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Kourosh Khoylou Podcast
Kourosh and guests breakdown experiences and ideals in pursuit of a purpose forward. We hope to achieve meaningful conversation in topics that include but are not limited to technology, science, philosophy, fitness, nutrition, health, socio-politics, economics, education, progression, and travel.
Kourosh Khoylou Podcast
Money Printers Go Brrr: Why America's Economic Future Keeps Me Up at Night
America faces unprecedented political and economic challenges that demand nuanced solutions beyond partisan dividing lines.
• Las Vegas emergence as a sports powerhouse with the Raiders and Golden Knights creating some of the most expensive tickets in professional sports
• Current university system producing crushing student debt while failing to prepare many graduates with practical skills
• Potential solution of integrating trade education with traditional college degrees
• Congressional oversight of federal agencies weakening while executive branch power grows
• Tariffs likely to harm American competitiveness rather than restore manufacturing strength
• Economic policies from both parties failing to address fiscal restraint and generational inequality
• Media transformation from public service to profit-driven enterprises contributing to national division
• Hope remains that thoughtful policy discussions can overcome partisan impasses
We need to take a step back from pure politics and ask "what works?" We must focus on what's in the best interest of the United States rather than just scoring political points.
The Vegas sports teams have done very well and that's why people are moving here.
Speaker 2:The game day experience is unlike any other Taking a breath, opening up your awareness and not having too narrow of a vision, because when you're really focused on something, you can just forget about some of the more important stuff.
Speaker 1:One of the ways we can fix the university system is learning a trade while you're in college, right? Maybe that means we just expand community college.
Speaker 2:Everyone, today is March 29th 2025. My guest today is Joseph Peter Astunio. Joseph is an attorney for the state of Nevada. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Joseph. Glad to be here, Kirsh. So we were talking about Nevada and how Nevada now or, I'm sorry, las vegas and how las vegas now has a nfl team yeah.
Speaker 1:So I I mean growing up here, uh, as a kid, um, I never thought that we would have an nfl team. It's just so crazy that we got one of the historic franchises too of the league Multiple Super Bowl wins, such a storied past, plenty of Hall of Famers. I think it's cool that we got a Bay Area sports team. I'm a 49er fan personally, but I'm mean I have a little bit of love for the writers when we're not playing each other, um, but yeah, I mean, that's just, it's just wild. And then us getting the a's too is also wild when did that happen?
Speaker 1:the a's um, the a's happened. I think it was last legislative session, so that would be four years's 2025, so it would have been in 2023. I think they had a special session to do that. I'm not sure. I didn't really follow it as closely as the NFL one. I honestly thought the A's thing would fall through. I thought it would eventually fall through. So, and I'm still not completely convinced that it's going to happen, but I mean, it's getting closer every day. The stadium's gone up a lot of money in price just with the cost of materials going up. So I think there was like an added price tag of 200 million to the original figure. So I I'm I'm kind of skeptical a little bit, um, that it's gonna happen just because of, I mean, the a's organization. Let go their president, uh, and they basically I believe the person they installed, uh was in charge of the Raiders stadium moving forward. So maybe that will get it over the finish line. But we'll see.
Speaker 2:Wow, stealing all the Oakland teams.
Speaker 1:Except for one. One of them went to San Francisco Warriors. I think we're either going to get an expansion team for the NBA or we'll get some other franchise. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I heard Mark Cuban say franchise or your, you know your entity to kind of like the Cowboys. And then you know, going back to why Las Vegas probably has gotten a team like the Raiders, it's like every Sunday people are already out on the strip, so it's real easy to just, you know, make that a part of the culture and you've already got all those other pieces right there for entertainment.
Speaker 1:So I'll get into that part in a second. As far as the entertainment part, but you brought up an interesting point about Mark Cuban. So Mark Cuban recently sold the Mavericks, and do you know who he sold?
Speaker 2:it to. I believe it was a Las Vegas, the widow of the Las Vegas, adelson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they bought it.
Speaker 1:And now the new rumor so originally Marian, adelson and the family basically sold and I don't know if they did it before Adelson died the original owner, but basically they basically sold the Venetian and moved to Texas.
Speaker 1:They did that because obviously Texas doesn't have income tax and there's some tax benefit. That is a better business state overall than Texas as far as taxes and stuff. But their goal was to open a casino in Texas and the legislature in Texas basically decided they just didn't pass anything and I think Miriam's goal by buying the Mavericks was to basically, well, I don't think that there are people that have speculated that she bought the Mavericks to move them to Vegas because the legislature in Texas has kind of kicked the football down the road as far as whether or not they're going to approve gaming, because that's originally why they went there was they wanted to open a casino and there were indications that Texas was going to allow that to happen. But for whatever reason they've tabled it and it keeps getting tabled. So now the rumor is is the reason they traded Luca to the maps is so that the so the maps can tank and then they can be like well, we want to move.
Speaker 1:Wow so that that's a rumor. I don't know if that's true. I don't. I think that story is a little wild to me, although the Luka trade is very problematic, obviously, I don't think the Lakers got, or I think the Lakers basically robbed the Mavericks in getting Luka. I just don't. I don't really see what dallas got out of that trade.
Speaker 2:That was good it's uh that trade. I mean, it was memed so hard. You had other companies actually like memeing, saying at least we didn't trade luca, like these random companies that have nothing to do with basketball. And then, just you know, mark cuban also making comments, various like you know, saying to bill gates you know what, if someone traded away windows 11 for you know windows 7 or something like that, it's uh. I can't imagine that that was purposeful, though, because even if you move to Las Vegas, like, but you, you're still gonna want Luca, aren't you? If you think that he's gonna be a great star.
