We Designed the Perfect Country | Ep. 062 Lemonade Stand

17:43Aiden:They have elections. They have elections, but only one party's ever won. I'm just saying. So it's like. And other parties that try to somehow get their party offices raided and like taxed. But they're fair elections. Yeah. All right. Well, I can see this. I can see this. Can I show mine? Yeah. I do want to see yours because ultimately I'm grasping at straws, right? I think I looked at these, a list of countries I had in my head, a mixture of like Denmark, Iceland, Singapore, and Switzerland. And I kind of went through these factors in these countries, kind of went over how their like healthcare and welfare systems function, the amount they invest in infrastructure, like, and then noted things that we've learned over the year from places like China and then tried to piece something together.

18:30Aiden:But that was where I was coming from. I mean, I think there's another way to go about it. And I want to show you the, you call it the HR apocalypse. apocalypse. I've decided democracy is a failing strategy. There's too much time.

18:46Atrioc:You have zero democracy, five military. Okay. I put one point in a democracy. I have zero democracy, zero diplomacy. We're going all on. Here's what I figured. You have high info. Okay. I was legitimately thinking about this question. I was taking notes. I was looking at other countries and I realized they're going to let my dumb ass run a country. And if there's democracy, they're going to vote me out almost immediately so that's your goal is list a great country and more you keep running something power i need to keep running it and so to maintain that i'm going to need to change a few things about how it's run right democracy has to go to zero military needs to go to five because i'm also bad on diplomacy i don't think people are going to like me that much so from there i need here's the thing i don't think you can go low democracy authoritarian if you don't have high vanity.

19:32I need statues of me. I need posters of me. We need a lot of that around there so that people recognize that I am the rightful leader. I'm doing a good job. Of course. And from there, I kind of tried to have a balanced situation other than I didn't really have any money left for welfare at the end of the chart.

19:49Atrioc:You put money in housing before welfare. Yeah, well, they have to have a place. Well, they got to have houses. They got to have houses. You've got two in education, two in business subsidies, two in healthcare, care five in vanity two in housing and zero in welfare that's correct why do you put three in science why do you care about science in this fucked up country i've first of all it's like four no it's three in science yeah i figure first of all part of the military thing is you got to stay on the cutting edge all right i don't want to have an old ass military because then i'm getting i'm getting venezuelan you know what i'm saying they're gonna so you gotta be cutting so i have to be i have to be you know on the on the leading edge of uh military yeah this is like you're like sparta kind of this is a bit of a spartan situation i would say i don't know what a modern analog would be north korea in a way like a north korea thing i think health care is maybe a little too high for north korea also education maybe a little too high um maybe but i well i'm

20:43Aiden:sure if you're not a dissident well by the way when i say the education is that too there that's probably how much it costs to put big eclipse on on screens in schools across the country you're running the country but you're still making youtube videos for your audience for your guaranteed built-in audience i have millions of citizens they're required to watch big eclipse like state media yeah and i don't live in the country because you still live in la i'm not

21:14Atrioc:leaving la you're imagining this like you're here your life continues but you're sort of told you inherited you inherited a country and this is how you're gonna like let it run and if you think you can run a country from a distance without a strong military and no democracy you're an idiot like there's only one way to maintain this level of control right so i've i've i've i think realistically applied the constraints that you've given me and done the best job to maintain power and i think it's uh and i think it's not gonna be that bad for them all things considered what are they missing out on democracy who cares it's working out pretty well culture fine that's that's a bit of a downside.

21:53Aiden:Well, I will say, okay, so culture was, I viewed it through the lens of like cultural exports, cultural soft power that you have on the rest of the world. And I was like, I think I can let this go.

22:05Atrioc:You know? I mean, it's also internal culture, like how people are proud to be or feel like there's something going on in their country.

22:12Aiden:I kind of left that part aside, admittedly. And thinking about how that's, I think that's important for people living in the country. I think I viewed it more as like an external thing. I thought of it as like tourism, in history and museums. And I figured since my country's brand new, we're not competing with Greece or France. You know, it's like, give it up. Nobody's coming to Atriox stand to see our museums, bro. When I founded it 10 minutes ago.

22:38Atrioc:I feel like you guys are both underestimating how important it is to be liked in the world. Wait, diplomacy had two points, Doug. I don't understand. Out of five and with no military. Well, they can't all be five. They can't all be five. I feel like two is a pretty solid. If you put it in two, that means it's on your priority list.

22:53Aiden:It's on the board. A priority list? Yeah. Two. My highest one was a four. I didn't know. I think it's five to eight. Five would be. I think five is almost extreme. You know, this is a bit of a joke. And this is a scientific process with no holes in it. Yeah, there's no holes in it. You forget that. Legitimately, if I'm being more serious about it, I think having a five on something, like a five on military is like, you are a war state. I mean, that's a huge, that is a massive priority for your country. I mean, it's probably America would be five.

23:20Atrioc:Okay, hold on. I know. It's not a five, dude. You're going to put a five? No, look at our budget. Like, we spend so much shit. We spend like a trillion, right? Trillion and a half. Yeah, out of a seven trillion dollar. I mean, it's probably a four, right? It's a four and a half. I mean, you know. I mean, raw numbers, obviously, it's huge. But like, we spend a fuckload on other things.

23:37Aiden:I am curious. When you were making this one.

23:41Atrioc:Yeah.

23:42Aiden:Maybe this is the opposite of what this is. But I did, like I said, I did have really successful countries in the world. in mind when I was like, you know, what do I value? What do I think should be prioritized? Do you have countries in your head that you view as the most like independently successful? Not what the U.S. could copy or, but just countries you admire for their policies. No, legitimately, I was trying to, at first, fuse the parts I liked about U.S. and China, but it became very difficult through this lens. So I sort of went on a goofier Asia-Afghanistan situation. This infallible lens?

24:21yeah, I don't know. It's funny because every one of these, you can make an argument about the benefits of five or like a long investment. So it's hard. It was hard to do the trade-offs. I think if I really wanted to depriority something, it's obviously vanity. And I think legitimately, I mean, if you look, like you said about China, they're pretty low on welfare, but even housing, like in terms of, I was looking at this part of the study of it is government spending on housing by China is actually really low. Almost all that massive housing stock we saw we were driving through there is built by private developers over the past.

24:54They make money off it through land sales through the thing, but they're not spending government tax money on it.

25:00Aiden:It's kind of like healthcare spend in Singapore is really low. And they do have a system that it has like huge private players involved, but it's more complicated than public versus private. You have to like create a system that allows, you know, that healthcare to remain low cost, good quality, and have these like private players be involved, which is like not the US system. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, what it feels like is like almost what you're trying to do as a country is, because if you think of this as points, as in focus, it's kind of different. If you think of it as money, it's different. we were trying to do as a country is find a way to get more points for less money to be really really efficient to find out like some hack to get more out of it than having to throw more money at it i think is the is the dream yeah um there's like a mixture of you know what's we're working in this scenario right there's like this fixed budget of points but you know your budget could be bigger or larger and there's ways to make efficiency of you can change the efficiency of how those points are spent depending for instance if you're a volcanic island you don't really need military the only one that's really interesting is democracy because theoretically i mean there's successful countries that don't use that slider at all like that one's almost a personal preference it's not like five is better than one on this one in my opinion it would be but that's not like you could that's really just a choice like how what you think is more effective and it's

26:32Atrioc:whether people are able to influence the direction of government, right? Where they can come in and change these sliders that they don't want. If you, okay, hold on. If you took slide, if you took vanity and you slid to zero and you took military and drop that down a bit, you had seven points. Where would those first go? Oh, that's a good question. Cause those are like kind of your bits. You know what's interesting? Where do those go? What's interesting is I think I'm a person who I would probably put two more into business subsidies. Damn. Up to 4k. Because I think if you're a smaller country, as I'm picturing I am, you really want to...

