public schools.
How do you explain that that school's open over there,
and it's not like they got tons extra money for
some sort of special ventilation or something like that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
What a joke.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Randy Weingarten, the head of the Big teachers Union, who
is a demon from hell sent to punish us for
our sins, used it like other unions did, as leverage.
You want the kids back in. I can tell you
really really want the kids back in. You got to
give us more money. You got to give us more
of this, You got to give us more of that.
No than the kids stay home.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I fully believe she was doing that and knew that,
And I honestly don't know how she sleeps at night.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I don't because she has no conscience.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
She's a monster.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You are a monster.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
You certainly don't care about children. I mean, you're beyond
not caring about them. You're fine with them having awful
lives if you can have more power. You're a disgusting
human being.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
But you know what she's like, ya ya Sinwar of
Hamas she cares in children insomuch as they are leverage,
just like Cinar and Homoski's about Palestinian citizens.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Deaths are leverage.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Yeah, I put it in that category, but I know
plenty of teachers that that's not what their angle was.
They believed the whole it was too dangerous to have
schools open thing for summer.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, yeah, because Trump said it was good to open them.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
The left went crazy explaining how incredibly unwise that would
be and if there needed to be more horrifying irony
for the political left.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
All kids were hurt pretty badly. Poor kids were just decimated.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
To Armstrong and Geddy on demand, we're not boring.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
It makes you angry. You don't want to live your
life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong, he's Joe Getty.
We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to bring you the
truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world.
About something about a comedic tone.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
We have a winner. Yes, listen to Armstrong.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
You get on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the
George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Katty Armstrong, and Kattie I know Hee Armstrong and Getty
strong Man.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Philadelphia Zoo announced last week that a pair of nearly
one hundred year old tortoises recently welcome their first hatchlings.
You may have seen the tortoises on the MTV show
ninety nine and.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Pregnant markets are surging.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
If you're listening to us live, so the bounce back
has begun, and get into that later. Also, latest polling
on the whole tariff thing, get into that later also.
And oh and I just saw the real ID deadline
is a month away.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is going to be my all time greatest.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Hit screw up because it's been I've seen it coming
for so long and known the entire time for years
that at some point I will be at an airport
ready to get on a plane someplace I need to go, yes,
and they'll say, we no longer accept your driver's license,
you need your real ID. Even though I knew it
for years, I am that is going to happen to me.
(01:31):
I like your high school teacher.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Assigned you a book report due in twenty years and
you waited until the last night and you're up all night, right,
that is going to happen to me? Yeah, it's funny, Judy,
And I heard that report, and I have a feeling.
I spoke for many, many millions of Americans when I said,
do we have real IDs?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I've completely lost track? Is ours real?
Speaker 5 (01:55):
She looked at it and said, yeah, yes, we do.
How that happened? I don't record?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, I sure don't have one.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
Are you sure? I'm positive you might. When did you
last for new year license? I don't know so. Uh
so your driver's license? Is it?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah? Oh it is?
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well, maybe I did have a real like the updated
does it have like a hologrammy looking thing on there?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Or yeah?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Yeah, maybe I do have it done and done, sir.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
That's my point. Nobody has any idea part Yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
So, speaking of economics and that sort of thing, which
a lot of people are doing these days in reference
to the tariffs.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But to this too shall pass, I hope eventually. Uh
And and.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Some of the support and lack of support are coming
from some interesting areas for the tariffs, and we can
talk about that more later, but I'm kind of tariffed out.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
We brought this up kind of briefly at the end
of the show.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
You see, I could talk about tariffs for many more hours.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well you should feel free. How about one room over anyway?
Speaker 5 (03:02):
I found this so interesting, big survey of America's employers,
especially manufacturers. They cannot find reliable, conscientious workers who can
pass a drug test. A good worker, like a good man,
can be hard to find these days. And who is
(03:23):
this writing in? Alicia Finley, who I think is a
terrific writer, But she says, blame government, which showers benefits
on able bodied people who don't work well at the
same time subsidizing college degrees that don't lead to productive employment,
and the result is millions of idle men and millions
of unfilled jobs, what an economist would call a dead
(03:44):
weight loss to society.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
So failing the drug test?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Is it mostly the marijuana, the Mary Jane, the lettuce,
the hippie?