Speaker 1:I mean I, and now, now we can get into the entertainment aspect of it, like the Vegas sports teams have done very well, and that's why people are moving here. The game day experience is unlike any other. I, you know, I recently went to the stadium in la uh, it might have been a year ago and it was the chiefs chargers and I was. I walked away very unimpressed with that stadium. It reminded me of just a much more. It reminded me of qualcomm as far as, like, the services, right, like as far as the food and the. I left not like very unimpressed with the stadium. And then when you go here and you have, like you know, really good local food vendors, and I mean almost every raiders game is is pretty much sold out.
Speaker 1:It's the. It's actually the most expensive. From what I've been told, it's the most expensive ticket in the nfl. And then if you go down the street to the nights at t-mobile, that's also one of the most expensive tickets in the nhl. I think that the only more expensive ticket in the nhl is toronto. I so like these. In fact, t-mobile is the highest grossing arena in the world. It grosses more money than Madison Square Garden, which is very interesting because Madison Square Garden actually hosts the Rangers and the Knicks, so like to basically bring in that kind of revenue is very interesting.
Speaker 2:It's I mean yeah, yeah. That's why I think well, and does t-mobile?
Speaker 1:you only have one team, nhl playing in there we only have the nhl but, like, as far as entertainment, it is booked out, they basically are the one of the busiest in the united states. There's rumors that if the nba come here they're going to build another arena. In fact there's plans that are moving along. I believe it's along kind of the north end of this strip. I believe I'm not 100% sure because there's also a plan kind of out near Blue Diamond area, but across the freeway. I always forget that there's a hotel on that side, um, but anyways, there's a rumor that they're gonna build an arena out there too. So there's like there was two competing arena plans to bring an nba team here.
Speaker 1:But we, I I just don't. I mean, I, I could see why t-mobile is so booked. That might be the reason why, as far as concerts and other stuff beyond hockey, but also the hockey schedule is long. Hockey is a lot of games. I want to say it's like 80-plus games for hockey season. I'm not 100% sure on that, but it's one of the reasons I don't get season tickets is it's hard. It's hard to go to all the games, so big commitment.
Speaker 2:Huge commitment. You have to really care, and especially if it's, you know, not not some of the cheaper tickets like chargers.
Speaker 1:I mean you could go to a game and it's like 70 bucks yeah, uh, I mean, it's 70 bucks for nosebleeds and t-mobile for hockey game typically. Um, in fact, they had seat licensing. I want to. I want to say that we had to put a deposit down for because we were going to buy season tickets at one point and we just decided that it wasn't worth it. Um, but I I heard that t-mobile seat license is just similar to the nfl what does that mean?
Speaker 1:basically it's like a PSL, I think. You put like I think you get that money back when you like cash out, but then I don't know. I don't know all the details. I'd rather not.
Speaker 2:What's a PSL?
Speaker 1:PSL like a personal seat license. I think that's what it stands for. You have to put money down on the seat plus the ticket price, and I don't know if you get that back when you decide not to be a season ticket holder anymore got it yeah, that's how they fund a lot of the nfl stadiums really yeah, it's those psls okay, they personal seat license, I think, is what yeah?
Speaker 2:and so that's for like life, until they give up their season seat holder ship. Uh, yeah, wow. What a crazy thing the the like industry of sports and the fact that, like most people look at sports as something for entertainment but then you have, like, people who are really generating revenue and making you know, look at it as a business. It's really different.
Speaker 1:It is. Hey, I lost you. I'm trying to find. Oh, there you are. Oh, that was so weird. Okay, now you're back.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow. And you also said something earlier. I don't know. You said is. Did you meant to say this? You said nevada is a better state to do business in than texas, tax-wise it is. What is the how? How is that?
Speaker 1:texas isn't really. Um, a lot of people think that because Texas leans a certain way politically, that it's a low tax state, and it's not. Texas's taxes are super regressive. They have one of the highest I believe it's one of the highest property taxes in the country Before Arnold really Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that was way back when really raised taxes in California. Texas and California were kind of like almost the same with the school tax and their property taxes as far as like total tax contribution when they do those like figures of like how much it costs to live.
Speaker 1:But yeahxas isn't, in my opinion, um, a better business state tax wise than nevada. Nevada has fairly low, uh, property taxes and we also have no state income tax very similar to texas. Um, I'd have to look at Texas's sales tax. I'd imagine that they tax food and we don't. In Nevada we only tax hot food, similar to California, I believe. Don't take that as scripture. But yeah, okay, yeah, I would only reason that nevada loses out to a lot of companies, um, to texas is because we don't have, we can't give away free land here because of most of the land in nevada is government owned. Um, so it's hard like we don't have a lot of space here left in Las Vegas to basically say, oh, here we'll give you, like you know, x amount of acres to build your facility In Texas. They can do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, and I guess that kind of moves to another question Well before I move on. And how do you compare Nevada to California or New York as far as business and taxes?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think we're very competitive. I think the missing piece is the university system, most states.
Speaker 1:as far as innovation, new businesses, startups, tech, because they've built the best university system in the history of the world, and I think there are private universities that also contribute to that. Stanford, usc, some of the Catholic schools, like University of San Diego, contributes to a lot of San Diego, whether it's engineering, whether it's law. But yeah, the UCs and the Cal States are by far the best public university system in the world. I don't think anyone can name a university system that even comes close.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah. I always tell people when we went to school the price of education was rising. It definitely. From my first year to my last year it rose pretty substantially, which was really crazy to see.
Speaker 1:Tuition or cost of living like housing tuition oh.
Speaker 2:I don't feel. I don't feel like cost of living. I mean, you know you don't really spend too much in in college. As far as cost of living goes, I guess you pay for rent well.
Speaker 1:Rent increased significantly from the time I graduated to now well, yeah, almost four times. Yes, I meant the time, only four my rent in PB was between 650 and 850 a month.
Speaker 2:That's low and I get one bedroom or the. You had the whole bedroom in a house, Okay.