27:08Atrioc:That's my marketer, dude. Still zero in welfare. That's fucking right, man. Okay, you put two in welfare. Okay. Put two in welfare, so we're not worse in the world. Honestly, go five in business, those of these. I want to be like a place where people want to, you know, Singaporean, where people want to start a business. And then I would probably put another one into diplomacy, two into diplomacy.

27:31Aiden:I think on the opposite end of that, Cause I looked at that, like what's out of the countries I listed, how do business, you know, what do business subsidies look like in these places? What are the big overarching ones at least? Yeah. And Singapore has, is a real, like pick the winners mentality, like make sure like big modern industries have a reason to come here and we have money to invest in those things. I remember even at beyond the summit, there were these opportunities that came up through the Singaporean government, like funding certain types of events. Uh, this came up a couple times and it was like, is something like e-sports was something the government was interested in and you could apply even as like a foreign business for like grants or something.

28:15Uh, and then on the

28:17Aiden:other end of it, I looked at Switzerland, you know, like a country, I would say a country known for business in a lot of different ways. Uh, but their main subsidies go to farming in the country, mainly as a way of maintaining like food security. Right. And they don't have a lot of subsidies for other industries. They have a business-friendly tax environment and kind of treat that as the subsidy, but they just like set up what you want here, but we're not going to like play our cards to influence it. And we're only going to subsidize, we're mainly going to subsidize the farming industry let you have - Yeah, I think based on what your country needs, you can subsidize different things, But I think there in the past few decades, there have been countries who have said, we want to be leaders in, you can think of Taiwan in semiconductors or whatever.

29:06Countries that have been like, this is a important technological industry. It's going to be big in the future. We want to be leaders in it. We're going to subsidize it.

29:13Atrioc:And all of the Asian tigers did that. By and large, it's worked. By and large, it has been a successful method to be like, we have this industry. We're world class in it. We have a cost advantage because we put a little money in from the government. And now we have expertise. Because it kind of snowballs. Once you have the subsidy at first, you become the best at it. And then you get all the demand from around the globe. And then you become legitimately on feet good at it.

29:35Aiden:And then you can even pull the subsidy after if you need to, right? Isn't that what happened with Chinese electric cars? Like there's so much money going into it. The industry gets going. And then I think in 2022 was when the big subsidies for most of these companies ended. And now they just have to play ball. Same with like solar panels. Like China did an inordinate amount of solar panel subsidies. and now it doesn't really need them as much because they have a lead in it and in batteries. And so people just buy from there. Like they, it just, it works. Like it's a good way to do it. So I would probably put a lot into that.

30:08And then obviously I think, yes, science or education. Those are pretty good. The thing about, this sounds stupid, but the reason I had education a little lower, don't call it a structure at all. It's a good play. We're turning it around. Is, you know, I'm so, I feel like no one knows how to do education really well right now. The examples are our system, I think, is being destroyed by AI. It's not surviving contact with cheating. And then the Chinese system is making kids want to commit suicide. It's just so insanely intense. I don't know who's doing an incredible job on education with modern children.

30:43Finland's nailing it. And I don't know what Finland's percent is of how focused they are or if it's just working out because they're a stable society. I don't know. It's actually because they're a volcanic island. support for this show comes from shopify and if you're starting a country or a business it's normal to wonder what if i fail what if you don't what if you don't and what if you had a

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31:51Atrioc:That's true.

31:51Aiden:So surely they have one that works for a fish theme.

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32:21Aiden:Why don't you guys believe me? I'm not buying your fish. Why don't you guys believe me?

32:24Atrioc:I'm not buying your fish. Support for this show comes from True Work. Now, we noticed our producer, Perry, was wearing True Work pants. And we said, Perry, we'd love to show those off during this ad. And so we did. He's not wearing pants. He's not wearing pants. Butt naked on that side of the camera, ladies and gentlemen. Wish you could see our view. Because we needed them.

32:43Aiden:admittedly they did send us a free pair of pants, not these ones. And I just took them and I've been wearing them. They're fantastic by the way. Yeah. I love them. I wear them all the time. And I didn't, Perry legitimately bought these. Yeah. Yeah. Using our discount code. And then we made him disrobed. Yes.

33:02Atrioc:Yeah. Because I don't want to share mine. By the way, there's a lot more real manual labor than us. These are advanced performance fabrics designed specifically for work on the site. They look so good. I want to give them a try right now. Okay. Okay.

33:15Aiden:Okay. I mean, they are great. They're great. You don't have to put them on right this second. Keep doing the ad. Wait, then Perry's going to have to put them back on. And the work doesn't stop just because the weather changes. Upgrade to the T2 work pan. Stay comfortable no matter what the day brings. Get 15 % off your first order at truework.com with code LEMONADE. That's T-R-U-E-W-E-R-K.com, code LEMONADE. Truework, built like it matters because it does. You just stole our producer's pants. These are nice. These are really nice. They're great. Support for this show comes from Fora. In every group, Doug, there's the planners and the non-planners.

33:55Aiden:And maybe you're the guy who helps your friends plan trips or you have a little business helping people out. But if you're interested in running your travel agent operation, Fora has an all-in-one platform where you have instant access to a supportive system. Are you trying to imply that bringing a basketball on your trip is not cool and not like knowing where you're going? Professional booking and payments tech and extensive training all bundled into one membership. I just feel like you're ignoring me. It's not for everybody. It's not. It's maybe not for people named Brandon. Look, some people put the slider into dribbling a basketball in public.

34:29Atrioc:And other people, like maybe you, put it into travel planning and you really like that.

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35:02Aiden:And make sure you tell them we say it.

35:05Atrioc:ForaTravel.com slash lemonade. slash lemonade. All right, look, this leads into my plan, which is largely to create a sort of weird Singapore, San Francisco type vibe. Okay. I the obvious Doug Opelis zero military big in diplomacy. That's my strategy for staying alive. That being said, I am a supple peach on a tree that any dictator could come and grab. So our goal with this society, we're going to rock in 10 to 20 years. Okay. If we stay alive until then, because zero health care, zero housing, zero welfare. So things I hardcore maxed on science, education, and business subsidies is a three high, high as I could make it.

35:47Atrioc:And I think the thing here is like, honestly, a Singapore esque strat where Singapore, that's what they did when Lee Kwan came in. It was like, we are going to be this super, super, super focused education and sort of science engineer focused society. Teachers are going to be really well paid. They're going to be treated with a lot of respect and engineers, doctors, scientists are going to be sort of venerated in our society. And then I agree with needing business subsidies. I think it sounds stupid on paper, but that's true of like Japan post-World War II. You know, they did tons of business subsidies, Germany, Korea, like the countries you see that have, aside from China, which we just talked about, that have massive, massive success in growing these huge industries are largely the government directing resources towards that.

36:32Atrioc:And as a reminder, importantly, defending against other countries coming in and just destroying your, uh, your industry with exports. So I'm imagining a world where China does exist with Doug opolis. And so actually another thing that influenced this was we talked with Simon, one of our lovely viewers who helps run like a AI in a large German company. So this dude, we chatted with him like PhD student, like super brilliant has made his own startup. He's a really like wickedly smart dude and told us when we were chatting with him, I would basically move to America because they, they could pay me insane amounts of money to be involved in the tech industry.

37:09Atrioc:But I'm staying here because of like family and friends. Yeah. And I thought about that of like a lot of European countries are offering all this free education and incredible like opportunities for their population. And then you have America who I'm also assuming exists in this world who will just pay like anthropics is going to come in and pay my people a million dollars to leave and go make AI for them in San Francisco. So business subsidies to me are like, we're going to educate the shit out of people. We're going to have a lot of money in science, but then business subsidies are how we ensure, Hey, we want you to stay here and actually build business here and protect our industries from just being dominated by China.