Speaker 5 (03:53):
Yeah, I don't know. I suspect so though. Sure I
think it's mostly pot. But I think that's just brilliantly.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Simply put, we are showering benefits on able bodied people
and subsidizing useless college degrees as as a people because
the government is theoretically doing our work right, Well, I
for one don't like either end of that anyway. Forty
percent of small business owners and March reported job openings
(04:25):
they could not fill. Construction companies fifty six percent said, yeah,
we have unfilled jobs and we can't find anybody.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Transportation, I have.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
A feeling that's mostly truck drivers fifty three percent manufacturing,
which the President is, according to many people, admirably trying
to shepherd back inside the country. More forty seven percent
of manufacturers say, no, we've got openings we can't fill.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Well.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
So, according to the last week's National Federation of Independent
Business survey, that might.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Be a flaw in the president's plan that hasn't been
discussed enough. He wants to bring back the fifties or
seventies or whatever golden era of manufacturing that we used
to have. But back then people would do those jobs.
If half the manufacturing jobs out there you can't fill. Now,
(05:15):
what if manufacturing did come back to the United States, who,
in theory is going to do those jobs? Well?
Speaker 5 (05:21):
Not illegal immigrants, because thank god, the border has been
closed and the statistics are astounding Biden was a scoundrel anyway.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Was it going to be the woman's studies major from
your local university that goes works, They're probably not. Well.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It could well be the dudes who have no disability
on disability who are heaved off of that system, but
that would take some tough love, and that's not very
popular politically speaking. I mean, if you go into one
of the districts of the rust Belty places or Appalachia
or whatever where you have just ludicrous levels of people
(05:54):
on disability. Happened to read a couple things about this recently.
Didn't flog you with it on the air. But if
you go into those places and say we're kicking it
off everybody on disability who's not like missing a limb,
you will lose an election by seventy points, if that's
even possible. Once people are on the dole man, once
(06:16):
people have a benefit, whether legitimate or perhaps questionable, taking
it away as political poison. As you know, Labor Department's
job openings and labor turnover survey businesses tell a similar story.
There are twice as many job openings in manufacturing now
than in the mid two thousands as a share of
employment save for the pandemic, America's workers shortage is the
(06:37):
worst in fifty years. Decades ago, productivity, enhancing technology and yes,
inexpensive imports costed men who worked on shop floors to
lose their jobs and drop out of the workforce. But
that generation is sailing into the sunset, and there are
many fewer young Americans who want to work in factories.
Listen to this now, the labor force participation rate among
(06:57):
young among working age men is now about five percentage
points lower than in the early eighties. Okay, this is
not like the nineteen tens. This is the nineteen eighties,
five points lower. As a result, there are about three
and a half million fewer men between the ages twenty
five and fifty four in the workforce, and one point
three million between the ages of twenty five and thirty.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Four in a significantly bigger population than we had in
the eighties. Right then there would have been were it
not for this decline. Labor participation among working age women,
on the other hand, recently hit a record in part
because they are having fewer children, and then people aren't
coupling and that sort of thing. At the risk of stereotyping,
(07:40):
women are more inclined toward helping professions such as services
than those that require physical labor. Well, that's just true,
it's undeniable. So I've not done a manufacturing sort of
job before, so I don't know what it's like, but
I certainly feel like there's a social stigma around it
(08:00):
that doesn't help true.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Why it is?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Why there's not a social stigma around having a meaningless,
soul deadening paper pushing job in a cubicle.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I don't know why that is.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I mean, maybe the other way around should be there
shouldn't be any stigma around any jobs. Working for a
living is considerably better than not whatever the hell you're doing.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
So why I at least the vestige of the twentieth
century where a job where you used your brain as
opposed to your back was seen as a higher status job.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
God, I don't know some of these jobs or you
use your brain.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
That's barely not much, I mean, but they certainly don't
seem like they'd be much more enjoyable as starter jobs.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Right, Tedious is tedious.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
I had a sort of manufacturing job for one summer
and it was pretty tedious, honestly. But I'm sure it is.
You know why I go and went ahead and took
it and kept it. It was because it paid pretty good.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
It was my best option, right, So yeah, you got
and and well you should have to make a living.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You got to support yourself somehow.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
No, you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
What kind of monster are you listen to this? Would you?
Speaker 6 (09:10):
So?