Speaker 1:I imagine you couldn't find anything for less than 2,500.
Speaker 2:I think you could find something 1800, even possibly 1500 for a bedroom in a house and pee-pee, I would say it's like two and a half to three times more. I don't think.
Speaker 1:I might be exaggerating Four times is a lot.
Speaker 2:2,400 is like You're like close to getting. I mean, if you want a one bedroom in a place that's 5,000 between two people, that's a nice house, that's a nice place. I mean you could do 5,000 between three people and still get a decent spot. One bedroom like a three bedroom place. Maybe not in San Francisco, and we mentioned earlier we have a lot of friends moving from San Francisco down here. I actually kind of know might be I'm considering moving up there.
Speaker 1:uh, as you know when do you have a job prospect? Is that why?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know it just uh, san francisco or la, I'm kind of getting tired of san diego wait, whoa wait.
Speaker 1:You're getting tired. How do you get tired of San Diego? Explain.
Speaker 2:It's just slow, it's very slow.
Speaker 1:Oh, I will just say this to you. You will miss that tremendously.
Speaker 2:When it stops.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because like life will definitely speed up up there, probably because maybe it's faster, but LA to LA is like, like you know, the other city that never sleeps. Um, yeah, I would. I mean, I mean, if you want to do that for a season in your life, I'd encourage you to do it. But I, I mean you will miss, as you get older, you will start to miss the slower pace of life, because life definitely slows down a little bit. You know time is.
Speaker 1:I posted this really interesting article. I didn't even finish reading it but like time is so relative to what we think it is and when, and I know like there are seasons in our life where we want time to kind of pick up a little bit but like just kind of value those slower times in life where time doesn't pass you by as quickly, I would say, because it will at some point. You're like like I don't know, for me, like I mean, my weeks just fly by. Now I, I miss being young, I miss time moving a lot slower and I missed, you know, having tons of free time and obviously hanging out with the boys and partying with you guys in pb. But you know, I, yeah, I, if that's something that's really on your heart. You should do it, but I would, yeah, just remember that.
Speaker 2:Remember this conversation free time, free time, is really not having it.
Speaker 1:It's not fun yeah, not having it well, I, I actually I love being busy, but like I mean time moves so much by so much faster when you're like just so busy and yeah, I, I, I wish time would slow down a little bit. I, you know, when I, even when I come down to california, I mean it's like it's like a light speed, like I never get a chance to enjoy it, it's hard to relax.
Speaker 1:I mean, as you get older it becomes harder and harder to relax. You just like there's always something that needs to get done. You know you're an engineer. I'm sure you're really busy with tons of projects. Like there's always something you can be working on for me. You know it might be billing, it might be, you know, a side project that I'm doing for a client.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes and yeah, taking a breath is definitely important, Making sure you know, opening up your awareness and not having too narrow of a vision. Having too narrow of a vision Cause I think when you're really focused on something, you can just forget about some of the more important stuff, especially like if you do it for a little bit of time, you're all right, but then if you just go through that way for a long time, then you blink and it's like a year later or something. It's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and you know it, you know something. It's crazy, yeah, I mean, and you know it, you know it's hard. We're still pretty young. Um, I'm a little, I know, I'm a little older than you, I'm 36, I just turned 36. But, like, I mean, there's certain things we need to prioritize in our life, like relationships, you know, with friends, you know with loved ones, you know significant others, um, and it's hard to do those things when you're just so busy all the time yes, are you keep?
Speaker 2:do you have any free time or are you keeping?
Speaker 1:mostly busy. You know, uh, we're short staffed and so you know she was gone for a while, um, and now, um, and then one of the people that we hired right around the same time I was hired um decided to leave and so, for a while, there I was. I, yeah, I've taken on a lot and it still really hasn't slowed down, but, um, yeah, I mean, hopefully, once we get somebody hired and trained, uh, I could take a little bit of a step back and have some more free time. I'm actually, uh, probably going to enroll in an MBA program here.
Speaker 1:Um, that Robbie Bopari actually, um introduced me to um University of Illinois uh has an MBA program through Coursera and it's only like $24,000 for the entire MBA. Wow, yeah, and that's something I've always wanted an MBA. I was going to do one in law school and they wanted me to take the GRE and GMAT and I was just like I just took the LSAT, like I'm not I'm not going to deal with this like I got enough on my plate. Law school is a lot, so it just really wasn't yeah the GRE is like done, right, like no.
Speaker 2:Do people, the colleges, still want the GRE? I think their start.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of the anti um entrance test like like the way it was going is going to start to go back. Um, I know they were trying to get rid of the lsat for law schools. I still think that's preposterous. If the LSAT wasn't so good at being a good indicator of whether people can pass the bar exam, if it wasn't a good indicator of that, I think that law schools would have a better reason to get rid of it. But I think a lot of law schools would like to keep it because if they start letting in all these kids who don't have lsat scores, who take the gre instead or whatever entrance exam it is, um, they're kind of putting those kids at a disadvantage because they don't know whether or not they don't know whether or not they can pass a bar or yeah, it's just it doesn't really make sense for them in the large scope of things that makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean, is there a shortage of lawyers?
Speaker 1:there is, now there is less people taking the lsa and there's less people applying for law school now I, I, you know that's a good, you know that's a good.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing with doctors too. I mean, it's uh, there's no. Being a doctor is very important and we don't want, you know, people who aren't trained but the the criteria for become, and we know a few doctors. They put all their, like life's effort into being a doctor I mean robbie's in medical school right now.
Speaker 1:Uh, robbie will party and I mean I won't get into specifics, but like he's broken down the numbers for me and I don't, it's more lucrative in my opinion this isn't his opinion but to go to pa school oh yeah, I, just because some of our doctor friends.
