Episode 116: White Collar Crime, Taxes, Trump's First 100 Days: A Provocative Discussion

Join hosts Matt, Shawn, and Melanie for a deep dive into the week's most pressing and thought-provoking issues! In this episode, they tackle the controversial shifts in white-collar crime enforcement, including foreign bribery, public corruption, money laundering, and the impact of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Matt, Shawn, and Melanie debate the morality of prioritizing crimes with clear victims and whether all offenses deserve equal punishment. Plus, they analyze the latest Gallup poll on American taxpayers' sentiment regarding their federal income tax burden and question if historical tax rates should be revisited. Finally, the team dissects a Fox News survey assessing President Trump's first 100 days of his second term, covering his approval ratings on border security, inflation, and overall job performance. Their "Big Question" explores the ethical implications of wealth distribution upon death, inspired by Tony Hsieh's estate and his "wow" factor gifting plan. Tune in for insightful analysis and engaging debate with Matt, Shawn, and Melanie on these critical topics shaping our world. 

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:59 Competitive Authoritarianism in the U.S.
08:00 Shifts in White Collar Crime Enforcement
15:53 Taxation and Morality in America
28:09 Government vs. Church in Helping the Poor
29:55 Trump's First 100 Days: Approval Ratings and Public Perception
41:10 Inheritance and Wealth Distribution: A Moral Dilemma

Transcript

Matt (00:01.035)
Hello and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It is so good to have you with us today. I'm your host Matt, along with my partner in crime, Sean. Wait, what is this? Yes, with my sidekick Sean, and our special guest host Melanie. I know you guys love Melanie. Thanks for being with us Melanie.

Shawn (00:11.922)
Sidekick, we agree, we agree sidekick.

Melanie Miles (00:15.237)
Thank

Melanie Miles (00:23.171)
I don't know why they want me here.

Shawn (00:25.083)
they want you here. We all want you here.

Matt (00:25.304)
You have

I also don't know why we want you here, Melanie, but thank you for joining us today. All right. This listener wrote such a polite email that I felt obligated to read it, even though it doesn't have anything to do with anything we've ever talked about on the podcast before. Levitsky is a political scientist. I promise this listener is not a political scientist, but there was a news story on NPR this week. Okay, so Levitsky, the listener says,

Melanie Miles (00:28.315)
Thank you.

Shawn (00:32.574)
Ha ha!

Shawn (00:44.904)
haha

Matt (00:57.58)
Levitsky says we are already at the competitive authoritarian stage. Why is he wrong? So again, a lot of our listeners don't like, they're not political science geeks and they probably don't listen to NPR. So let me kind of break this down a little bit for you. So there was a story in NPR that says like 70 % of political scientists right now are concerned that the United States is becoming an authoritarian nation. Authoritarian would be like Putin and Russia, but

Competitive authoritarianism is this stage in between democracy and like Putin in Russia, where it would be like Hungary or Turkey, where you have democratically elected officials, but you don't have complete freedom. You have like a little bit authoritarianism and a little bit democracy. And so I think it was 70 % of political scientists say that right now the United States fits in that situation. And the question then is, why are they wrong?

Shawn (01:57.406)
Melanie, I do, but Melanie, what do you think?

Matt (01:58.574)
Do you guys have thoughts about why they're wrong or do think that they're right?

Melanie Miles (02:02.171)
So my first question would be like, my knee jerk is no, we aren't in a competitive authoritarian regime. I know nothing about this, but primarily because there was a term off between the Trump presidencies, right? So that makes me think that like his grasp on power isn't as complete as it would be in a competitive authoritarian regime. But I don't know.

Matt (02:23.404)
Yeah.

Matt (02:27.724)
Yeah, because it's true a lot of those other world leaders aren't losing elections, right? Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah. What do you say, Sean?

Melanie Miles (02:31.995)
And the one he just won was close enough.

Shawn (02:38.458)
I say Melanie's so smart. think that I think that that this is the same like consider the source NPR isn't exactly a Trump fan. They're not exactly they're definitely a left leaning organization. Also, they know they're not

Matt (02:49.902)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (02:55.33)
Yeah. Well, middle of the road, I would say.

And well, I don't want to argue about NPR, but I feel like they're as middle of the road as you can get. But OK, it's OK.

Melanie Miles (03:04.475)
you

Shawn (03:08.254)
Well, that is arguing about MPI.

Matt (03:13.526)
Okay, so I'll just say they're left-leaning to allow you to keep making your point.

Shawn (03:18.034)
You

Melanie Miles (03:18.809)
We can all agree they're not fans of Trump. We can just say that.

Matt (03:20.94)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I agree with that.

Shawn (03:23.234)
But for the entire Biden administration presidency, I could find equally as many articles saying the exact same thing. So it just drives me crazy.

Matt (03:31.51)
Okay, we're not gonna, Sean, I yield, I yield, I yield for you just so that you can make your other point. I yield.

Shawn (03:39.166)
That the main point is, look, this was a survey of 100 political scientists. So liberal NPR goes to liberal university professors, 100 of them. And then they

Matt (03:42.136)
haha

Matt (03:52.962)
Well, well, no, there's more than, it's more than a hundred. It's, there's, it's called the, well, Sean, listen, I'm one of the, I'm one of those experts that took part of that survey. So I'm, so if you're going to say left leaning, you're going to make me feel sad inside because I'm one of the experts.

Shawn (03:58.832)
No, I read the article! I read the article!

Shawn (04:06.488)
END

Melanie Miles (04:09.017)
Wait, wait, so why don't you make your case about partial authoritarianism, competitive authoritarianism?

Matt (04:15.704)
Well, I want Sean to finish, I promise to stop getting triggered by the things you say, Sean. So keep going.