Speaker 5 (09:10):
Where have all the good working men gone? Some are
subsisting on government benefits, are living off their parents. About
seventeen percent of working age men are on Medicaid, seventeen percent,
seven and a half percent on food stamps, and six
point three percent on Social Security, many claiming disability payouts.
According to the Census Bureau. Many spend their days playing
video games and day trading, well, day trading hilarious, speculating
(09:35):
on meme stocks, or you tell somebody your day trading.
I don't know how often you're actually trading and making
any money, because you don't want to say I just
play video games and live in my parents' basement, So
you say you're your day trader. So I don't remember
our a good friend, Craig the healthcare Genius's statistics. But
if I remember correctly, originally Medicaid was only supposed to
(09:58):
cover like a tiny percent people period.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Now it's covering.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
Now it's covering, And that would have been like the
old and you know people that I got all kinds
of physical or mental problems.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Now it's seventeen percent of.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Working age men, not not like senior citizens.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
That's nice.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
Yeah, a couple more stats. Other missing men are taking
longer to finish college or pursuing graduate degrees. Only about
forty one percent amen complete a bachelor's degree in four years,
even though study after study shows they don't teach, you
don't have to work.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
There's great inflation. It's dopey.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Only forty one percent and a quarter take more than
six years.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Wow, because you're in no hurry to get out of college.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
My dad used to comment about perpetual college students, and
I never really understood what he was talking about. And
I'm sure it was a small number of people back
when he was in college, but now it is a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Apparently. I'll just stay in college.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
I'll just keep borrowing money and because I'm too young
or unwise to understand what I'm doing, and I'll just
keep this game going. Of I get to sit around
with my friends and discuss the world without ever having to.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
Engage in it. Yeah, and I have disability. My thumb
hurts on Thursdays. Final stat then I will I will stop.
We're just we are a fat, lazy, comfortable society. We're
headed to front denial, right, we are headed straight toward France.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
The unemployment rate Jack considered this among recent college grads
with a sociology degree is about seven percent, and their
medium wage, if they do have a gig, is forty
five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
According to the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Bank, Social grads can earn twice as much working on
an auto assembly line, which pays an average hundred thousand
dollars a year. Good gig, but not many want it.
The reality is that masses a young people, writes Alicia Finley,
who again as a genius, has been taught that capitalism
is exploitive. They don't want to work in factories. They'd
rather mooch off taxpayers or their parents. How CHORL Marx
(12:03):
is that?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Some of it is that, I'm sure, But I just
I think a lot of it is just the cultural
that would be embarrassing for your parents and for you
if you worked over it the whatever factory. Yeah. More
embarrassing in our current society than if you just live
at home and you know you say you're a day trader.
It's more embarrassing to have a job at a plant
(12:28):
than to live with your parents.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
But I think it is.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Or having taken six years to get an undergrad degree
in gender studies, you're now getting a master's degree in
the theoretical decolonialization of art, or whatever the s.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
They sometimes think for soft people. Man, there is no
more iron law of humanity than that.
Speaker 6 (13:00):
Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Thank You.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
In Los Angeles, jury has awarded a man fifty million
dollars after he was seriously burned by a Starbucks drink. Now,
the person got burnt pretty good, but I had to
on his junk, on his junk and says he can't
have sex anymore. Although you would make that argument if
you're trying to get fifty million dollars. So whether that's
accurate or not, I do not know. But and I'm
not a lawyer, but I don't know how you work
(13:34):
this out in society. On one hand, I'm going through
the drive through at Starbucks. I don't deserve to be
maimed for life.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
No, certainly not in my privets.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
On the other hand, it's an impossible expectation that nothing
ever goes wrong ever, And you know, nailing down whether
it was the employee's fault or the person in the
car's fault is difficult. I mean, if you ever go
to Starbucks and you get more than one drink, they
give you that cardboard holder that the drinks fit in,
and this person claimed that they didn't secure the tea in.
(14:08):
It was sitting at an angle and then it spilled.
Oh maybe it was or maybe you hit it on
the window or with youurob or whatever. I don't know,
but anyway, you can't get everything perfect all the time.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Fifty million dollars.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
The problem with this, to me is what it's what
drives so many of the things that make us nuts
in life. The fact that the school won't let your
kid play if it's rained the last two days, you
have to stay inside for reassss because they might slip,
and some jury will award one hundred million dollars. I mean,
it's just it's an unworkable situation for society. So I
(14:41):
don't and you know you wouldn't want Starbucks to be
able to like, here comes my girlfriend's ex boyfriend. I'm
gonna throw hot tea in his face at the drive through,
and there'd be no penalty for that.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I mean, so there's gotta be a ligne somewhere obviously.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
I just think we've gotten so far off tracks a society,
because it's very different than virtually any other legal system
on Earth. You're not going to get a fifty million
dollar reward like this in Argentina or or probably Britain.