Speaker 1:They make so little in residency which I don't understand how that's even justifiable, like if there were lawyers that would have been fixed decades ago, like there's absolutely no way. Um, it makes no sense the the fact that they're making like 50 of what law students do. I mean, this is just I'm just ballparking, like the percentages, but like they make, I think on average was it like 50, 40 000 a year as a resident, like lawyers typically make. I I want to say the average coming out of boyd law school here in las vegas is like around 90 000 a year, which is kind of low. You probably should be making around 120 coming out of law school, I think. But also, you know you need to be trained. You know often paralegals are probably more skilled than attorneys coming out of law school. But anyways.
Speaker 2:I digress. Well, I mean, you bring up a good point. I mean this is, you know, it's a bend or break type of situation, I feel. I feel, if that system can't bend, can't, you know, change it up so that being a PA isn't? I mean, it should be like being becoming a PA shouldn't be debatably more profitable than becoming a doctor, debatably more profitable than becoming a doctor, and it just shouldn't be such a, you know, like if there's a shortage of doctors, that's a big deal, I think it's. You know, we can't just, and not only that, like I said earlier, like, and now we're seeing a bunch of federal funding being cut from schools, which is very likely gonna affect medical schools, and it's just the system, the whole medical school system, of how it seems students, you know, go through undergrad, take their MCAT it's an MCAT, right and then- no, yeah, well, the MCATs before is that, are you talking after medical school or during that before?
Speaker 2:but yes, or yeah, and then do medical school and then do like some type of Matt I guess, matching you so many things that go into it and it's such a crazy. I mean it's just completely unfortunately a lot like a lot of systems in America I think we're seeing, you know, not that sustainable, like it might work for 20 years, 40 years, 50 years, but by the end of that you're not going to have the same quality of output, as just the availability isn't going to be there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. You're 100 right. They also need to fix, um, the amount of residencies too. I, I don't know if that's ever been addressed, because now we've got a lot of medical schools opening, but I don't know if they're adding, uh, residency programs. Really, I, yeah, I mean, this was an issue. Uh, somebody raised me a couple or probably like five, six years ago, but, um, the one thing they didn't do with obamacare was increase the number of residencies, because I believe that they're federally funded.
Speaker 2:I'm not 100 sure on that, but um, yeah, so well, hopefully, well, hopefully I know it's a very complicated thing and then we go into I mean we don't necessarily need to go too crazy but a lot of changes in the in the government and political sphere around, specifically around how the government spends money yeah, I honestly don't think there's going to be too many changes.
Speaker 1:I think that, uh, the current administration is trying to, basically, they want to prioritize what they want to prioritize. Unless congress gets involved, I really don't see a lot of changes and I I still think it remains to be seen how much money we're gonna save with Doge. I, I'm, yeah, I I just don't, I don't know, I I right now it's way too early to tell. I think Common-sense would tell you that it's gonna save money, but I think that there are other things that people aren't Factoring in or taking into account that could counteract a lot of that. But if Congress doesn't give Doge its blessing, I don't see why another administration wouldn't come in and just put everything back to the way it was, because I, yeah, I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. One thing. That one thing is he's going really fast. He hasn't even, you know, just the new administration hasn't even been in office for three months, and it seems like you know. So that's one thing. But um, there was something else that I wanted to mention. I forget, oh, the executive. Aren't many of these organizations, these federal government organizations, part of the executive branch, kind of a? You know like the Health and Human Services, faa, fbi, a you know like the health, health and human services, faa, um, fbi, cia? These are all like they were. I believe they were all created post-world war ii and they all are under the federal branch and, I think, like the executive branch.
Speaker 2:The executive branch, yes, the executive branch. So it would make sense that you know you could remove these offices. I mean, it wouldn't make sense that, simply Because only the executive would be able to remove these offices, because I did hear this kind of um, I have a historian, you, you, you listen to him. Uh, who's the historian that we both like? Roy, or you used to share me some of his content. Roy cost. I forget his name. He's a.
Speaker 1:He's a history professor in Austin oh, oh, that guy who like does like he, I say the video on Persian like some kind of like. Was it about ice cream or it was about shaved ice, and then how it became ice cream under the Italians.
Speaker 2:Yes, he's in Austin, I did not know he's in Austin. He's in austin. I did not know he's in austin he's in austin. He's a professor in austin roy, casa grande yeah, I.
Speaker 1:I watched a video recently about how he said that we, the united states, has basically been declined. Since what was it like? 74? Did you see that video? Yes, I probably have I was very skeptical after seeing that. I mean, he make, he make. I think that's a very I don't want to say left or right wing perspective, but I think that's a very I think to a degree.
Speaker 2:we've lost the middle class. It's a very left wing perspective.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, I don't know. Well, maybe not, because, you know, the current administration likes to say that they, they are basically. You know the current administration likes to say that they are basically, you know, the party of the working class and they are because the working class, I think, overwhelmingly supported Trump. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I won't get too into that, but what was your original question? Sorry, I lost track of where we were at was your original question.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I lost track of where we were at. Well, he, he says you know, there's 550 elected officials in the entire, you know, in the federal government there is. You know, this is, and he makes the point of, in athens, one out of every five people was a was a voting citizen. But in the united states there are 550 elected officials, not no more, no less federal, federally elected officials, and that those are the 550 people that hold power according to him. And he just makes the point that this is nowhere, that we are nowhere near democracy. And, uh, what do you think?
Speaker 1:um, there are very interesting perspectives of this, like there's a lot of people that say that the founding fathers would have excuse me, would have preferred that we expand the size of congress as the country grew and that today, um, the average citizen is very underrepresented. Um, which you know, to a degree may be true. Um, the reason they don't expand the number of members of Congress is they don't have any room in the Capitol. They're basically at. They could probably maybe I mean this is just my guess they could probably add 20 more members, but that would be like a drop in the bucket To, yeah, and I don't think there's, you know, bipartisan support to expand. I mean, if any, I mean we probably should add at least another state. I mean Puerto Rico should be a state by now.