Shawn (04:15.73)
That's a good point.

Melanie Miles (04:20.347)
Hehehehehe

Shawn (04:20.606)
I'm just saying my point is there's no way that your question was is it wrong? My opinion is I heard the same thing for four years during the Biden administration where a bunch of knucklehead journalists or biased sources were like, this is authoritarianism because the questions that they asked these guys were like the standard was threefold one does government interfere with the press?

Well, that's all I heard on Joe Rogan and all these other sources for four years was, yeah, Biden is interfering with the press. They're interfering with Twitter. They're making Twitter not publish certain things during COVID or about the Russian thing or Joe Biden's son. Like that was the constant message I heard. And the whole time I had the same reaction, like, come on, like give me a break. The second is, um, do they punish political opponents? Well, for four years, that's all I heard about was Donald Trump being punished for political reasons.

by the Biden administration. And then the last one.

Matt (05:17.198)
But you know that they weren't actually doing that to Trump, right? Trump had actually committed crimes that he was being prosecuted for.

Shawn (05:24.324)
I yeah, but go go. Yeah, but go talk to half the country. They would disagree with you.

Matt (05:26.882)
So just because they say it doesn't mean it's true.

Matt (05:32.342)
OK.

Shawn (05:34.31)
Anyway, so that's my point is I think this is there's nothing to this. mean, yes, always red flag it we should always red flag it but I don't think there's anything to this just like there wasn't anything to it during the Biden administration.

Matt (05:36.182)
Okay.

Matt (05:46.158)
Yeah, I'm in the 30 % that says we're not leading towards authoritarianism, but for different reasons than you guys. I do have concerns about the erosion of democracy in the United States. I am concerned, and I think I've said this for the last two or three years on the podcast, like there are a number of things that concern me. The one thing that doesn't concern me is the resilience of the American people. So the difference of the United States and other countries is Orban in Hungary has very high approval ratings.

Shawn (05:52.125)
Mm.

Shawn (06:00.412)
You have,

Matt (06:15.35)
Erdogan in Turkey, very high approval ratings. And Putin in Russia, very high approval ratings. And that you have to have that in order to really become an authoritarian leader. And Trump doesn't have that. So even though on paper it might look like we're doing the same thing as these other countries, we're not. Because the two things I think that save us are number one, Americans, all Americans, whether you believe me or not, all Americans revere and love the Constitution.

And if president Trump were to try to do something that blatantly violated the constitution, I believe that the American people would not go for that. they say it right now in surveys, but like the question people always ask me is like, well, what if Trump runs for another term? I personally believe that Republicans who love Trump would not actually vote for him if they felt like he was violating the constitution by doing that. So first he would have to persuade people that he had the constitutional authority to do that.

before he would be able to do that. And then even if he did it a third term, could he do it a fourth term? So there's this love of the constitution in America that doesn't exist necessarily in other countries that protects us. But then also, Americans seem to get really mad when presidents do things that are authoritarian. And you can see that in Trump's approval ratings right now. So I don't think we're in anything close to Turkey and Hungary, even though there are things that scare me. Americans have shown me that broadly,

They'll hold elected officials accountable if they try to become too authoritarian.

Shawn (07:48.104)
Melanie, are you too young to know the Muppets?

Melanie Miles (07:53.155)
I... kind of.

Shawn (07:55.237)
yeah, you're too young. Matt, do remember in the Muppets there was a character called Sam the Eagle?

Melanie Miles (08:00.729)
Hey, I know Sam the Eagle!

Matt (08:01.036)
Of course. Yeah, you should have started with that, Sean. Do know Sam the Eagle?

Shawn (08:02.354)
You do?

My dad, well, he was the like patriotic like American and Matt, as you just spoke, I could vision I could see your face and it was it became the Muppet Sam the Eagle, this patriotic sermon and it's so beautiful. I loved it.

Matt (08:17.422)
Hahaha

Matt (08:21.6)
Okay. Well, hey, listener, thanks for writing into the mailbag. We spent more time on your question than we ever do on anybody else's question. So good job. All right, let's go to the thought provoker. So our first topic is this. The Trump administration has significantly altered white collar crime enforcement, particularly in foreign bribery, public corruption, money laundering, and cryptocurrency. An executive order questioning the foreign corrupt

practices acts impact on American competitiveness led to dismissed bribery charges against former cognizant, it's a company executives. This shift signals a move away from prosecuting executives for offenses that don't have clear victims with the justice department prioritizing economic competitiveness and national security. While the justice department asserts its commitment to fighting sophisticated crime, the administration's new priorities are reshaping white collar prosecutions. So the question is,

Is it morally wrong to put more emphasis on enforcing crimes that have clear victims than on those that don't? And should all crime be punished?

Shawn (09:28.382)
That's a great question, Melanie. You want to, I to hear your opinion.

Melanie Miles (09:32.279)
So I think the question of whether it's morally wrong to focus on crimes with more victims depends entirely on the capabilities of your justice department. Because if you have limited resources, then yeah, focus on the crimes that have victims. But if you have enough resources to prosecute everyone, I think you should be prosecuting everyone.

Matt (09:52.782)
Well, every crime has a victim, right? But it's not necessarily clear victims, right? If I cheat in my, if I break the law in my business, I am hurting a lot of people, but it's not clear like who I'm specifically hurting.

Melanie Miles (09:57.123)
immediate victims.

Melanie Miles (10:06.071)
It's like when you'd watch a DVD growing up and it would start with, piracy is not a victimless crime.

Matt (10:09.838)
You

my goodness. Yeah. So should we go after all of those people that are pirating? People are pirating so many things. Yeah. Should we?

Shawn (10:20.222)
Matt's face just got very guilty looking.