I don't think, but I don't think we as people
understand how far off we've gotten.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
And a big reason for that. What is the number
one profession among legislators.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
It's not even close. You know, it's an attorney, right,
And the whole jury thing where this is one of
the reasons that we regularly say, you know, don't make
those jokes about how to get out of jury duty.
Show up on the jury so you could say, so
you could be there as a smart person, say fifty
fifty million dollars is insane, Yes, because you got to.
(15:44):
I'm guessing you got a jury fro of peoples of
Starbucks is rich, they can afford it. I don't like
them anyway, you know that sort of thing, right, Yeah, yeah, boy.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
If there's one technology mankind has not perfected, it's the
getting the cup lid to click on the cup thing
in the world of coffee. And you know, granted, I'm
an older fellow now, and I've learned the hard lessons
of life, sometimes more than once, usually more than once
before I absorb them. Boy, anybody who has boiling hot
(16:14):
coffee and assumes that lid is on their right, you
are a bold man and a foolish one.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah. I just when I heard that, I just thought,
oh crap, this is going to lead to even more Sorry,
we can't allow you to do this stuff, or you
get like room temperature coffee, right, coffee can't ever be
That might be the reaction from Starbucks, no more hot coffee.
I know lots of people order stuff extra hot, because
I've known Barista's order stuff extra hot. It's already so
(16:42):
hot you can't drink it. But it's the idea that
it'll be it's so hot that by the time you
get to work on your fifteen minute commute, it'll still
be hot. Well, I'll bet that goes out the window
after this settlement.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah, So I shouldn't say this, but everybody's thinking about it,
so I will. So, this guy got fifty million dollars
because he could never have sex again?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Was he any good at it? I mean, does that
factor into the juries?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yeah? I mean you think they should interview previous lovers
and say, so, how much of a loss is this
for humanity? Well?
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Yeah, I mean because it's obviously lost to him, no
matter his skills, but to humanity, because shouldn't that be
a fifty to fifty thing on asco Consortium, et cetera
on a scale of me to wow?
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Where was he exactly?
Speaker 4 (17:26):
I'm just I'm asking these questions. I don't have the answers.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, God dang it.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Jack Armstrong and Joe The Armstrong and.
Speaker 6 (17:34):
Getty Show, The arm Strong and Getdy Show.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
So I mentioned this last week and we never got
around to it. I'm glad we are now, and I'm
looking forward to Joe's reaction to this. So this is
Ezra Cline of The New York Times on Lex Friedman's
podcast from a couple of weeks ago. And Lex Friedman's
an interesting guy if you've never heard his podcast. First
of all, they're all two to four hours. And I
don't know who listens to those whole things, but he
(18:03):
has people on of all different kinds of political stripes
and worldviews and stuff like that, and he just wants
to hear what they think. And he opened with this
great question for Ezra Kline of the New York Times, who,
if you don't know his act, he is a columnist, writer, liberal, progressive,
not a bomb chucker though that's just his I mean,
(18:24):
he's a really smart, he's an intellectual, but he's a progressive.
And Lex had him on to say the first question
was basically lay out the progressive point of view or
the democrat point of view of the worldview. And I thought, okay,
this is fantastic. I'm going to hear this from a
smart guy. And I thought, I am going to listen
(18:45):
to this podcast in my earbuds as I was like
doing laundry or something like that, and I thought, I
am going to, like in a relax manner, listen to this,
see if I can find any common ground, like fully
understand you know where they're coming from, right, not the
cable news version, but like the intellectual version of how
they see the world. And I didn't make it more
than like thirty seconds before.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I said out loud in my bedroom. Oh, you've got
to be effing kidding me. So this is how it went.
Speaker 7 (19:16):
You can define the left in different ways. I think
the left has a couple fundamental views. One is that
life is unfair. We are born with different talents, We
are born into different nations. Right, the luck of being
born into America is very different than the luck of
being born into Venezuela. We are born into different families.