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't think anybody real. I don't think that's a contentious topic. I think Trump would even support it and I think Democrats would overwhelmingly support it as well. Democrats would overwhelmingly support it as well. Yeah, I mean there's an argument to be had there that we're very underrepresented. That's an interesting point. Yeah, I don't disagree with that.
Speaker 2:No, and I don't necessarily disagree with it either. But to go back to the executive branch and these organizations that seem to be that the current administration is, you know, trying to roll back it. It seems like you know, even in for Congress it would possibly be in their favor. I mean kind of I think you know what's happened so far is Congress has kind of just let this gone by. And I think you know, if I was a Congress member and I saw all these executive branch organizations starting to lose their power, that brings that's executive branch power. That's not, that's not legislative branch power.
Speaker 1:So Well, let me, let me throw a little curve ball into that. I, congress, is empowered with the oversight role and all of these. What's the oversight role? Congress is empowered with the oversight role, not the executive, but what is it? What? What do you mean? What is the oversight role? Like, oversight, like, you know? Uh, basically what, like? Uh, I'll give you an example of an oversight role. Congress has their committees, you know standing and sitting committees, and basically each committee is probably assigned several departments and basically they can review, audit, you know, do whatever they want, they can subpoena whoever they want. That's Congress's job.
Speaker 1:They've gotten lazy, I would say, like around. Congress was probably really good at its oversight rule until the 2000s and then, I think briefly, from 2006 to 2008,. That was kind of and this is my opinion. Somebody else may have a totally different opinion of this but after 2006 to 2008, or it would be actually oh seven to oh a till Obama took office, congress tried to basically re-exhort their oversight role and then I think, once Obama became president, became it became less and less. But then also Republicans kind of started it in the 2000s under Bush, and I think there's plenty of blame to go around here.
Speaker 1:But I think Congress has just gotten really lazy at their jobs. Both parties Nobody's really stepped up to their oversight role. I think Republicans would argue otherwise because I think the Judiciary Committee thinks that they do a good job with oversight, but I would I have plenty of complaints about that as an attorney. But yeah, it's like, for example, you know, trump has basically trying to dwindle down the Department of Education to make it as irrelevant or as little as he can. Basically, I think that's kind of been their goal, but they can't eliminate the department without congressional approval. Congress created the Department of Education.
Speaker 2:Only Congress can basically remove it, so it's not part of the executive branch.
Speaker 1:It is part of the executive branch in the sense that the president nominates the head of that department, which also comes with a policymaking role. But Congress basically delegated that authority, right? Congress delegated the and I mean I could totally be wrong here, but the way I look at it is, congress delegated the authority to the executive to basically have a department, to staff that department, to make regulations. So, yeah, yeah, only Congress can basically eliminate the Department of Education. That's just an example.
Speaker 2:Got it, Even you explaining it. It seems to me it would be in Congress' favor for most of these departments to be dismantled. I mean, if you're one of I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't know about the personal incentives of various politicians, but if you're have this department which takes funding and you know, and takes it and gives it to the executive branch, I mean it just seems like and it also empowers the executive branch.
Speaker 2:It seems like a lot of these executive branch groups actually empower the executive himself and kind of put Congress in a position where they have a difficult time implementing their oversight rule, because the executive branch is meant to be a single person and that's how Congress gets all of its power is that it's not a single person, it's a huge group of people. But once you start putting all of these groups of individuals into a branch that was really meant to be a single person, it's really, I feel, like it expands on their capabilities. Because now you have, you know, it's not just Donald Trump anymore. Now you know you, you have all of these, you know different department heads, which makes sense to a certain degree. But, um, yeah, if I was congress, I wouldn't. I would consider, you know, just letting, letting them dismantle for the benefit of your own branch yeah, it'll be interesting to see what shakes out.
Speaker 1:I honestly don't think Congress is going to do anything and I think it's a shame. I think that, honestly, congress should step up and exert its oversight authority. It probably should be working together. Departments should be eliminated. I don't know if education is one of them. I'm not convinced. I think that a lot of the information that was put out about the Department of Education since Ronald Reagan became president is not all completely true as far as like how we've regressed in education as a nation since its creation. I don't necessarily agree with that, but also I would argue that the Department of Education has contributed to overall having the best University system. If you look at the United States as a whole, we have the best universities in the world. Do you, do you agree or disagree with that?
Speaker 2:agree.
Speaker 1:I mean and there's no, there's not really an argument against that part of that is you know, much of that funding comes from the department of education, whether it's loans for undergrads, whether it's, you know, money for research. I don't, I don't necessarily. I don't think the problem is so bad right now that it needs to be fixed. I think that what the Department of Education should do because I think student debt is becoming a big thing is, I think that they should basically negotiate with both. I think private schools should be in a different tier and public schools should be in another tier and they cap the price of tuition per year, because I don't think that this now unlimited amount of, essentially, you can go to university and take out an unlimited amount of student loans.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And you have 20 years to pay them off and then the rest are forgiven. Yes, you pay a big tax penalty on whatever's forgiven, but I mean, mean that's still money, that? And I get it like there's also an argument that would say well, that money goes to really good things, like research, right? I mean, research is the reason that we are where we are in the world as a country. So I just I mean, I think that there's this conversation needs to be had, but I don't think that we're going about it in the right way. I think that it's.
Speaker 1:I think that it's gotten way too political and we need to take a step back and be like okay, what, what works? Like what's working, what, what? You know? You hear this idea so much. You know America first. You know, you know what, what are we doing for our country to make our country better? Well, I feel like we've gotten so political that we're getting away from that conversation.