Melanie Miles (10:22.523)
you

Matt (10:24.512)
Melanie Miles (10:25.403)
I have no comment on whether we should persecute pirates.

Matt (10:31.086)
I was thinking about on my mission when I go to the bazaar or the reenac and everything was so cheap and I didn't even think about how it's cheap because it's all pirated. I'm like, my goodness, I can get every DVD in Russian that I ever wanted. And I'm like, I was purchasing a lot of pirated goods on my mission because they were cheap.

Shawn (10:53.406)
But Matt, not all crimes have victims, right? Like it's a crime to not wear your seatbelt in a car. And maybe there's a potential victim, which would be yourself, but not all crimes have victims. So I thought your question would be more about Deuteronomy 1921, right? The eye for the eye, tooth for tooth, punishment proportionate to the crime. Is that not the question?

Matt (10:58.633)
yeah.

Matt (11:16.364)
Well, well, I mean, and we have laws that say what the punishment should be for the crimes, right? But, basically what the justice department is saying is like, look, all this enforcement of white collar crime is making it so people don't want to get into these industries. Like cryptocurrency was so over-regulated, like, why are we going to go prosecute all of these people that are breaking laws with crypto things? And I'm like, of course we should be prosecuting those people. Like the, people that are doing really bad things in this world.

Shawn (11:38.27)
Hmm.

Matt (11:45.41)
The way that they're able to finance it is because crypto is not regulated. And if you remove all punishments and penalties to people that are using crypto to launder money or to get dirty money into the hands of legitimate enterprise or whatever, you're causing a lot of harm in society. Even though there's not a clear victim for the crimes you commit with cryptocurrency or these other white collar crimes.

Shawn (12:08.968)
Well, no doubt there like I don't think anyone should ever say that a crime shouldn't be punished. I just think that the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. And I know that's that's subjective a bit, but that's what we should try for.

Matt (12:17.623)
Yeah.

Matt (12:21.006)
Well, if we were to say, if we should, if we were to say right now, who is the Trump administration primarily focused on punishing for the crimes that they've committed? We would probably say it's undocumented immigrants, right? There's a huge push to punish undocumented immigrants. And so if you're, if your thing, Sean, is we should punish them proportionate to the crime they committed, like coming into the country without documentation, in my opinion, is way less of a crime.

than these white collar crimes that, and especially in the crypto realm and insider trade insider trading. You don't like Sean. Some of these are people are getting away with insider trading because it's a white collar crime.

Shawn (12:58.524)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melanie Miles (13:00.091)
And I feel like another question you could pose is like, is it really, it's like the Justice Department is prioritizing economic prosperity over morality in a sense, right? Like, or maybe not morality, but like adherence to the law. They're saying we want economic growth and we'll compromise on enforcing the law in order to pursue that goal. And like, is that something we should be encouraging?

Matt (13:26.072)
So to me, that would be a morally wrong thing to do, right? Because basically what the message you're sending people is, there's no way to make money in an honest way. Therefore, break the law and cheat if you have to, all in the name of what we're gonna call economic growth. But you're suggesting that there's no honest way to do it, which I think is a bad message for the government to send to people.

Shawn (13:47.806)
That's interesting. That's interesting. So your question isn't there exists victimless crimes and they should and should they be punished differently? Your question is clear victim crime, victimless crimes. You're saying that a lot of these white collar crimes, they're actually are victims. You just can't pinpoint their names and their faces is what you're saying, right? There's no like,

Matt (14:02.027)
Right.

Matt (14:08.312)
Right.

but also an undocumented immigrant, right? Coming into the country without documentation. There's no victim to that crime that's a clear victim, right? And so it's actually more about the prioritized, you always have to make decisions about, because Melanie was right, you have limited resources, right? So with those limited resources, who do you want to prioritize? Which laws do you want to prioritize enforcing? And it just seems wrong to me to prioritize enforcing.

Shawn (14:18.508)
huh. huh. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (14:38.802)
one set of laws that hurts groups of people that probably are already a little bit disadvantaged and say, but the really rich people that have the technology or their skills or the sophistication to commit these really like sophisticated crimes, we're not going to prosecute you because economic growth or something like that. That just seems immoral to me.

Shawn (14:57.214)
Are there actually examples of what they're not actually prosecuting these white-collar crimes?

Matt (15:03.148)
Yeah, I put a link from the Wall Street Journal. put a link to that story in the show notes, but specifically Cognizant is a company that has been charged with bribing elected officials and they said we're not going to prosecute you for that. We've decided that's not a there's no victim to bribery, so we're not going to. That's what they're doing.

Melanie Miles (15:21.131)
The American people are a victim of bribery?

Shawn (15:22.92)
Yeah, that would be crazy. Yeah, that's a that's a crazy. I should have read the details of that case. I apologize. But that seems that seems crazy. Like, yeah, if you're not if if in the name of I mean, that's kind of cronyism, right? Like you guys are in a business with Trump, who's a businessman, and we're not going to punish you so that you can continue to grow the economy. That's crazy.

Matt (15:28.482)
Yeah, it's okay. Yeah.

Matt (15:37.965)
Yes.

Matt (15:47.374)
There's also that I don't remember his name exactly, but I think it's like Sam Bankman Fried or something like that. He had a crypto platform, right? And he's been acute. I don't know if he where he's at in his legal processes, but he's definitely doing what he can to try to get a pardon from Trump because Trump is sympathetic to people in that situation. It was like, what all you did is like break laws related to financial transactions. You're fine. No big deal. So to me, that's a problem. Okay.

Shawn (15:53.362)
Yeah.

Shawn (16:13.01)
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, that's a huge problem. I think we all agree, right?