37:42Atrioc:And then infrastructure, I think is like important to make people happy and make science actually able to proliferate. Culture is important because that way people won't leave as hard. Hopefully welfare is just like over in the room. people seem pretty sick. So here's the thing. If we can survive 10 years, we're going to fucking rock. We're going to invent our healthcare. Look, we have not zero in healthcare and zero in housing infrastructure. Like it helps people out kind of, but that's so they can get to and from work. Yeah. Utilize our science. Okay. Our diplomacy is to keep us alive until then.

38:15Atrioc:And you might be wondering about democracy too. Why not just be authoritarian? And the reason I was thinking about this, I don't want a situation where once we invent all the cool science stuff that makes our country rock, then it just goes to oligarchs, which is what happened sort of in Korea. It's what happened sort of in the Soviet Union where there just wasn't the ability for like the benefits of these things to spread or be well managed. So I want enough democracy so that once we get over the hurdle and we invent shit that makes our society safe and healthy, then people can vote in a way that like redistributes from that point.

38:51Aiden:This is an interesting, you have a holding pattern. You're like, this is my time. We've got a 10-year plan. My time cap, my 10-year time cap.

38:59Atrioc:Also, culture, look, culture again, this is like tourism. I want people to like us, right? We want to be cool. We want to be like pre-World War I Germany where we're like not very fun and don't make a lot of jokes, but we're impressive scientifically.

39:13What happened after pre-World War I Germany? What did they do today?

39:16Atrioc:See, the problem is because of this two-on democracy, they might take away some of the business subsidies or the science and put that in the military. I'm just telling you we're in Prussia. I'm using my five on vanity to make statues of me conquering your country and we're the funny thing is if our three countries just suddenly poofed into existence in the Pacific Ocean. Yeah. A Triochville would immediately take over my country and Aiden's country. My country would lose out real

39:43Aiden:quick. I will give you that and you'd be like, no, we're on a little island. He has diplomacy at least. You would ask. No one would even listen to your call. I again put one point into diplomacy So we're, we're trying dude. You know, it's also crazy. I send a guy. I send a guy who's a little drunk to the UN every year,

40:03Atrioc:but that's the thing. You would show up. People would be like, who are you? Oh my God. It's like,

40:12Atrioc:if you ask somebody like, Oh, do you hear about what's happening in Turkmenistan? They're going to be like, no. And then they're going to keep, keep going about their day. That's how they'll respond to your country. When you're being invaded, nobody will care. They won't know who you are. You've got to have some culture, man. You've got to be known. Culture and diplomacy.

40:27Aiden:Maybe, I was thinking about this when we made this. There's one category that I did think that we, should we have put energy on this? I thought of an infrastructure. Yeah, infrastructure includes it. It's like a similar thing. Yeah. I do think, okay, a larger scale question about this, because I think this is a real topic that's been coming up a lot when you read about this type of thing on social media. And it's like this, I'm being really simplified here. but it's the idea that Europe has done a pretty good job more than the other two big powers of America and China on like welfare and quality of life.

41:02Yeah. They've out competed on that, but they've fallen behind perhaps on like economy and tech. Like these are two areas where they're, they're lagging a bit on the two. And then China is probably doing really well on economy and tech and also pretty decent on infrastructure quality of life, but authoritarian a hundred percent. They don't have the democracy that you might enjoy.

41:23Aiden:I would also say the balance of life and labor in China. Yeah. Like everybody has insane work hours, has to work insanely hard. Even if workers' rights there have gotten better in a bunch of areas like we learned about, it's like comparatively the hours are insane.

41:43Atrioc:And I would also say culture is not as big as a country like China should have. Obviously, China has a ton of culture and history. but if you think about the international influence that that's been changing, their soft power has been changing. I agree with you. Right. But, but as a long as recently, as a super for how giant and powerful they are compared to Japan or America or Britain for the amount of international cultural influence they've had, it's like a lot less than you would expect. I totally agree. I mean, they had that, that massive movie that broke every box of record and it sold nothing outside of China.

42:13It was literally all in the time. Yeah. They've had some games for years. Yeah. Now it's happening. Obviously, things are changing. And then obviously the problems with America we've talked about, but America has its own. America, you know, brig on military. You're doing really well on that and leading in some aspects of tech, like really good in tech.

42:28Aiden:If I was putting America on this chart, it would be all maxed on all of them probably. It'd be like, I don't know how you do it. Yeah, infrastructure pretty low.

42:40Atrioc:Culture would be high. Culture, yeah. Now with RK Jr., we have no science. Our diplomacy is dropped. Way down now. Dude, everything has changed in the last one year. Our education going down. Our education's going down. Business subsidies.

42:52Aiden:It's in the middle, right? Yeah, we're in the middle. And then healthcare.

42:55Atrioc:Healthcare rocks. We're crushing it.

42:57Aiden:That's a five.

42:58Atrioc:No, I mean, our vanity's going up. We spend so much on healthcare. I thought about this. America's point allocation would be five for healthcare. We literally spend more per capita than anyone else. Okay. But the quality of what you get is so low.

43:12Aiden:So this was the interpretation of this chart and how you engage with it. This is the big question because I don't think points inherently correlated with spending. Yeah. Because I would say with the way I viewed mine and the way I filled it out, I would put America's healthcare at like a two, you know, or a three, maybe like, you know, relative to every country on earth. Yeah. But if you were doing spending, yeah, it would be maxed. Yeah, it's a weird. So the way you interact, it's like this isn't an infallible exercise. This is for fun and like a way to explore different ideas about these countries.

43:50Aiden:But yeah, I think that's worth saying is like spending doesn't correlate with success.

43:54Atrioc:Yeah. In fact, let's tie this to what our Discord users actually did. And this has, like you said, it's been a fun exercise. There's been various people who are asking, oh, why don't you should have information about where you are in the world and like budget and all these different things. So maybe we make it way more complex in the future. But from 1200 submissions, drum roll, this is the average of what our community old old there we go this is the average of what our community picked now it doesn't map exactly to individual numbers but we're looking at like a 1.3 in military like a two and a half in democracy they're not gonna like my country a three in infrastructure a one and a half in culture a nearly three in science a nearly two in diplomacy education is the highest and that's like 3.2 very low business subsidies subsidies, which surprises me.

44:49Atrioc:That's like 0.8 healthcare almost exactly at a three vanity, extremely low. Not surprising. That's like point. Yeah, why did who even put whatever housing is about 2.7 and welfare is at about two. So it's more balanced, but education is a clear kind of front runner. Infrastructure is a clear front runner. Science is pretty high. Healthcare is pretty high. Housing is pretty high. I gotta say this is pretty close to mine.

45:12Aiden:This is pretty close to Aiden Stan.

45:14Atrioc:This is close.

45:14Aiden:Maybe a couple more points in democracy. I think when you think about livability, this is where the average person wants to live. I truly believe. I think like day-to-day quality of life, I think for leaders or for a country trying to plan for the future, maybe some of this stuff, like I think for example, something like business subsidies, that's a thing that for the regular person is like, why do I give a shit? Like, I don't care. But then like, as a leader, you do it because it creates a lot of jobs down the road and you know, whatever. It's like one of those things. So I don't disagree with it.

45:46Like this would be, this is like kind of where you want to end up. It's just, you have to find a way to do it without sacrificing your longterm competitiveness, which I think is like some countries in Europe are running into right now where, you know, like the German welfare model is running into the fact that their auto industry is now getting cooked by China and they have to figure out like, that's a thing they're dealing with, but it's like the quality of life there is pretty ice. I lived in Germany. I really like it. People like it. So it's, it's a thing you have to balance. I don't, I don't, there's no answer,

46:11Atrioc:but it feels a little, idealistic with military barely above one point and diplomacy under two. Like, I feel like you can't at some point, again, a lot of this is about the exercise of the circumstances around your country. But I think if you assume that you are within striking distance of any antagonistic country, like that's dangerous, man. This doesn't add up to 25 though, does it?

46:36Aiden:People must be finishing submissions with overspending points because I'm looking at this and I'm like, Do they get more points? No.