(19:37):
We have luck operating as an ominive presence across our
entire lives, and as such, the people for whom it
works out, well, we don't deserve all of that.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
We got lucky.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
I mean, we also worked hard, and we also had talent,
and we also applied that talent. But at a very
fundamental level, that we are sitting here is unfair, and
that so many other people are in conditions that are
much worse, much more precarious, much more exploited, is unfair.
And one of the fundamental roles of government should not
(20:12):
necessarily to turn that unfairness into perfect equality, but to
rectify that unfairness into a kind of universal dignity. Right,
So people can have lives of flourishing. So I'd say
that's one thing. He has a very low voice for
a child. Yeah, I'll hold back for now.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
I see what you mean. Though my eyes were wide.
You don't deserve that.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
That's when I said in my bedroom, Oh, you gotta
be effing king.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
Well, and I want to hear the next part, obviously,
but he kind of denied his own purpose there at
the end.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
We're not trying to come up with some perfect equality.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
But yeah, let's hear a little more and then we
can discuss The left is fundamentally more skeptical of capitalism
and part of the unchecked forms of capitalism than the right.
I was like, this is hard to talk about because
what we call unchecked capitalism is nevertheless very much supported
by government. So I think in a way you have both,
Like markets are things that are enforced by government. Whether
(21:17):
they are you know, how you set the rules of
them is what ends up different between the left and
the right. But the left tends to be more worried
about the fact that you could get rich building coal
fired power plants belching pollution into the air, and you
can get rich laying down solar panels. And the market
doesn't know the difference between the two. And so there's
(21:37):
a set of goals about regulating the unchecked potential of
capitalism that also.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Relates to sort of exploitation of workers.
Speaker 7 (21:46):
There's very fundamental questions about how much people get paid,
how much power they have. Again, the rectification of economic
and other forms of power is very fundamental to the left.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Okay, So.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
It reminded me, of course, when Obama said, you didn't
build that, that attitude, and I thought, okay, Aszra Klein
just laying that out a little more clearly.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I heard a.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Podcast with this guy. He's got the most famous economics
podcast in America. I can't remember what his name is,
but anyway, and he's he leans left, but he his uh,
his take on the whole. Okay, even if you've got
a situation where where you like, in the most blatant example,
it's not fair that this person, you know, they're born
(22:35):
with a better brain, their parents got him a tutor,
they had connections to get him into a better school.
Whatever it is versus someone else, how is the government
going to weigh in to fix it? He said, Even
if I buy all the lack of fairness. In what
sense could you structure a government that's gonna even that out,
(22:56):
that doesn't do more harm than good? Well, exactly that
the phrases the key one.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
And it is interesting to me to hear somebody who's
obviously fairly intelligent, like Ezra Kleine, be so narrow in
his vision, so incredibly unwise to not recognize that if
you empower somebody, I was going to summarize his creed
with as the following, I'm so smart, I and people
like me should be in charge of everything because.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
We will make it good.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
But a guy who is reasonably intelligent to lack the
wisdom to see that a government empowered to right all
of these pick a un wrongs or equalize somehow or other,
even if not a perfect equality, but like getting us
halfway there, that government would be so awesome and not
(23:46):
in the modern word like causing awe and horror, so
powerful and monumentally huge.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
It would be terrifying. How do you miss that?
Speaker 4 (23:57):
As, oh, no, we would just do the good thing,
not the bad stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, right, And then.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
The problem being that where you draw the line between
unfair advantages that people didn't earn and choices that you
make because lots of people make really really bad choices
in life. I've made bad choices in life that damaged
me a lot, and some people keep doing them. I
don't dismiss the ideas. I haven't told my story about
(24:26):
the uber driver I had the other day. Maybe I'll
do that for the podcast today. But I was thinking
in that trip, which was really sketchy, that this poor
guy is never going to be able to do very
well in life. So I got a better brain than
he did. That is unfair, that's not his fault, it's
not my credit. But then he got all the life
(24:46):
choices that people make. And I've seen so many smart
people make horrible life choices. What is the government gonna
do to even out results there?