Matt (16:17.614)
Okay. Well that's good. I'm glad we all agree about that. Okay. Let's see if we can all agree about this one, Sean. This one is right up your alley. Okay. So a recent Gallup poll reveals that when asked about the amount of federal income tax they pay, 59 % of Americans currently believe it is too high. 38 % feel it is about right. And 2 % say it's too low. That's you Sean, right? You're one of those. It's too low. Just kidding.

Shawn (16:45.467)
Nope.

Matt (16:47.544)
The percentage of those who think their taxes are too high is near the upper end of the trend that has been observed since 2003. Historically, if you go back to the 1940s and in the early 2000s, an average of 59 % of Americans also felt their taxes were too high. 1952 was the peak. In 1952, 71 % of Americans said their taxes were too high. What's interesting about this is that tax rates have gone down considerably.

since 1950s, 1940s, even since the year 2000. So this is the question. If Americans are gonna think that they pay too much in taxes, regardless of how much they actually pay, is it morally okay to raise the tax rate back to what it was in the 1940s? Because, yeah, I love it.

Melanie Miles (17:30.977)
Yes.

Shawn (17:34.0)
Yes! Okay, go Melanie. Let's hear it. Let's hear it, Melanie.

Melanie Miles (17:35.451)
No, no, I I can make my case, but I want to hear you guys first

Matt (17:42.136)
It's because Americans are ungrateful. I don't want to say bad words about Americans, but you're so ungrateful for everything your country does for you. Though, even though they say, okay, we're going to be more efficient in government. We're going to do what we can to lower your tax rate. We're going to even go into debt to pay for the things you want, but we're going to keep your tax rate low. They're still like too high, too high. And so then when a person complains, your obligation is to make things worse for them so that they can appreciate how good they have.

Melanie Miles (17:48.024)
You

Melanie Miles (18:07.907)
It's like when you're raising a child.

Matt (18:10.036)
Ha ha ha.

Shawn (18:10.954)
Wait, it be in accordance with the latter day lens to tell you both that that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard?

Melanie Miles (18:16.827)
You

Matt (18:19.17)
Wait, now I have to think of a scriptural example for this.

Shawn (18:22.558)
Yeah, exactly.

Melanie Miles (18:22.831)
rendered to Caesar that which is Caesar's.

Matt (18:25.742)
Sean, while you say your position, I'm gonna be thinking of a scriptural example of the people complaining and the God saying to them, enough. don't, how about the children of Israel in the desert? He leads them into the promised land. They don't wanna go there, so he's like, fine, walk around the desert for 40 years. And.

Shawn (18:29.964)
good.

Shawn (18:44.478)
I hate that you just compared God to government. That's awful what you just did.

Melanie Miles (18:44.987)
you

Matt (18:50.286)
well, but it's just it's how you deal with your people, right? God has a people he's got to manage and deal with.

Shawn (18:56.006)
Yeah, that's the problem. That's the problem is that you view government as God dealing with their people. That's the problem. In America, in America, no, we the people.

Matt (19:00.622)
God is a leader. God loves people. Government loves people. Government is the people. We love each other. Yeah, that's right.

Melanie Miles (19:09.593)
We're one nation under God. Under God, not under God. wait, that's a point for Sean. Never mind. I'm going to stop talking.

Shawn (19:12.542)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Matt (19:16.654)
Okay, Sean, you make your point. I'm going to think of a better example that doesn't make you so mad.

Shawn (19:17.63)
Thank you, Melody. Keep going, Melody.

Shawn (19:25.854)
Yeah, mean, I mean, Maya, I don't know how to You asked the question in kind of a strange way. Is it morally correct to raise the right back?

Matt (19:34.542)
I want you to say yes. I want you to say the morally thing, the morally correct thing to do is to put the tax rate back where it was. You ungrateful people.

Melanie Miles (19:36.571)
you

Shawn (19:44.606)
That's so dumb. Well, let's bring this point up that the tax system is designed to be progressive, right? That's what we live in a progressive tax system. That means that the lower income Americans pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do higher income workers. And because of that structure, did you know, Matt, that the highest earning households in the country pay almost all of the federal income taxes. So this is the, this is the Pareto principle, right? The top 10 %

Matt (20:08.268)
Of course, as it should be.

Shawn (20:13.874)
top 10 % of American citizens pay 75 % of the nation's taxes. Did you know that?

Matt (20:20.703)
Income taxes, income taxes.

Shawn (20:23.506)
Yes, Matt, income taxes. That's right.

Matt (20:25.782)
Right, right. Well, no, that's important to point out because ordinary Americans pay a lot of money in taxes. So we're just talking about income taxes.

Shawn (20:32.894)
No, but no, no, no, 10 % of the earners pay 72 % of all taxes that the government uses. Yes, absolutely. No, no, no, I've got this.

Matt (20:40.428)
No way. It's only income tax, Sean. It's only income tax. When you talk about sales tax, because, okay, so this is the thing, Sean, there's not a federal sales tax, right? But this tariff that Trump has put where you're going to pay a 10 % tax on everything that comes from foreign countries, the bulk of that share of taxes is not going to be paid for by the wealthy income earners. That's going to be paid for by the poor people because they have to buy groceries. Right.

Shawn (21:06.846)
relative to how much money I can tell you the dollar amounts to relative to how much money the top 10 % pay those tariff taxes are nothing, nothing, nothing. No, not, not relative to what, for example, the top 1 % pay in taxes. It's nothing like we're

Matt (21:17.73)
Now they're huge. What is our...

Matt (21:25.646)
But Sean, is our, what is our annual GDP? Like if you're just, if we're just sort of like spit ball, like GDP gives us a sense of like how much money like buying and selling is happening in the economy. Right? So we're going to have a GDP in like the trillions of dollars, right? Trillions of dollars of goods are bought and sold in the United States. So let's say that you put a 10 % tax on $2 trillion.