46:43Atrioc:I mean, it's potentially my code is wrong. I did this morning someone military, so the average is, you know, democracy is like 2.2, infrastructure is like 3, and military was at 8 trillion. I realized I didn't have like validating on my server. I was going to F11 and edit it and go to the thousand on military and put everything on zero, but I think you guys are... But no, I fixed it. I mean, potentially it's wrong. So I guess the only thing is like, what you know on if you're talking about broad-based thousand plus people what do they value they want better health care they want better education they want better infrastructure and that that seems to track with what we've been saying on this podcast like that's not that's not crazy i'm actually a little surprised by how high science is i thought i thought that would have instead been pushed more into something like welfare or business subsidies to be honest or culture i guess people really value and this would you know this would be like fundamental science research led by the government part of the reason i pushed into that is like that that is incredibly valuable for a country, right?

47:41Atrioc:If you think about America and what that's created to be dominant. Didn't the internet come from military? Yeah, so I think like a ton of modern medicine, a ton of...

47:49Aiden:I think we've talked a few times on the show about how like the different historical institutes getting massive funding from the government is something that, you know, the private sector can never really replace because the long term investments are just too much for any private company to be interested in. Like if the turnaround on the profit of some research is like 10, 20 plus years, it's only the government that's going to be interested in taking on that project. And that's when we say science, it's like, that's why you need like grants and research for that type of thing. Because that's how you get incredible, you know, medicine or things like the end of the day.

48:29Atrioc:Yeah, breakthroughs. Okay, one final exercise. I do want to see, let's say we're literally just optimizing for the most corrupt country possible where you stay in power perry pull this up 12 categories but now they are military secret police now we're talking state media bribery border controls prisons oligarchs staff purges nepotism cult of personality illicit goods and sham elections what atriopolis needed this is what i was looking for i didn't have the right you wanted all of this contained in military we know that spiritually that's what you were doing that's what i was Okay, I'm actually kind of curious what you guys think.

49:05Atrioc:Of these categories, what are the most important to you straight off the bat? I'm trying to genuinely make the most corrupt country. Yes, if you're trying to have the most corrupt country, you stay in power forever. Bribery max. Bribery to max, state media to four. Yeah, you need high, right? Oh, this is tough. Do you need a lot of secret police if your state media is really good and your bribery is really good? If it's really good. I mean, oligarchs and bribery is a little bit over the same. You want cult of personality, right? We need a little in there. Maybe even a lot. We need to be like a creep.

49:34It's funny because this one, I almost want five on everything more than the other one. These are all important things. We can't do it. Oligarchs only need one. One because there's one. It's me.

49:44Atrioc:Military has to be five. It has to be five, right?

49:48Aiden:Yeah. You can't do it without a few staff purges. No, that's not true. You can have a small military. You can have a small military and a big secret police. I actually think that's what you'd want. Really? Because you're not aggressive. At this point. Because the military could be one of the sects that could overthrow you. Yeah. You do not want a strong alternative military.

50:04Atrioc:But if your bribery is that high, I'm worried about international. Like, again, you gotta assume that other countries might try to stop you. What I'm saying is, we created a shithole. Nobody wants to take... It's almost like how South Korea does not want to reunite with North Korea because it would be like a crisis. Like, there's so many people coming over. Like, I mean, they sort of do, but when they talk about it actually happening, if it were to reunite with a guy, it's like... It would be almost like a refugee crisis. I mean, there'd be so many people that have entirely different standards.

50:28I just feel like, dude, if your military is

50:30Atrioc:slow and you're a horrible country that you have to have enough as a deterrent. I think you would need it military. Give me a little bit, but it's paper tiger. I want a big secret police. Okay. All right. All right. So fine. We'll do four on secret police, two on military. Are you doing staff purges? You feel like that's important. You need to purchase staff. You need to purchase staff. What's the point? They're all bribed and corrupt. Anyway, let's get true cycling them out. I think we can either put either put throw some oligarchs or staff purges. I don't think you need both. I guess if you

50:58Aiden:want it to be the most corrupt country possible, you wouldn't purge the staff at all.

51:02Atrioc:Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

51:03Aiden:And you did. You certainly don't need the sham election. Yeah.

51:07Atrioc:Right. I think sham election, obviously, nepotism, our kids are a little spoiled brats anyways. They need to earn their corrupt country.

51:13Aiden:I think you put one into oligarchs, and then you probably put the rest into presents.

51:19Atrioc:Well, I don't want to be America. I'm not trying to make something that crazy. How much do you feel like border control is necessary though, right? Every like super awful. Actually, yeah, yeah. You think about like the wall or whatever. Like if your country is bad enough, they want to leave. Right. Or North Korea. Like, yeah, you have to, you have to get it. I think it might almost be more important than prisons. I think you can go five on border control. Five on border and then zero prisons. If they can leave, they'll leave. Ladies and gentlemen, this is our dream country. Wow, we built something special here.

51:54When you

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52:23Atrioc:I'm Scott Galloway. And I'm Ed Elson. And we're bringing the Profiting Markets Tour to Chicago. That's right. The city with big shoulders, I think. Chi-town. Is that what they call it? The city with big shoulders? Anyways, I call Chicago the old navy of cities. I think it's 80 % of New York for 50 % of the price. I went there with my son. You probably don't love that.

52:44Atrioc:I went there with my son and I had literally, I had the best, we had the best weekend. We went to we hit we went to a batting cage we did a bike tour we had the best time what can they expect from us in chicago we'll have predictions we'll have hot takes we'll have some of scott's signature rants live and in person and you'll have the chance to ask a question as well come to the vic on monday june 1st you can get your tickets at profgmarketstour.com that's profgmarketstour.com this week on net worth and chill we're diving into another edition of am i the asshole finance edition. And trust me, these money dilemmas will have you questioning everything.

53:25Atrioc:I'm breaking down real stories from real people who are navigating financial situations that range from mildly awkward to absolutely unhinged. And I'm giving you my unfiltered take on who's in the right and who needs a serious reality check. Because let's be real, when it comes to mixing relationships and finances, someone's always asking if they're the asshole. Learn how to set boundaries, protect your wealth, and avoid becoming the villain in your own financial story. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com slash you are rich BFF. Okay, but here's what I want to say. Go back to our real countries.

53:57Pull up your, pull up Dagestan or pull up the Chats country. We've got Chats country. We need to figure out either our countries or Chats country. Who's going to lead these countries? Because we can't do it forever. We're already past our prime. Who's going to lead these countries? And so that I've taken your idea of interpreting meme formats in a different direction. And this. that we have not seen this oh god okay oh my god is a world leader draft in the style of pick your top five nba players okay so you have ten dollars ten that's it to build a cabinet of three okay and these three will work together to run your country okay on the top row we have the $5 greats, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Alexander the Great, Nelson Mandela, Lee Kwan Yu.

54:48I mean, you might have a military society when Alexander the Great. I don't know if he's going to adapt well to the modern times. Yeah, that's true. Okay. In$4, you have Gandhi, Attiturk, Churchill, Caesar, and Marcus Aurelius. $3, you have Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Elizabeth I, Margaret Thatcher, Otto von Bismarck. $2, you have Cleopatra, Henry VIII, John F. Kennedy, Mao, and Trump. Okay. And then on$1, you have Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, and Putin. Maybe some hidden gems down there.

55:18Aiden:What's Saddam do? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I mean, I do feel like Saddam got put in the big leagues. If anything, if anything, he's punching him up his weight. He's punching him up his weight. I think he's just stoked to be on this board. It's not scientific, all right? It's just... No, I think this is clearly really serious. I just wanted to get some of the famous world leaders and I tried to throw them on a instant charge. So you guys have$10 to pick. $10? $10 to pick a cabinet of three.

55:50Atrioc:Okay, and let's assume roughly we're going with chat's average.