Speaker 1:Like, what is in the best interest of the United States? Is it eliminating the department of education? I'm not convinced that's, you know, in the best interest of the United States right now. You could argue k through 12, maybe, but honestly, I've never seen good statistics prior to the department of education's creation because they didn't really keep statistics. So now we actually measure. You know we probably didn't measure very well or at all before the creation of the department of education, so it's hard to make an argument that education is worse off as a whole. Now I I just don't. I don't really see it, but I mean I think it's a conversation we need to have. There's definitely waste in the department of education. Like you should not pay 250 000 for an undergraduate degree, would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:that's insane, right? I mean I I even a mechanical engineer coming out of college is not going to make. I mean I guess you could pay that off in three or four years, but that's all of the money going towards that loan. I just don't think the Department of Education should be funding a $250,000 undergraduate degree loan. Undergraduate degree loan I think that's now graduate school. That's a whole nother conversation, Especially if your graduate degree is going to put you in a position where you can pay off the loan, and I think that's more of a business decision getting a graduate degree than another graduate degree.
Speaker 2:If it's a business decision, why is it a federally funded loan? I mean, that's kind of another thing that takes five years for you to do and takes you out of the market. So now you're no longer working for a company, you're no longer making money. Instead, the taxpayer now has to fund your business decision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I mean the taxpayer funds, small business decisions, anyways. You can go get an SBA loan of up to what is it like two mil? I don't know what the limit is off the top of my head, but I think it's like two million. You go get an sba loan for two million dollars to the taxpayer subsidize that, hey, I mean. And then you can even get into like really get into the weeds and be like, well, that money's not coming from the taxpayers, that we probably just printed that money. That's true, but I guess my point. Well, let me add one more thing. And the treasury department on sba loans, gets that money back right. I mean, normally you pay back your loans and you make interest on loans. Student loans are not set at a small interest rate. They actually they go up and down, I think, based on inflation and based on interest rates. Like we don't get a sweet deal as far as interest rates. I I really think they should also cap the interest rate at like two percent well, that's another thing.
Speaker 2:It's like this isn't even becoming now. You know you have the next generation of students kind of warning each other don't go to school. You know you're about to one. You know, are you gonna be able to just go to undergrad and come out and get a job? Uh, two, this is very expensive. You've seen your parents generation and possibly your older siblings generation, or your someone older in your family, still in debt 10, 15, 20 years later. Uh, and then again going back to the jobs like a lot of students right now. I just read like some statistics, like a quarter of uh harvard grads, mba grads, aren't don't have jobs still like a year after a year after graduating. I don't know if that statistic is real, but like I heard that statistic.
Speaker 1:I I read that too and yeah, there's a lot of rumor.
Speaker 1:A lot of people are saying now that you know mbas are are are more of a negative than a positive. That's kind of, and I and here I am wanting to get an mba, but I I mean, I'm doing it for the skills, not necessarily for you know, I'm not aiming for another job currently, although that might change after I get an MBA. It's interesting, yeah, I mean, one of the things that we've done a really bad job at doing, too, is not we've really neglected rural areas, and I also think that you know a lot of that kind of like. It's definitely a group of people that probably would prefer to work with their hands and and it's not and universities.
Speaker 1:You know, I said this to my brother studying at Northern Arizona University, and I think one of the ways we can fix the university system is learning a trade while you're in college. Right, because now the big argument is okay, well, what's the purpose of getting a political science or communications or an English major? What if you came out of college with also a skill? Right, I'm a huge proponent of like. Maybe we need to add things to the list of the things we're doing. Like kind of like California's community college system. You can become an airplane maintenance tech, you can become a pilot. There's all these other programs. You basically can come out with a skill in community college and maybe that means we just expand community colleges. But we also need to allow student loans for some of these, like private programs like you know, learning to be an auto mechanic or you know, just a lot more jobs where people work with their hands.
Speaker 2:That that makes sense. And I think the problem here is just the, the lack of accountability of the federal government on itself to think that it could, just, you know, increase the debt by nearly a hundred percent in four years, be at over a trillion dollars of uh deficit annually, and just that, you know continually, and just that you know everyone's just going to let it slide, like, yeah, it's, it's really shameful. And I mean, you know, as I think a lot of people are going to start hurting when a lot of everything, you know, these tariffs, the prices of goods start to increase, the prices of houses start to increase, once the consumer really feels like that choke of, oh, I don't have free trade anymore, um, once, a lot of maybe you know what, if there might be cuts to social security, there might not be. Maybe there are cuts to social security. It's, I think for younger people these risks are less of risks because when you're younger you can adjust, you can move, you can kind of um, just, you can figure it out on the fly a lot easier.
Speaker 2:But you know there's a silver tsunami coming and I think I don't know if you know what that means, but that's kind of the great retirement of the boomers, the great leaving, them leaving, and uh, I know that you know a lot american boomers are. There's a, there's a cohort of them that are very rich, very, uh, well off, very good for retirement, and then there's another cohort which is nearly broke and they rely heavily on social security and aid. And so this cohort of people is in a really tough position and it's, you know, it would not be easy these next 20 years. Uh, I think, if you know you're relying on Social Security, you don't have savings, you don't have any assets built up, maybe you don't have your family there, any, you know children or anything, or even someone else, um, you know, adjusting to what's going to come, I think is going to be very tough and um, I just, you know, I'm not sure, what do you think you know?
Speaker 1:um, peter zahan has, uh, done some really interesting uh writing and some some videos on this. He's a geopolitical scientist but he talks about how, basically, this is going to be the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of the United States. And you know I hate knocking on the boomers, but this is a generation that is essentially demanded tax cuts and increased services all at the same time and have basically left their children a really sticky situation. Right, we do not have the same opportunities our parents did. You know, college is exorbitantly more expensive than it was for them. I mean, you could basically have a job in college, pay for tuition and afford rent. I mean, that is not realistic for almost anybody. I don't care where, I don't care. If you, you know, live in Manhattan, kansas, and you go to Kansas State, I cannot picture you having a high, high enough paying job to cover your tuition, books and board there. I'd be very surprised to meet that person Unless they, unless they like are plumber or something. You know what I mean. Or like a skill that goes back to the skills thing that I was talking about. Um, I think, yeah, I, it's, it's interesting, it's all interesting.