Shawn (21:51.548)
That's why that's never gonna happen. That's not what the terrorists are gonna do.

Matt (21:55.886)
That's exactly what a tariff is, is a 10 % sales tax on everything. Okay, unless it was 100 % produced in the United States, which is nothing, right? What is 100 %? Yeah, Anyhow, and the same thing, like if you could look at state level taxes and local taxes, like most of those taxes are paid for by not the wealthy people, but by the everybody else people. that's, okay. All right. All right.

Shawn (21:58.522)
Not on the entire, not on...

Shawn (22:06.334)
That's not true. Okay. We're getting into. We're getting into mathematics.

Shawn (22:19.934)
I'm sticking to my, I've got a reference statistic here. 72 % of the nation's taxes are paid by the top 10%, the Pareto principle. Now if you wanna debunk that with.

Melanie Miles (22:28.879)
But is that really a bad thing?

Shawn (22:32.262)
No, no, no. My point in bringing it up is the tax. All of us should have a say in the tax rates, right? That's what I love about representative government is that if we feel that it's too high, which we clearly do, then we ought to do something about it. We should. And I'm fine with the progressive tax system, but the screaming, the screaming about what tax the wealthy or the dissatisfaction with how much taxes are paid.

To me, that's up to us. That's up to the wealthy, just as much as it's up to the middle class and the lower class. And right now, we as the people say it's too high. So I don't know about your moral question.

Matt (23:11.544)
So then let's go back to where it was, because you said that before. We as the people said it was too high back then. We lowered it. They didn't change their mind. There's no, so if you can't make a person happy, you shouldn't even try. Is that a gospel principle? If you can't make a person happy, you shouldn't even try.

Shawn (23:16.742)
It was too behind that too, man.

Shawn (23:24.894)
If it was too high in the 40s and we were dissatisfied and it's too high now, then both should go down. Your logic is weird. You weird logic there,

Matt (23:34.657)
man.

Melanie Miles (23:35.855)
Can I make my case for higher tax rates now?

Matt (23:38.711)
Okay, yeah.

Shawn (23:38.846)
Please.

Melanie Miles (23:40.347)
Because I just think like the goal and purpose of government and a society and a nation as a whole is to give people the opportunity to support and strengthen each other, right? As a community, we should take care of each other. That's why we have a country. That's why we have a state.

Shawn (23:53.694)
When you said the word right, the answer is wrong, but keep going.

Matt (23:53.752)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Melanie Miles (24:01.179)
So I'm operating under the supposition that the purpose of a country is to take care of its people.

Matt (24:01.358)
Sean, Sean disagrees Melanie, we should not take care of each other.

Shawn (24:06.674)
No, no, no, we should

No, no, we should take care of each other, but that's not the purpose of a government. The purpose of the government, our government, even even clarified in the scripture is to protect our rights, to protect our property.

Matt (24:22.35)
Sean's got one verse, one verse that says protect property, there are, he ignores all the other verses that talk about that. In that very same section, Sean, says government exists to provide the good for society or something like that.

Shawn (24:27.688)
Two rights. No, there's three. There's three in Scripture.

Melanie Miles (24:40.085)
Government exists for the benefit of man, right? Is that what it says?

Matt (24:42.414)
Boom, boom, government exists for the benefit of man. Yeah, that's in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Shawn (24:44.264)
But the guy, right. Right, but then it clarifies what is good for man. It's not, it's not we're gonna take care of you and pay everything and it's the good of man. The, the,

Matt (24:50.924)
you

Melanie Miles (24:54.501)
But you said it's property, right? So.

Matt (24:54.958)
Sean properties like Sean and I always disagree about whether property is an important thing.

Shawn (25:02.59)
How can you all read to the scriptures if you'd like we believe that all men are even justified in defending themselves their friends and their property and the government from unlawful assaults and encroachments on all pretty like there's there's clarity on this

Melanie Miles (25:03.867)
you

Matt (25:12.992)
huh, right right right.

Matt (25:17.496)
Guess they should defend the government. From what, Sean? Unlawful assaults? Isn't that just a... No.

Shawn (25:22.586)
against property. That's what it says. We believe that all men are justified in defending themselves and their friends and their property.

Matt (25:32.046)
And they're justified in defending government from what?

Shawn (25:35.326)
and defending and and the government from unlawful sarts assaults and encroachments of all persons and times Yeah, what do you mean? What do you what are you asking?

Matt (25:45.826)
I just like that we have to protect the government from unlawful behavior because the government makes the law. So I'm just trying to like work this out in my head. Like if the government passes a law saying that you have no property, then that is a lawful means of taking away your property.

Shawn (25:54.691)
this is.

Shawn (26:02.138)
We believe that a man should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed.

Matt (26:12.182)
Of course, that's just saying we believe in civil courts. But we also read in Paul, right, in the New Testament that we should not go to the courts for those kinds of things. I'm sorry, Melanie was making a point. Sorry, Melanie, go ahead.

Shawn (26:21.726)
Yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Melody. Sorry.

Melanie Miles (26:22.203)
It's okay, it's okay. So let's just operate under government exists for the benefit of man. We can just leave it at that for now and say, as members of a society, it's our job to help other people in the society work towards a better quality of life. And I think we as an American public have shown ourselves to be really bad at being generous and taking care of the lowest among us.

Shawn (26:31.462)
Okay. Okay.

Melanie Miles (26:51.619)
So if we as a people are failing to take care of people, then it's only fair that the government intercedes and says, hey, you guys aren't taking care of the lowest among you, so we're going to tax you and force you to take care of the lowest among you. I think that is well within the rights of government. I think that is the obligation of government.