55:54Aiden:If you're picking Alexander in the smartphone era, bro, you're lost. Yeah, that's a lost$5 pick right there. I'll do mine right now. I'll do Alexander the Great. I have a military society. Alexander's my$5. Otto von Bismarck's my three and I'll throw in Trump because wait, wait, wait, what's sorry? What's my budget? What's my budget? You have a$10 budget, which means there's no way you can take two$5.

56:17Atrioc:Hold on. I just want to just again for people listening. He took Trump, which is$2 over JFK, by the way. Are you assuming he's going to die in a year? Is that the idea? This is a military society. I had no time for weakness. Okay, got it. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Trump can't die. Why is JFK in$2? Trump has been a sad. There's been like four assassinations on Trump and he hasn't died. Can you explain to me the leadership properties of Cleopatra from 30 BC?

56:43Aiden:We put Thatcher above Kennedy?

56:46Atrioc:He didn't make it that long.

56:50Aiden:Wait. I honestly think Thatcher's overvalued. Doug had a good question. I was trying to cover different styles of leadership. If I pick the leader, do they have the same, like if I pick John F. Kennedy, does he die in a couple years if he's the leader of my country? a couple years these are three people who have to get in a room and work together to build your society okay and you're sort of uh taking their ideals like if you picked thatcher you would want that type of right uh well i'm not i'm not picking that yeah well you seem like a thatcher guy and genghis khan uh you know his his morals were shaky at best but other than them It's really just Alyssa.

57:33Atrioc:Yeah. You wouldn't want Julius Caesar over. Dude, if you're going military, you go Genghis Khan or Napoleon or Alexander the Great. Well, you know, Genghis Khan kind of really rode the horses with moving archers. Oh, but Alexander was real pure of heart. What are you talking about? Alexander, he studied under Aristotle, right? He knows his shit. He's got real military strategy. He'll know how to move tanks. Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Genghis Khan covered a lot more. Okay, whatever. So look, obvious, I got to grab a$5 one for me, and it's got to be... Here's the thing about this charge before you say anything, is that if I've mispriced something, that's your advantage.

58:14No, you're right. You're right. It's when you find like... Arbitrage. It's an arbitrage. It's when you find a, you know, Steph Curry, he's not in the$5 tier. You pick Steph Curry, it's like, okay, I've optimized. You know, that's a good point.

58:26Atrioc:I would take 10 Pol Potts. Yes.

58:33Atrioc:if you put enough pull pots in front of a type of people, eventually the amount of people I could kill. Yeah. Ten pull pots. You have no country left. Okay. I would, I would have to go leak on you or FDR leak on you because my society was literally modeled in part after it. Definitely want. Yeah. Which is interesting. I didn't get to some of the quotes. Leak one. You was like really against welfare. Like here's a quote. When people get equal handouts, whether or not they work harder or better, everybody then works less hard the country must go down he was like really against welfare which is interesting so i would kind of go more towards fdr who did a lot of like countrywide organizing towards important efforts but also cared about government-wide programs which is important to me with the business subsidies that would you know there's lee kwan you as well but i think i'd go fdr okay as my as a five dollar pick and then i would do five pull pots no that's not three people

59:27Aiden:total okay well you have fdr i mean i'm going for a crazy line recency bias i'm picking up mandela mandela okay a man of the people brings everybody together sure takes time to learn about his fellow man okay just read a lovely chapter about him you did just humankind you did talk about mandela the recency bias is taking me over there okay you got mandela so i've got mandela and i'm picking up five dollars i'm picking up at a turk for four transform the country yep made it probably the most important person in turkish history maybe some recency bias there too okay but i'll call that he seems like a get it done type of guy that's up again i'm sure i know mandela will get along with him so maybe maybe round out some of attacters edges all right you got mandela and Ataturk.

1:00:20All right. Here's the problem because you spent nine dollars which means you have to finish in the bottom tier. You have to get and I know you're looking at the bottom tier and you're thinking who

1:00:31Aiden:is getting thrown in this line. It's just a throw little Hitler garnish on your sauce. They can balance it out. Mandela and Hitler is your choice. Hitler, but he can only paint. Yeah.

1:00:44Atrioc:I want the painting. I'm thrown in. Your country doesn't even have military for him to abuse, dude. He's just going to sit around hanging out enjoying the housing. I'm throwing in poop. You're throwing in poop. And is he is he.

1:00:58Aiden:I don't know what he'll do in my game.

1:01:01Atrioc:I think respectfully, he'll kill your other two leaders. He will assassinate them and then take over your country. The dollar tier is rough. The dollar tier is rough. But the dollar tier. I do think Putin's probably mispriced if you look at this tier. And so if you're picking. Dude, he's the most likely to take over your country. You absolutely. That is not. Most likely. Most likely of those five. life. You think you think it was going damn Putin's logging me on here. Here's what I'm saying. I pick up I pick up

1:01:34Aiden:because he's got the KGB history, right? And I'm thinking Mandela wears him down. And we have we have make the book we read just pouring in being really nice. Putin runs are like intelligence. Yeah, you know, I'll give you your secret service and intelligence. You know what? That's going to help limit his worst instincts. You know, now you're locked in your Mandela out of Turk and Putin. You cannot tell me that isn't a crazy lineup. Yeah, I mean, I want to have, I have Alexander the great Trump and who auto on Bismarck.

1:02:16Atrioc:Do auto is way under price. I'm going FDR. He runs my business subsidies, general government program organizing towards science. okay right that's that he did that whole bunch that makes total sense autovon bismarck like i said i need a lot of diplomacy not a lot of military i'm trusting him on diplomacy but then because he's a little military focused a little allegiance focused yeah he helps with trade with other countries cleopatra my two dollars she's my culture okay because what's a way to prevent myself from being taken over by crazy assholes like vladimir putin in aden's country that's right my cleopatra starts a dalliance with putin right okay a little bit like what she did with rome a little bit with mark antony and julius caesar right we form a couple of romantic allegiances

1:02:56Aiden:in my country safe up until we invent dgi what can't what about uh can i pick up first 10 years mal okay that's under right now you get the full now you have to take the full now i think you get the full you get the full now first i don't get the unified i would maybe say first five to ten years mal at two dollars a steal steal but if you have to round it out with the back half it gets tougher. No, you also get

1:03:20Atrioc:it's a tougher full JFK like his dead bodies laying in the office. You get the full you get full. Okay, let's you got to stick with them for like 80 years.

1:03:34Aiden:Yeah, no, I think it's at $3. I think I you know what I'm saying by I got a fire lineup. I got Mandela editor Putin for people. I mean, too crowded

1:03:44Atrioc:Brandon Mandela Gandhi Stalin Stalin controversial Gandhi weak pick you think overpriced you could do an all Rome you could do like a Julius Marcus Aurelius I guess Cleopatra you could do like a 442 situation you just run it back what are we doing in 2026

1:04:11Aiden:what about Cleo she a sleeper pick is Cleo's leader pick I don't know what I actually don't know what her leadership style I only know her in the context of you know it's yeah it was just they got taken over by Rome I I think you actually take anyone from like that far back and they just crump their brain crumbles at the first set of a tick tock so it's just you take the leader you want and then you get you ever seen the end you know the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark that's that's that's Any old world leader looking at a smartphone. So you're going like FDR, Cleopatra, Henry VIII. You're just knocking them out of the picture.

1:04:50You're getting an FDR clean.

1:04:53Aiden:You know, if you're listening to this and you did not participate in making the, you know, charting out your own country or picking your world leaders, post your picks. Yeah, post your picks. I want to know your picks. Go to the Discord, post your picks. If you think you've, you know, I've left some errors here. So if you found some mispriced leaders and you want to show me the ideal line. There's going to be a couple like Calci savants who just find the line. Crack the line. Turns out that Pol Pot actually works really well in combined with... In his early years, he worked with them. That's what I'm saying.