Speaker 1:I I would really like to see this administration move towards fiscal restraint, but that also requires not raising or not lowering taxes, and I'm not here advocating lowering taxes or raising taxes. I just think that at some point we need to have a conversation about when are we going to stop lowering taxes when we can't afford what we're paying for? You know, whether it's defense spending, whether it's entitlements, and I mean I think there's a good argument to reform entitlements. I don't think social security is one of those things you should necessarily touch. But also, they could raise the cap. There's a cap on Social Security tax and I don't know what it is. Off the top of my head, I think it's like $120,000. If you make more than $120,000, basically, your Social Security tax is capped after that. So whatever you make after that isn, you know, isn't taxed on social security. I mean that's a problem, right. I mean that that alone would probably do a lot of damage or do a lot of um. It would help social security, would help make it solvent, um, yeah, I mean there's a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a lot of issues going on, and I mean you mentioned tariffs too, and I feel like tariffs are tariffs are artificial and they're not going to make america more competitive over the course? It's just not. They don't really make sense to me. Essentially, what you're doing is you're making industry less efficient, less innovative. Right, the only way American manufacturing comes back and is strong is if it becomes more innovative and more efficient. I mean that is really the only. I mean you're essentially returning to an economic policy that is super destructive, made the Great Depression last a lot longer than it needed to it just really.
Speaker 1:And I'm not against retaliatory tariffs or targeting, you know, tariffs for very specific things, like, you know, national security purposes, but this it just doesn't. And I'm waiting to see where the dust settles. I don't know what you know the president and this administration is trying to do. I and I don't think they're doing a good job of making that clear to the american people, and they should, because I I think that this is the quickest way that you know I'm not saying america is on a downfall trajectory because, if anything, we've emerged from kovid by far the strongest, most diverse economy in the history. I mean like even more so than in the history of the world, than we were before it's wild, it's super wild oh, like.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think when we were in college, the european union and the united states, if you measure total economic activity, was almost like the same right europe might have been a little bit ahead of us actually, but now I mean we are, we're like a third richer than all of europe I think as a whole canada, I mean its growth in the last 10 years is abysmal.
Speaker 2:I mean it's really bad. 0.5, I think it's 0.5 percent in like 11 years yeah, I it is.
Speaker 1:I mean we are, we are by far, and I don't think bringing back manufacturing is going to make us stronger. It's gonna no I, I'm, I mean. I would even go a step further.
Speaker 2:I think that the chips act might have been a bad idea it was a horrible idea, but can you tell me why you think that?
Speaker 1:you know, verita caria actually just did a lecture at our alma mater and he talked about this in depth at ucsd or tennessee at uc san diego okay yeah, yeah, I steven hadley and uh, and I forget the democrat counterpart, but basically they run a global policy institute at uc, san diego.
Speaker 1:I think it's mainly focused on china, but I'm not 100 sure. Uh, you should watch lecture. It's a really good lecture, but he talks about how we basically did this in the 1980s. Reagan basically put tariffs in place on I think it was japanese and korean chips, and then he tried to subsidize chips and bring them here. Well, it failed. It failed like it wasn't. Nothing good came out of it. Uh, and what's interesting too is if you look at germany and china or sorry, germany and japan tried the policies that we're trying to implement now as far as tariffs, and they've reversed that and they're now they're now like they're just now coming out of the economic upheaval it did to their countries. Um, I think germany has like one serious tech company too, as a result of those like it, like has nothing to show for it. You know these, when you artificially make an industry competitive, there's no incentive to innovate, there's no incentive to make things more efficient, no incentive to increase, you know, economic output. It's just like it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work it doesn't and yeah, I agree, and it's not like I mean this administration has brought up like the 1900s and the late 1800s, like this was a novel country, not tapped into a bunch of resources. The two you know companies that really came out of that was a steel company and an oil company. So it's like it's not like that's just going to happen again. It's not like you just came on to this huge, abundant piece of land and are able to take the resources and become the richest people in the world. Again like there was a very specific reason that the united states became a superpower in the late 1800s and the early 1900s and it really had to do with geography, resources, just the amount of land compared to the amount of people there. And so you know.
Speaker 2:And then this administration has mentioned tariffs as being a reason. I mean tariffs, you know, I agree with you. It just doesn't seem like it would do anything very helpful now, maybe retaliatory. And again to go back to another point you made, like I kind of said this about this like a while ago, like I don't know about other countries, but the us has like an army of coders, like like an army, like I don't know if that will be useful with AI.
Speaker 2:Maybe with AI, you know, loses you know, use, but there are a lot of really educated people in this country and that came from that education system that you mentioned and the result seems to be we're really economically powerful. I think the one thing is there are still a lot of people who feel like they're not on the upper echelon of that, like there's a widening of the gap and the lower half is becoming bigger, while the upper half probably not a half, maybe, like you know, I don't know upper 20%, upper 20 is, you know, getting a lot richer yeah, I mean, I think we have a tax policy now that um really favors the rich, um, and I don't know if that I mean it's hard to.
Speaker 1:It's hard to sit here and call balls and strikes, but it would seem, if you look over the course of history, if you look look at tax rates, you know, from the 1950s, you know, following a pretty liberal administration under Roosevelt and later his vice president, you know, eisenhower kept those high tax rates in place. I think it was a 90% tax rate and 80% and the 70% and Reagan eliminated that when he became president. Reagan was the only president we've ever had, I believe, that paid that 90% rate when he was an actor in Hollywood. I don't, I'm, you know, I probably lean more on the supply side, uh, side of things, um, or maybe like a cross between supply side, neocansian, which puts me right in the middle, right, um, I think that the worst thing that we are doing now is we're spending more money than we have.