Matt (27:07.224)
I like where you're headed with that. I like where-

Or how about this, that government is the, it's of the people, as Sean was just saying, by the people and for the people. And so if the government chooses to levy a tax that's higher on some people than on other people, that's just we, the people deciding that the best way for us to take care of everybody is for some of us to give a little bit more and some of us to give a little bit less. And then that's perfectly lawful and just.

Shawn (27:36.158)
But that is what happens. That's exactly what happens. But for us to default to our solution in society in order to take care of our poor is our government and our taxes is the wrong approach.

Melanie Miles (27:52.119)
it should be our default solution but I think it's the necessary solution with the world we live in now.

Matt (27:57.046)
Yeah, Sean, you guys have failed us. Capitalism has failed us. The generosity of the rich and wealthy has failed us. So... You have nothing to lose but your chains.

Melanie Miles (28:03.419)
Proletariats of the world unite.

Shawn (28:03.454)
But, but the...

Melanie Miles (28:07.2)
you

Shawn (28:09.662)
But you even, but you even, talked before this podcast, you even said it yourself, man, like you're the one that's in the house of the poor giving assistance and helping. You're the one that is representing your church who is giving the assistance to the poor and helping. And the government has these programs that enable that person. See, here's the problem with government being our default to that. The government is people spending other people's money on other people in ineffective ways.

Matt (28:25.955)
Yes.

Shawn (28:38.556)
And that money is not sacred, which it should be. This is money that Melanie worked hard to earn. And it's not treated in a sacred way the way that the church would in helping. So yeah, government is a very poor steward of that kind of a program. Very bad at it.

Melanie Miles (28:44.155)
Hahaha

Matt (28:53.858)
Well, I don't want to help the poor. I just want to take the money from these people because they're ungrateful. We lower their taxes. They didn't say thank you. I'm President Trump and Sean is Zelensky, right? And I say, you didn't even say thank you. We lowered your taxes. La la la la la. You're not gracious at all. We're going to take away everything we gave you. This is the way we should treat Americans who are mad about their taxes. You guys, if you're mad about your tax rate, you're just President Zelensky begging America for something that no matter how much we do, it won't be good enough for you.

Melanie Miles (28:59.822)
you

Melanie Miles (29:14.341)
You

Matt (29:23.948)
So fine. Pay more taxes.

Shawn (29:26.672)
I like it. like this episode. view you as Sam the Eagle and Donald Trump now. Amazing.

Matt (29:32.462)
Hey speaking of that, a Fox News survey because Donald Trump is approaching his hundred days in office. For those of you who don't study the executive branch, which I do study, I love the executive branch, but for those of you who don't study,

Melanie Miles (29:32.889)
Hehehehehe

Shawn (29:47.23)
Don't be don't be so hotty toddy Matt we all study those just kidding we're not nerds sorry

Matt (29:52.814)
So when you're elected president of the United States, you get this what we call honeymoon period and it's typically a hundred days. So most of the things a president accomplishes in their whole term of office happens in that first hundred days. And by the time you get to the end of your first year, you're very unlikely to get anything done. So we're nearing the end of Trump's first hundred days, which historically would suggest whatever he's going to get done.

This is what he's done in his first hundred days. So Fox News did a survey and they said, hey, what do people think about Trump? And it's in the show notes so you can read it. I don't want to go through and talk about what all of America thinks about Trump, but overall his approval rating is low. His approval rating on the economy, which has always been his strongest thing, is declining. His approval rating, voter dissatisfaction with the direction of the country is like 60%. Don't like the way the country's headed.

Shawn (30:24.722)
Interesting.

Matt (30:51.758)
and his overall approval rating is lower than any other president except for himself. No, he's the lowest of all time. He was the first lowest in his first 100 days in his first term. Now he's the second lowest of all time. So my question is, how do you guys rate Trump's first 100 days in office? If all we're gonna get from Trump is what we got from the first 100 days, how do you feel about it?

Shawn (31:19.518)
Well, let's give it a scale, right, out of 10.

Matt (31:21.344)
Okay, yeah, out of 10.

Shawn (31:23.709)
Melanie.

Melanie Miles (31:26.657)
I can't think of a single thing he's done that I've liked, but I haven't been thinking about it for very long.

Shawn (31:32.808)
Single thing? Really?

Matt (31:36.972)
Okay, so based on that you're gonna give him a.

Melanie Miles (31:40.251)
probably like a 0.5. No, like I don't want to be that person. I'm going to keep thinking and see if I can find something to up the rating.

Shawn (31:43.895)
wow!

Matt (31:45.324)
Yeah, yeah Well, that's

Well, his disapproval is higher than his approval rating. It depends on issue by issue, but overall, more people disapprove of Trump than approve of him. And on every issue, you can ask about more people dislike what he has done than likes what he's done. So if you were to say, don't like anything he's done, I'm sure there are a lot of Americans that agree with you.

Shawn (32:11.658)
Yeah, I mean, but half right. That's always going to most most of the time that's going to be the case with every administration half hate what he's doing half like what he's doing half like Biden half hate Biden right.

Matt (32:14.156)
Yeah.

Matt (32:21.376)
Yeah, but, but do know where Biden was at the end of his first hundred days?

Shawn (32:25.822)
Yeah, wasn't he at like 50? What was he at? yeah, that's big. Do you know where he was at at the end?

Matt (32:29.358)
65. Yeah. Well, right. Yeah. So by the end you tank, right? Do you know the only other president that has the similar numbers to Trump? Like if you say, okay, let's go back like historically who has a similar pattern to where Trump is in his second term, it would be George W. Bush in 2004. So George W. Bush in 2004 kind of started middle of the road and then

Every single policy he talked about in his first hundred days, which at the time was privatized social security and stuff like that, the decline, decline, declined. And then it just continued until Bush left the White House, one of the least popular presidents ever. So Trump's kind of on that path.