1:05:26Aiden:There's a synergy aspect here where it's like you could get the best out of somebody if you round them out with the right person. What's the perfect military one? If you're trying to make the most aggressive nation. The most aggressive? Genghis Khan is a sleeper pick there,

1:05:39Atrioc:even at$3. You do Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Caesar. You drop Alexander the Great, you let those three just go out and take over every different part of the country, world. That's a pretty good one. Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Caesar. He'll be so bad with the choking. Alexander's a bit of a Nepo baby, dude. We were talking about it last week when I gave that fresh update on the Battle of Caronia, you know? I just figured you can't be the Great and not be in the$5 tier. You know what I'm saying? That's a goat status. But they didn't even call him that at the time. The Romans just called him that later.

1:06:08Atrioc:they're going to call me the Doug great in 50 years. And that doesn't mean right now I'm a bad-ass not after your picks, bro. They're calling you. Well, yeah, give us your, give us your picks on the discord. We'd love to see them. I thought it was pretty fun experiment. Wait, did you pick your line? I told you my line. It was, uh, it was Alexander the great on my bed. Otto von Bismarck and, uh, and the Trump. All right. Oh, wait, hold on. You should say that. Cause I didn't hear that either. So I think you just didn't ever come. I was more of a joke. Well, well, my actual line would be, Dude, I think Lincoln's kind of goaded.

1:06:39I read a Lincoln book. Man's a good leader.

1:06:42Atrioc:Yeah. Yeah. Lincoln. I get it. You think he's great. Lequon, you sucks. I get it. That's not what I'm saying. I also really like Napoleon in some aspects. Lincoln, Napoleon, JFK. JFK teaches Lincoln. They're both presidents. They have a lot of connective tissue. He teaches them about not necessarily modern times, but the 60s. There's a lot of tissue caught up for sure. And then they put Napoleon, you know, get him on the military. You know,

1:07:11Aiden:my lineup does serious man. Okay.

1:07:15Atrioc:What I do, Donald Trump, two dollars, eight, eight Hitlers. We do celebrity apprentice.

1:07:27Dude, how about you do Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. You save seven bucks and you let them put them in a room. Let them kill each other. Yeah, and then you collect the interest on it. Yeah.

1:07:39Atrioc:You get five Alexander the Greats when your country is destroyed in 200 years. No, that's good. That's good. All right. Well, now that we've solved all that, I don't think there are going to be many issues in the world going forward. But for now, there still are. So let's cover what's going on in the world. It was only this last week. Once the UN poses all of it.

1:07:57Aiden:I'd like you to think about the holistic picture of what I've seriously drawn out as the greatest country of all time. It's a small island nation in the Arctic that's not. Iceland. It has maybe hundreds of thousands of people. We've invested heavily in housing, education. There's no democracy, however. Very little democracy. And it's run by Nelson Mandela, Ataturk, and Vladimir Putin. If I could just synthesize this serious evaluation of the world we live in and my values, Putin would be so bummed he comes back to life.

1:08:37Atrioc:It's like this. This shit hole is what I got. Who comes back to life? You think he's after he dies? I guess if the country existed right now, I'm assuming it's in two years after that. I'm assuming he's getting transferred. He realizes I'm losing Russia. It's just a transfer. It's kind of a good thing because you're saving Russia in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're ending the war in Ukraine and then he says, that's a new exercise we can do in the future. If we could swap leaders across every country on earth, how would we achieve your swap? Yeah, how would we achieve world peace? We should do that.

1:09:07Leader swap. Okay. World updates, world news. We have a little bit of time left this episode. And I think, Aiden, I want to talk about the story you were talking about off pod, which is, I think, interesting, which is Mom Donnie has come out today and said that he has officially balanced New York's budget, which is a pretty insane claim. It's only been a few months. Yeah. That's a pretty powerful thing.

1:09:29Atrioc:And he posted this image with a bunch of sliders. He slid welfare down. he's like i got at a turk and i got he just touched the right dials it was crazy we're honored to welcome our share of housing vladimir putin he said he talked about at a turk another

1:09:45Aiden:new york mayor with weird connections to turkey uh i yeah i think he came into office and the deficit that they were coming in with was like 12 billion dollars and i think something i really appreciate about Mamdani in his position so far, as admittedly someone who doesn't live in New York, is he seems to be very forward in all of his communication. I think his comms team does a really good job of getting him out there, him clearly explaining concepts of what it's actually like to govern a place. Him putting the budget at such a front position of his communication is really impressive in the way he's gone about it so far, in my opinion.

1:10:31I super agree because I don't see anyone else doing it. Like leaders anywhere, taking a real effort to try and get the public to understand there is a budget. This is what we spend it on. This is the sacrifice we have to make to balance it like that. Most politicians have given up on that because the average person doesn't seem to care. And that's allowed this bad incentive system where every leader is incentivized to take on a lot of debt and just kick the can to the next guy.

1:10:58Atrioc:Yeah. And him not doing that on its own, regardless of anything else, on its own, I'm super impressed with that. I really do appreciate it. I hope it is successful politically for him. And I hope it inspires other leaders to do more because I think it's important. Again, I would like to talk to you more because I think you know more about this specific issue. Yeah. Of like how he was able to balance it or whether there's some cons to that. But the idea of just making it an important thing I think is cool. And as you get some context here, is that the city of New York is like$90 to$100 billion in debt from previous deficits.

1:11:33And the deficit going into this administration was$12 billion a year that he has now apparently closed.

1:11:39Atrioc:And also, it's important, they cannot just take out more loans. They are legally required to balance the budget. So that is technically true. However, the government of the city of New York is$100 billion in debt because you can actually get around that. They've found ways to issue bonds for things that allow you to, like, that's why they have all this debt. Even though they're legally supposed to balance it, they don't, technically. And so this is the first time it's, like, kind of being seen as a priority to get our fiscal situation in order. It's not going to solve all the debt problem, but if they're not increasing it, if they balance the budget, then naturally growth will take care of the debt problem.

1:12:15So I think this is, like, a serious, I mean, it's a cool thing to do. I would like to know more about it. I don't know the specifics. So, yeah. Well, so the earlier communication about it before today was Mom Donnie was laying it out.

1:12:27Aiden:Like, here's all the ways we're looking for cost savings without making a bunch of concessions on the programs that he has wanted to put into place. Things like the universal child care, right? Yeah. Uh, and by cutting things like city worker overtime hours or, uh, through a broad audit of spending, they wanted to cut costs, but still had this giant gap to fill of, I think about like$5 billion for the year. And, uh, initially he had, uh, when that messaging came out, he said, I'm in a position where I need the state to push through an increase in taxes on the wealthiest people in New York, or we're going to have to do something like raise property taxes, which he actually got a lot of pushback to even within New York City.

1:13:18Aiden:And he was stuck in this spot where he didn't have like a clear way to close this much of a gap in the budget. Yeah. And now he has kind of a renewed cooperation with the governor. I think it's Hochul or Hochul. Oh, Hochul? I think it's Hochul. Hochul is running for reelection. And even though they've kind of clashed in the past, Momdani gave his endorsement. And after that, they have been a lot more cooperative from what they've wanted to move forward. One of the things is this new tax on second homes in New York City over a value of$5 million. And that's expected to raise, I think like$500 million in tax revenue.

1:13:58Aiden:So there's these small bumps there, but also the state has agreed to send, I think for the next two years, a bunch of money to New York City. And that isn't locked in for the long term, but the$4 billion from that is a huge needle mover for closing this. And the other thing they have decided to do is they are delaying or payments to the New York City Pension Fund, which is for all you, excuse me, unionized municipal workers. So this applies to like firefighters, you know, other positions around the city that the city employs. And there was a raise in those payments a long time ago because the expected returns of the pension fund were expected to go down.

1:14:49Aiden:I think they raised it in like 2013. But now they're delaying those payments as a way to save money temporarily. so I think the criticism here I think there's a really there's a really partisan criticism I saw in like the New York Post where they're talking about like this is already Mom Donnie's socialist failure, he's like stealing money from the state in order to fund this, which is kind of ridiculous because he came into office and this deficit already existed, like he's fixing a problem that already existed and also you can make the argument that New York City contributes way, way more tax revenue to the state than it draws back from it.