Speaker 5 (24:55):
And I've known the proverbial c student, Oh yeah, absolutely,
and I'm not gonna go with the old trope that
but they're very straight smart and blah blah blah.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
No.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
I've known some people who aren't very bright, but they
make good, sound moral decision after decision, and it benefited
quite nicely from those decisions.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Anyway, what makes.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
A person though again in the morning and want to
pursue the idea of that person has more than that person.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We need to get them closer together.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
What is that well, and the means that they use
to pursue that goal or are often horrible from my
point of view. I mean, if you have a charitable
view of the world and you think I ought to
do something to help those people, you have my full
blessing until it becomes And what I am going to
do is, at the point of the government's gun, take
money from people and compel them to do these things,
(25:51):
because that's the opposite of generosity, that's, you know, totalitarianism.
I hate to even use the word fairness any context
in this because it's become such a cliche, rhetorical cliche
of the left, because people have an instinctive view of
what fairness is from childhood on.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
That is, everything should be fair. That's at least the ideal.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Whereas you know, being born with a better brain or
a worse brain, or a taller, good looking or talented
or whatever, that the difference.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Among people is one hundred percent fair. It's a very
definition of fairness. Nothing has been done by anybody to
pervert the natural unfolding of it. Nobody cheated anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
Right The Jefferson idea of just you go as far
as your talent and effort will take you right exactly
that it's there could be nothing more fair than you
get dealt a.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Hand in life.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
And then you've got to go from there with you know,
the help of the people around you, and the people
care about you, and the government protecting your rights. That's
why the government exists, and off you go. Read Harrison
Berger on the Great Kurt Vanna Gets Short Story. If
you don't have a lot of time, read Thomas Soul's
Conflict Divisions if you have more about this sort of thing.
But I hate and it breaks my heart that my
(27:24):
daughter is autistic and life will always be extremely difficult
for her.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I hate that. I adore her, but I wouldn't use
the word unfair to describe that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It just is.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
I got kicked off of a jury before I made it,
the only time I've ever made it this far to
like actually get into the courtroom and they started the
lawyer start asking me questions, And the question that got
me kicked out was looking back to the starting point
of your life where you've end up now, is it
more or uh, the circumstance you were born into or
(28:04):
your life's choices, and I went with life's choices and
that got me kicked off jury that I think life's
choice is unfair, unfair good vlun fair good good vocal
fry from Ezra Klein. I don't know why, uh, socialism
goes with vocal fry. I don't know why those two
things go together. But I still think life choices have
more to do with it than where you were born,
(28:26):
who you were born to in brain power you have
in terms of where you're gonna end ultimately end up.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And he obviously does not believe that. Uh yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And then even if you agree with Azra Kleine, you're
still at the point.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Of how could the government fix that? Anyway?
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Right, And my response to all of it would be
so what, So now what are you going to do?
That is always the question at every moment of your life. Okay,
so now what are you going to do?
Speaker 6 (28:50):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, Borgia Orgio podcasts and
Our Hot Lakes, the Armstrong.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
And Getty Show.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
So speaking of policy, and this is so incredibly important,
Jack is afraid it will vanish into the dustbin of history,
and I think he's probably right. But now even for instance,
the New York Times is admitting keeping the schools closed
was a horrific idea and utterly unnecessary.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
I called it a disaster before.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
No Mount Krakatoah, covering your village in Lava is a disaster.
This was a crime, a partisan political crime, and the
victims were children in society as a whole.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
And one of the worst things our government has ever done. Yes,
I would agree absolutely. It was like the internment of
the Japanese or whatever. You could even make a case
for that. The scientific case for keeping the little kids
out of school was null and void. Within a few
months of the beginning of COVID.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Anyway, New York Times writing paying the price, school children
in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are still about a half
year behind tip pre COVID reading levels. In Florida and Michigan,
the gap is about three quarters of a year. In Maine,
Oregon and Vermont, for instance, it's close to a full year.
This morning, Group academic researchers released their latest report card
(30:12):
on pandemic learning loss and it shows a disappointingly slow
recovery in almost every state.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
And maybe closures, yes, and maybe you're going to get
into this, or they get into this. But that's just
measuring the learning without measuring the disruption to classes.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
We've heard from lots of teachers of kids are different now.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
They missed a couple of years of having to sit
there and pay attention and get homework done, and they
just they're not You can't get them back in the group.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
They don't really get into that.