Shawn (33:11.954)
don't you think? But that could have like, like fit that could have gone a different direction, right? You have four years to watch what these guys do. We have no idea what direction Trump's gonna but Matt, I'll give my rating and then you give your rating. I think Trump's about a seven, six or seven.

Matt (33:17.506)
Yeah, yeah, sure.

Yeah, okay.

Matt (33:27.278)
Ooh, okay.

Shawn (33:29.694)
Do you think that even gets higher or low?

Matt (33:31.438)
I think that's so high. I do know that they did this survey where they asked people, do you regret who you voted for? And only 3 % of Republicans regret who they voted for.

Shawn (33:43.836)
Yeah, exactly. Which I didn't vote for him by the way. I did not. But did you see today? So here, here's why I would maybe tick, tick more points off. The, the, yeah, his emphasis on anti global. I don't know. I don't want to use those words, but did you see the picture today? That's going viral. It's at the Pope's funeral and there's a photo of this.

Matt (33:47.286)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn (34:09.032)
big, vast, amazing room and in the middle, and I think it looks pretty candid. Like it looked like it was like, Hey, can we talk for a minute? There's this picture of Donald Trump and Zelensky sitting at two chairs, like literally almost face to face, just hunched over in like a really what looks like a sincere discussion. And it's going viral because two days ago, Putin, who is signaling that he's talking about peace and wants peace, sends a bunch of rockets into Kiev, into civilian areas, right? Just awful and devastating.

Matt (34:36.278)
Right, he's been doing it, Right.

Shawn (34:38.16)
And Trump, for the first time, starts saying things like, maybe I was wrong about Putin. This guy maybe does not want peace. Maybe he is escalating instantly. And he said in the last couple of days, like, whoa. And all of us were like, yeah, duh, you idiot. Like, open your eyes. But at least he's starting to finally see that or signal that. And so he's been wrong. I've ticked him down because of his approach to Ukraine. I mean, we're biased, but.

Matt (35:04.45)
Yeah, for sure.

Shawn (35:04.72)
I like that he's at least in the last few days signaling the other way. So I don't know. There's too much time left to see if he's going to do a good job or not. What do you rate him at?

Matt (35:13.56)
But in his first 100 days, my, so if I.

Shawn (35:17.048)
yeah. I give him more higher points because I like Doge. I like what he's doing in that area. I know you don't. I know you hate it. There's theories. Yeah, we disagree. I don't think the government is created, Melanie, to be the largest employer in the world. I don't think that's the point of government is to be our boss. So I have no problem with people not building their careers on government. I don't know. Maybe disagree with that.

Matt (35:24.95)
Yeah, that's okay. We can disagree.

Matt (35:46.296)
So I'm gonna give Trump a 10 on his first 100 days, but for reasons that nobody would expect.

Shawn (35:50.27)
Shut up. Shut up. What?

Melanie Miles (35:52.592)
I'm curious. Share your reasons.

Matt (35:54.082)
There is this, there is this, what I consider poisonous element of the Republican party. Like I'm a lifelong Republican and there are these elements of the Republican party that I absolutely dislike and I wish that they would go away and I wish that they would be discredited. And I give Trump a 10 because he has elevated all of those people in the Republican party for everybody to see. And he has made the Republican brand MAGA.

Shawn (36:18.738)
Hahaha!

Matt (36:23.99)
And this didn't happen in the first term. In the first term, there were people that were resisting Trump from within the Republican party. And now those people are all gone and it's all MAGA all the time. And as a Republican, I give him a 10 because I say Trump is what I've always thought he was. And now he's showing this to everybody and it's not popular. Like I understand like there's some like hardcore MAGA people that like him, but overall he's killing the Republican brand, which makes me happy.

because it creates opportunities for new people in the Republican party to emerge. I'm to give him a 10 because I believe he's done exactly what he wanted to do in his first hundred days and it's tanking his presidency. But I love it as a Republican because I have hope that I can get my party back someday.

Shawn (37:10.29)
Matt, you're them.

Melanie Miles (37:10.363)
So is that you rating him as a president or as a social figure?

Matt (37:14.626)
I'm rating him as a president. I think that Trump went into this first hundred days with a strategy and a plan of exactly what he wanted to do. And I think he's done exactly what he wanted to do. So I will give him a 10 on that because he did everything he wanted to do in his first hundred days. And as a Republican, I'm going to give him a 10 because thank goodness, like now everything he is and everything I said to people, this is who he is and this is what he'll do. And they said, you're exaggerating, you're crazy. That's insane. Everybody gets to see it now.

And some Republicans are going to love it. And I think Sean loves some of the things like Doge hates some of the other things, but there's no more fence sitters, right? There's no more people in the Republican party. Like we know who Trump is and who's on his side and we know who's out there and who's against him. And Republicans can choose who they want going forward. And then we know what Americans are going to choose going forward. Cause there's no more like pandemic to blame or some other media to blame. No, Trump did it. He had it. This is what he did.

Shawn (38:12.082)
Matt, you're the master of backhanded compliments. gets a 10. He gets a 10 from you because he's he screwed it all up.

Matt (38:22.36)
But Sean, you have to agree with me that his supporters don't think he's screwing it up. Right? Right. So I have to give him a... Did you say the country?

Shawn (38:27.356)
No, they do not. Absolutely. They love what he's doing. Yeah, half the country loves what he's doing.

Shawn (38:35.11)
Half of the country loves what he's doing.