1:15:33Aiden:And now the argument you can make is New York City is seeing a bit more of that tax money returned in these payments from the state in order to close this gap. The problem is this only seems to hold up if this relationship with the current governor continues, if she stays in power, like, and, uh, you know, subject to any disagreement in the future. And it's a lot of, it's, it's a lot of dependency on state money that they're willing to commit right now. And if that goes away, then, you know, what happens? You need to find, you need to make up for this in other ways. And the one concession that he's managed to get on an increase in taxes doesn't actually increase tax revenue by that much.

1:16:20Aiden:So it's like he solved the problem seemingly for this year, but how long will that continue into the future? No, that's totally fair. I will say, I think it's interesting that if he had a slider on diplomacy, it seems to be a five. Yeah. Because his ability to get concessions from a diverse enough group as Trump and Hochul is like she was seemingly attempting to block his mandate. Like he was, she was trying to stop him from getting the taxes raised as he wants. And now they're buddy, buddy, and is sending$8 billion total.

1:16:56Atrioc:Well, it's, it's not that she's blocking it, right? It's just that she has to do it, right? It's not under his control as, as the city mayor, right? It's like, they need the state legislator and the governor to agree. Like we are going to send you guys money. That's what we're doing now. what I'm saying is initially he was trying to raise, um, taxes on the wealthy in New York. And he said, if I don't get the ability to do that, cause I need state approval, I will raise property taxes. Oh, okay. So same thing. It was, it was setting up for a battle with her is what I'm saying. And instead that has been put aside and they're now friends and he's endorsing her and he's getting what he needs from the state.

1:17:31So it's, I don't know. I just, he's pretty good at playing the game in a way. I don't, however that works.

1:17:36Aiden:Dude, that's what I admire so much about him. I think he's, he's managing to maintain a lot of what like he, he stands for while also understanding that I need to play ball with people in order to accomplish my goals. I'm not saying there's zero to criticize him for or anything like that. I just see a guy who understands that his, like, he needs to cooperate with other people to get shit done, but isn't. compromising his long-term vision. He's still making like concessions along the way. It's not like everything Mom Donnie promised is like in place all of a sudden. But I think it's just the way he's going about it.

1:18:21Aiden:Maybe I'm falling for the Riz. You know, in a way. It depends. But I just, like I said, like you said, I agree. It just feels pragmatic. It feels like he is willing to sacrifice some things for his longer goal. And that's impressive. because he could have totally gone pure ideological and flamed out or like just not made the progress in things, been blocked by other things and just been like, well, I try. Like I did. But he's like trying to make real livable progress. So we'll see. It's interesting.

1:18:50Atrioc:You know what's funny is so I've like watched a couple of his press releases or press conferences now where you're like, and so the two things that he's like drilled into me is what I've said to you and then you've corrected them and added additional nuance, which I think is interesting because it's like he just done a really good job for me as somebody who's not as deep into our politics and being like, this is the thing we legally have to balance the budget. We need governor Hochul to approve this and send us the taxes. And it's just really simple. And I'm like, okay, cool. It's really simple.

1:19:19Atrioc:And it's funny that it's not right. But he's doing such a good job of like identifying the key things, make it so that somebody like me is still going to watch a press conference of him. He's phenomenal. He's just an absolutely phenomenal communicator. If I were to, you know, the landmines here, like you said, cutting, other cities have tried delaying payments to pensions.

1:19:43Aiden:Yeah. And it can be a grenade that goes off later because there could be city union strikes. There can be, like, things like that can happen. There, there's, there's problems that have happened in other cities that have tried this, where these groups protect their own, obviously financial interests and then become basically against the city government. And that's things that can happen. Um, the, obviously after two years, it remains to be seen whether the state of New York will continue to do the payments. even though like you said i looked at the math on it it's like new york still nets out here they're still making more in tax revenue off of the city yeah then they're giving back they're just giving

1:20:28Atrioc:back a slower percent okay that's another thing that was drilled into me repeatedly by mom donnie who again is really good all the reporters will be like well with the complexity here you promised and you said this and this and also israel and also blah blah blah and they just like go in a million directions and then he just gets back to like the same he's got a core he just says it over and over. So one of those points that he just kept saying over and over is that New York sends more in tax revenue to the state than they return. And you're saying that's not... No, I'm saying it is true. Oh, that is true.

1:20:55Atrioc:Okay. No, it is. That's why this payment makes sense. Like, it's like... Like, theoretically, we can continue on. Basically, it's just rebalancing it so that less of New York City's tax revenue go to the state. It stays in the state. Yeah. And that's what it's doing. But it's still enough that there's still a surplus going to the state. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm positive and hopeful on it. I think it's good. It reminds me of like, I don't know, he's figured out, like he's learned some lessons from Trump, but used them for good. You know what I'm saying? Because Trump kind of did this ability of like taking complex things and making a really simple, repeatable solution that you can get voters on board, but he's used it for a better, I don't know.

1:21:38That might sound like a negative thing. It's not. I'm being a really complimentary. I think he's found a way to like message for our modern times, but to use it for a better goal. Yeah. Creating concise rhetorical ideas.

1:21:50Atrioc:Yeah. Which that a guy can then repeat on a podcast. Yeah. Okay. I have a question for you. So given that he seems to be doing a good job of communicating the actual logistics of running a government and needs and not, as you said, just being inflammatory. Yeah. Do you feel that someone like this in the right position in the federal government could tackle our deficit? you feel like i mean obviously much bigger problem much bigger problem and there's no bigger like you know in this case he went to a bigger institution the new york state and was able to renegotiate a deal and get we don't i don't know that we have that with america there's no we we don't have the ability to go somewhere bigger and get the money this is like a small drop in the bucket uh yeah Yeah.

1:22:36Here's the thing. What I liked most about his conference on this or his video was they said, we were able to do this without doing austerity, which is like technically true, but the word austerity is a real loaded trigger word that has been used in a lot of different ways. Like in a way they did, they cut some of the thing. Yeah. They, you know, some of the individual things, if that was the only thing he did, you could call them as austerity. They've literally done less in government spending. And I do think on some level, we're going to have to find a way to spend less on certain things as a government.

1:23:10Maybe you can increase efficiency to get the same amount out of it, but we're going to have to do that in America to balance the budget in some way. And they did that in America back in the day. We had a balanced budget and we still built highways and did all of the things we used to do. And we can't do it now. I don't know what the problem is uh there's a there's a leaky pipe like we said but um the word austerity is going to be thrown around in some way it's like it's a weird hump like i don't know yeah it's a he's he's solving the messaging problem of it is what i'm saying yeah he's able to do some cuts without making it seem like like the uk where they're doing cuts and people fucking hate it they're just because i think i think he's promising to spend on good things instead instead of like cutting it and then giving a subsidy to a rich guy or something.

1:23:54I don't know. Uh, and also, I think the idea that rich people are pitching in there, they're taking some pain as well as part of this cut. And the idea is that this, his main thing is this, uh, pay to tear tax, even though that's not a huge part of the budget. It's like, Hey, the primary thing is like, first person we're going to hit is the people that own a second property over$5 million. Like that's, and I think it helps people will get to realize like, okay, uh, the, They're not making off scot-free while we're taking all the pain. It's like everyone's kind of putting in. But there's a lot to unpack here.

1:24:28I think he's one of the best political messengers in America today.

1:24:34Atrioc:Looking at the Piedete tax, so they're saying it's going to raise$500 million. There's about 13 ,000 homes that this would cover. So it's, again,$5 million or over, which comes out to about 38 ,000, 38 ,500 per person of those 13 ,000 homes. so it's not it's not nothing of a tax but probably if you own a second home that's worth five million dollars you can pay the 38 000 yeah i mean brandon be paying it yes sir tell them both my addresses tell my new york new york address your new york address it squeaks up there and uh yeah you're 10 million dollars and that's why not even tax my my property that i earned no fucking way you know I think you should just move out of New York.