Speaker 1:And inflation to a degree is a good thing, and before everybody gasps who's listening to this? You know, inflation to a small amount of inflation is good because it helps the economy grow. Right, you want to grow at that sweet spot of like 2%, but what we're doing now is we're having we're having a lot more growth, or we've had in the last four years under Biden we had a lot more growth and I would like to see much lower amounts of growth, because I think that the, you know, inflation is one of those taxes that hits everybody. It's the most unfair tax of all because it it may, you know, essentially makes our money worthless or it drives down the value of it. So I I think the thing that I think the greatest thing our parents could do for us is passing, maybe, a weak, balanced budget amendment or doing what Europe has done, where Europe essentially has capped the amount of money that they can overspend in each budget cycle, and it's a, it's an, it's not a large amount, but like. I just think that like this is not sustainable, like we are. You know, I hate to say the Roman empire argument, but essentially that's what the Roman empire did was, you know, they just kept printing more money to the point of you know it was worthless. And I'm not saying that we're on the collision path of rome. I don't think we're going to be a superpower forever, but I mean, I don't. I, you know, I hope our generation isn't the last to see it.
Speaker 1:Um, I think the united states does a lot of good overall. I'm not saying we're perfect. I think right now we're having trouble learning from lessons, right? I feel like you know, prior to Biden coming into office, we had a lot of, you know, racial divide and upheaval and we didn't learn anything from it. I don't think we learned a single thing from it. Evil, and we didn't learn anything from it. I don't think we learned a single thing from it. I'm really concerned at how divided we are. I think that people are giving people a blank check on both sides of the aisle and it makes you scratch my head, like the tariffs thing. I just don't understand it and I want more clarification from this administration on it because I just don't yeah, it just doesn't seem.
Speaker 2:It seems, and I agree with you. It's because when you say blank check, you mean that and they don't really think about policy. It's like they're kind of just following trump's word. Is that what you mean?
Speaker 1:I mean, democrats are just as bad, like, uh like, on certain issues. I don't, I don't want to touch any hot topics on this.
Speaker 1:I, I I'll do it off camera with you, but I, I mean, both sides are equally at fault yeah I'll just say that I I shouldn't say one side is worse than the other, but like it's just annoying when I feel like when you try to have a conversation with a MAGA voter, you don't really get anywhere and it's just like very it it's interesting, I don't know it's interesting and I I agree.
Speaker 2:I think they're on both sides of the aisle and, you know, I don't know if this is how american politics has always been.
Speaker 2:Possibly or has not but uh it, you know there's a lot of blank checks being written, a lot of hypocrisy on both sides, a lot of you know, turning the cheek, and maybe you know, you know that the person that you're following is not actually even acting on the types of legislation or the types of principles that you wanted them to or you believe in. But it's just kind of what you do, I don't know. I agree with what you're saying because it's like you. Just it's just what you do. You, you just vote Republican, you just vote Democrat, or you're just voting for Trump or you're just voting against Trump. It's like it doesn't even matter anymore about what the policies are. It's just like you have this tunnel vision of I'm either voting for or voting against this person at any cost voting for or voting against this person at any cost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, ii think it's the first time in our lives it's been like this, but it's been going on for a while now, I guess it's. It's basically started in 2016 and it hasn't stopped Ten years. I mean it might have stopped during COVID, but I yeah, it's just it's frustrating to see the state of American politics, but also, I mean I think that there are lessons to be learned here. I think that I think that maybe we've pushed back a little bit too hard on certain things or we've not been open to certain things, kept an open mind about this administration for a lot, I mean, and as everyone should, I was open-minded about the Biden administration too. I have changed my tune a little bit. I feel like I'm now trying to be more flexible and not always like just reacting to everything that is in the media.
Speaker 1:I think the biggest downfall, too, in our society is print media newspapers. I think that our parents' generation really relied on newspapers a lot more than we realize, and I think the downfall of newspapers has basically left us with these, you know, 30 second sound bites of just garbage. I mean, whether you read liberal or conservative or watch liberal or conservative news. It is basically all garbage now and I I would really like to see the press as a whole try to reform themselves and try to get better at their jobs, because I think right now we're we're just on an unsustainable course. Something's got to change something's got to change.
Speaker 2:I mean it'll be interesting these, I mean everything's getting memed. Uh, 30 seconds, seven second tension spans. Uh, you know it's tough when you know you got to actually get the viewers and that requires outputting a certain amount of content or certain type of content that usually gets people going or sound bites.
Speaker 1:right, you're trying to hit those keywords, those buzzwords that are trending and it's just. Yeah, I mean we're in a very. It's weird too, because when we were growing up, typically news media that was on TV and stuff, those departments weren't really. They weren't there to make money, and now a lot of these news divisions bring in money and that is not normal. That was not normal when we were growing up, but now it's like everyone does it and I think that's actually a good argument. I don't know, yeah, I just don't know where we go from here.
Speaker 2:Well, that might be a good place to end, Joseph. Do you have any last thoughts or ideas? You'd like to leave the audience?
Speaker 1:Not really. It was good catching up with you a little bit on some hot button topics Not too hot button, but yeah, I mean I just hope that you know, some positives come out of you know what's going on right now. I think that the overall idea is a lot of these policies are appear good on the surface and I hope that in the end they end up doing good. I'll just say that I'm very, I'm somewhat optimistic of some of the changes being made, but you know I also don't watch the news like I used to and that's yeah, so hopefully I don't know. I just hope we move in a positive direction as a nation.
Speaker 2:My guest today has been Joseph Peter Ostunio. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Joseph.
Speaker 1:No problem.