Speaker 5 (30:40):
And I'm really glad you brought that up, because the
socio psychological damage to kids, hell, that might make the
reading scores look like you know, Irish school closures during
COVID set children back in most districts have not been
able to make up the lost ground, obviously, partly because kids,
when they're that young, they absorb information in a way
(31:00):
that I envy with every fiber of me. And you
can't just have them not do that for a while
and say, all right, now we're going to do it
even more than usual. It's not the way kids work. Yeah,
does everybody not know that or whatever?
Speaker 4 (31:12):
But anyway, up until about age eight, your brain runs
about a thousand times faster and does after that. You
take a kid out of school for two years before
age eight, oh my god, you've done damage.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
To them, Yes, that's a horrifying yeah.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
So and here we get into a couple of the
more interesting specific aspects of this other A reason for
the lack of, you know, catching up progress is school absences.
The huge rise has continued long after COVID, says Thomas Kane,
Harvard Economists, member of the research team that we're going
to talk about a little bit, said, the pandemic may
(31:46):
have been the earthquake, but heightened absenteeism is that tsunami.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
And it's still rolling through school, right, that part, not
just not showing up to school, is still a problem.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
And as I've said many times, when the New York
Times isn't being just unforgivably idiotically biased, they actually do
some pretty good deep dive reporting and they look into
the state variations. According to a new report from scholars
at your big name universities comparing performances across states.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
I hope you're not going to tell me that blue
cities and states even got poorer performance than red I
hope you're not gonna come.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I'm going to need you to sit down, need you
to brace yourself.
Speaker 5 (32:21):
Michael Jack's about to need a big hug, all right,
and you know how he loves that from other males.
So today's report shows a wide variety of outcomes. In
the states that have made up the most ground, they're
getting close to how they were doing five years ago,
but the overall picture is not good. And I will
(32:42):
skip some of the specific stats and get to what
they call the Blue Red divide. Political leaders in red
and blue America made different decisions during the pandemic.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Gavin Newsom, I'm.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
Looking at you, you lying monster, Chris Ker, child grooming
scumback because.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
Red death Santus and people like that wanted kids to
die for some reason. They enjoy stacks of dead children
at their schools right exactly.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
Many schools in heavily democratic area stayed closed for almost
a year from the spring of twenty twenty to the
spring of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Or long.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It was longer than that around here were cal Unicornia.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
In some Republican areas, by contrast, schools remain closed only
for the spring of twenty twenty and opened right up.
And this helps explain a partisan gap in learning loss.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
How you get in the specific status.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I can't believe this wasn't more fairly reported on or
discussed or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I use this example all the time because I got
it in my own life.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
I got two schools seven miles apart, the public school
and the private school. My son's now in. The private
school barely shut down at all. The public schools closed
for like two years. And there were not I was joking,
there were not stacks of dead children everywhere. Teachers, our teachers.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
The private school was fine.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
Now, how do you explain that, teachers union public schools.
How do you explain that that school's open over there,
and it's not like they got tons extra money for
some sort of special ventilation or something like that.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
What a joke.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
Randy Weingarten, the head of the Big teachers Union, who
is a demon from hell sent to punish us for
our sins, used it like other unions did, as leverage.
You want the kids back in. I can tell you
really really want the kids back in. You got to
give us more money. You got to give us more
of this, You got to give us more of that.
No than the kids stay home.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
I fully believe she was doing that and knew that,
And I honestly don't know how she sleeps at night.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I don't because she has no conscience.
Speaker 4 (34:41):
She's a monster.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You are a monster.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
You certainly don't care about children. I mean, you're beyond
not caring about them. You're fine with them having awful
lives if you can have more power. You're a disgusting
human being.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
But you know what she's like, ya ya Sinwar of
Hamas she cares in children insomuch as they are leverage,
just like Cinar and Homoski's about Palestinian citizens.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Deaths are leverage.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Yeah, I put it in that category, but I know
plenty of teachers that that's not what their angle was.
They believed the whole it was too dangerous to have
schools open thing for summer.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, yeah, because Trump said it was good to open them.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
The left went crazy explaining how incredibly unwise that would
be and if there needed to be more horrifying irony
for the political left.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
All kids were hurt pretty badly. Poor kids were just decimated.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
To Armstrong and Geddy on demand, we're not boring.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
It makes you angry. You don't want to live your
life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong, he's Joe Getty.
We're Armstrong in Getty. We try to bring you the
truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world.
About something about a comedic tone.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
We have a winner. Yes, listen to Armstrong.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
You get on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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