1:25:19I'm leaving. I'm not going to do it this second, but I'm leaving.

1:25:22Aiden:I really want to get, I would love to have him as a guest on the show. We had like an opportunity last year that didn't work out. And I really, really hope. But it seems like he only does New York-based media now. Which makes sense. He's not campaigning anymore. Come to LA, Mom Donnie. Let's get there.

1:25:44Atrioc:Fly out to LA for the Lemonade State Project. it's it's it's that's exemplary that he wouldn't be interested in our show right it's exactly what he should be doing which is politician focusing on the actual city he runs and i'm so glad he has no interest in our show seemingly now that it negatively affects me i think i don't like it's a bad idea i think it should be on mr beast help drawing support uh what else is going on in the world you guys you you add something oh man i feel so full and inflated that reminds me of inflation damn dude mom don't you're missing out you're missing out on a great show you're missing out mom donnie what do you think of my three what do you think i wonder what sure dude we should have every guest this could just be our go-to question be our go-to to figure out where they stand politically um inflation report came out today and i want to talk about a little bit because it is um for a while in america we actually had a problem or at least we said we had a problem of too low inflation.

1:26:46This is a relic, a fossil from 2019, where Jerome Powell said, low inflation is one of the major challenges of our time. We're like, we simply can't seem to get inflation up to what we want, which is 2%. That's our goal. And now, ever since this statement was made, pretty much as the last quarter this happened, we have had above 2 % inflation. In fact, it went really high in 2021 and it trickled back down towards the end of like 23, 24, still above two. and now the last inflation report is trickling up again. So we're up to 3.89 was the most recent report. And we haven't been below two in a long time.

1:27:23Now, when they talk about a long-term average of 2 % inflation, central banks, what they say is if you have a period of time above 2%, you need a period of time below to balance it out. Literally, that's part of the goal. It's not like just get it down to two and be there. And we're nowhere close to that. People are really starting to feel the pinch on inflation. A huge part of this major report was that the one thing that was keeping inflation anchored, which was low gas prices, is now not only gone, but like off a cliff. And so, yeah, that was the one thing in each report that was kind of stabilizing it.

1:27:58And now we're seeing massive spikes. And if this continues, there really is no anchor to stop us from going back to, you know, 21 type levels. So it's a real, it's a really bad inflation report and it does put a hamstring on the new guy. So if you guys don't know, central bank, uh, Jerome Powell, he's about to be replaced by Kevin Warsh. Trump's pick. Trump has demanded that, uh, uh, Jerome Powell cut interest rates for years now and call him too late, too slow, idiot, bad guy who appointed him. And now it's, uh, now it's Kevin Warsh who campaigned for this job by saying, I will lower interest rates as Trump won.

1:28:35I'm

1:28:35Aiden:I'm a big, big A fan. Yeah. Isn't Jerome Powell sticking around to maybe be the shadow governor? So he said because of the lawsuit on him, even though it was dropped, there's too much risk that he'll be punished by Trump via the legal system. So he is sticking around to be a voting governor. He does say he'll be a shadow governor. Yeah. Well, the shadow governor would never say that. Would never say it. So we don't know. He might just try to help Kevin Walsh. We don't know. But the idea is like the central bank really, if inflation is bad, they can't. I mean, unless they're fucking crazy. Maybe Kevin Worsh is.

1:29:13You can't cut interest rates into ripping inflation. It's going to rip your face off. So this is the big question. It's like if they can't get this down soon, Iran war is going to be causing it. Then he's going to be faced with his first term or his first Fed meeting of like, how do I balance the fact that Trump got me into this job for one reason? I can't realistically do it without destroying the faith in the U S dollar.

1:29:40Aiden:Not saying that he wouldn't, he couldn't be pressured somehow, but realistically once he's in that position, doesn't he just, he can't be fired. He gets to be in the position for free. That's what Powell did. Yeah. The hope is that when he's in power, he's locked in. That's it. Even Trump has said like, you can't trust any of these guys. You help them get into office and then they just, they turn on you. You can't do anything about it. Like he said that basic line and he's hope he was like, he caught a lot of people from this process to try and nail down the right person who will do what he wants, which is Kevin Warsh.

1:30:12Aiden:But could you kind of point at the, the clues we have in this guy going in one direction or the other, because I remember you saying something along the lines of, he looks like he might do the right thing and not cave to Trump. What's interesting about Kevin Warsh is that if you look at his old stuff, his classic albums back in the day, Kevin Warsh during the great financial crisis was a voting governor and wrote these long opinion pieces on how we should not print money. We should not cut rates. Inflation is the biggest threat. It's more scary than losing jobs. Inflation is the biggest deal. And so he seems like a guy who would be really averse to cutting rates.

1:30:51But then in the campaign for this role, he has been 100 % opposite. it. And for me, it's a real, like, you could say the same thing about JD Vance or whatever. It's hard to tell whether or not their old stuff matters or Scott Besson. Scott Besson's writings that I really liked from back before he was in this office are way different than how he's acted in the role. So I don't know what Kevin Warsh will do. I do know that he might not have a lot of choice. Like if inflation is really high, you, you almost can't cut rates without being like, this is because Trump said so there's no rationale for it.

1:31:24So I don't know. It's just the big question that's coming up. And I think this recent inflation report is, uh, is kind of spooky because you don't want inflation to be bad at the same time as jobs get worse. That's stagflation. That's the worst. Does the war give our producers asking, does the war give worse cover to not cut rates? Yeah. But again, Trump, the last thing he wants, if you're trying to be his allies to be like, well, the war's ruining the economy. So I can't, do you know what I'm saying? Like may even mentioning the war is like something he wouldn't want. It depends. We'll see.

1:31:56Aiden:So when they decide the rate adjustment at the Fed, it's every quarter, right? Yeah. They have the board or like the governor's vote on what the change or the adjustment should be. It's not just JP sitting there making a call solo. Does he have the ability, does the chair have the ability to override what the vote is if he really wants to? They don't. Because even in a scenario where this person's in charge, there is i mean this is unprecedented from my understanding but the fed chair could just lose to what the rest of the board thinks they don't have to fall in line and just do what he says 12 voters and they will decide whether to raise or lower rates just never in history has the chair recommended something and it's not been voted on it's always fallen in line with them but theoretically that's why they call him the shadow chair jerome palace one of the voters could be like, no, we do this and everyone votes with him.

1:32:54And it's a big question. We'll see.

1:32:56Aiden:Kind of crazy times. Unprecedented things. Unprecedented times. That was fun. If I really want to see what people have to weigh in on the beginning, whether you, we can, I mean, the link for the chart to submit, it will still be up if people just want to mess around with it.

1:33:14Atrioc:Yeah. Country.dugdug.com

1:33:16Aiden:And so build your country, pick your leaders and share them with us. I'd really like to see what people's people's lineups are.

1:33:25Atrioc:Maybe we do something like this in the future. We do like a budget, you know, where you give here's the U S budget. How would you allocate it? And it's something that's a little more grounded because I think it was cool saying we got a lot of feedback from folks in the discord, our lovely patron discord that you can join for$5 a month, but folks that, you know, making the very good point of like the obviously enormous amount of different factors. And it would be really interesting to get an actual sort of specific time, a specific place, a specific budget, and then say, what would you do? and compare it against each other.

1:33:54Atrioc:And would Putin be in your cabinet or not? That'll be one of the sliders. Not about a Putin. Sometimes he scrapes in, okay?

1:34:02Aiden:Sometimes he's$1, and you need a guy, and you look at the four others. It's a bit of a rough list. But if you do want to join us for an extra hour of the show every week, you can subscribe to the Patreon. We also just did a really cool book club episode. If you are going to do that at patreon.com slash lemonade stand, don't do it on iOS. Don't give Apple your extra money. The prices are lower. Do it on desktop. Anyway, thank you. Thank you for watching. See you next week. Bye.