Matt (38:36.296)
no, I wouldn't say half the country. I'd say one third of the country, 33 % of the country, because I don't think all Republicans love what he's doing. I'd say most Republicans, Sean, would be kind of where you're at, where they're like, there's some things I'm happy that have changed, but there's other things that are way, way, way, bad. And we're just going to kind of wait and see. You're not happy about it.

Shawn (38:46.226)
okay.

Shawn (38:57.054)
I think you're right, the wait and see side, this whole crazy tariff thing can either be the worst disaster of all time or it's going to change the landscape of the world and it's going to be a good thing. We don't know. We're going to wait and see.

Matt (39:11.382)
Yeah, I know what's going to happen. So I give them a 10. Hey, I listened. The Democrats, by the way, have played it so well, right? They didn't like it. They have Trump owns everything, right? This point forward, Trump cannot blame the Democrats for anything in the economy anymore. It's all his economy.

Shawn (39:13.95)
Take your crystal ball out.

Shawn (39:20.923)
No they haven't!

Shawn (39:31.452)
Yeah, that's true. That's true.

Melanie Miles (39:32.315)
I don't think that's gonna keep him from blaming them, if it goes south.

Matt (39:35.072)
Let him try. Of course he's going to try if things go bad, right? But, but, but America sees who he is and what he is. And to me, you got to give a president a 10 for that. And whether, whether this actually leads to good things, like some Republicans are hoping for, or whether it leads to terrible things, which is what some academics think is going to happen. Kudos to Trump for owning it all in the first hundred days. And if I'm right,

then the Republican party is going to look fundamentally different in four years from now. If I'm wrong, good for him. You get a 10 because you made MAGA take over the whole party and made people like me leave it forever.

Shawn (40:13.01)
So he gets a 10.

Matt (40:17.294)
Alright, I know I kind of

Melanie Miles (40:18.489)
Hehehehe

He's maximizing what he can do with the title of president.

Matt (40:25.878)
Yeah, yeah.

Melanie Miles (40:27.621)
We can respect that.

Shawn (40:27.976)
Yeah, it's, well, it's interesting. Yeah.

Matt (40:29.708)
Yeah, I would have taken a different approach. Joe Biden clearly took a different approach. Like we'll see what historians say, but Joe Biden, because he was a Senator for so much of his life, strongly appreciated the value of legislation in getting things done because legislation is very hard to overturn in courts of law. And it's very hard to overturn with executive orders. So legislation has a staying power. Like we're still fighting about Obamacare.

Melanie Miles (40:33.851)
You

Matt (40:58.414)
because that happened through legislation, right? When you choose to do everything with executive order and all that stuff, there's not a lot of staying power to that policy, but.

Shawn (41:00.254)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn (41:06.118)
Well said. That's your best point you've made. That was wonderful.

Matt (41:10.004)
Okay, let's talk about inheritance, Sean.

Shawn (41:13.15)
Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about we just finished talking about tyrants and authoritarianism. Let's definitely talk about this topic

Melanie Miles (41:13.381)
You

Matt (41:15.681)
I love

Now we've talked on this podcast before frequently, especially Levi goes down this path of like when you die, your money should go to the government or something like that. So we're not going to take that take on this big question today. So I don't know how to say the guy's name right, but he's the one that founded Zappos Zappos.com. think they sold shoes. He built a very large company and he died unexpectedly.

in 2015 or maybe 2017. And so there's been a fight going on for like the last eight or so years about like what should happen to his estate because he had hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth. Well, recently somebody found a document that he made in 2015, which is his will. And if the question is like, well, why didn't they discover it sooner? The person who he gave this document to had Alzheimer's disease and literally forgot.

that he had this person's will. And so this person with Alzheimer's recently died. And if someone was going through his things, they're like, whoa, here's a will from the Zappos guy. Okay, really do. I should have a whole show just about those kinds of crazy coincidences. So in his will, which I imagine his family and friends are contesting, but it also says in the will, if you contest this, you get nothing. So we'll see what happens. Yeah.

Shawn (42:19.599)
Wow.

Shawn (42:26.878)
That's the kind of detail you love. That's the kind of C-span detail that you love,

Melanie Miles (42:36.172)
you

Melanie Miles (42:44.555)
dang.

Matt (42:46.382)
but he decided that he wanted to deliver a wow factor to the people who he included as beneficiaries in his will. So he structured it in such a way to create gifts that would create a memorable and meaningful experience. He allocated over $50 million and Las Vegas properties to trusts that are set up to allow recipients to live in the wow, because apparently he cared about living in the wow. Okay, from my perspective.

This is a complete and total waste of money. And so my question, this is the big question. Wouldn't it be better if people who earned their wealth from the growth of a company, like in this case, Zappos.com, were required to give all of their money to the employees of that company when they die?

Shawn (43:35.592)
Yeah, Matt, Matt, so only a true tyrant or authoritarian would dare attempt to require people to do with their own stuff and their own money and their own property the way that you want it to be done. Look at that. Look at that. You deciding what other people should do with their own stuff. Uh-huh.

Matt (43:49.249)
Well, he only got-

Matt (43:54.668)
Well, well, we're recognizing that it takes a community to build a company like Zappos.com. Sure, he's the CEO, but he doesn't get there without hundreds and perhaps thousands of people sacrificing each day to build that company.

Shawn (44:06.846)
Okay, okay, but the relationship between an employer and an employee is a beautiful one. It's a free exchange, void of coercion, void of deception, two people choosing for themselves how they want to live their lives. One of them says, yes, I will do certain tasks in exchange, freely exchanging for a certain amount of money or benefits. And that is a free exchange. That is the arrangement they went into. There is no caveat on there that says,

Matt (44:29.272)
Sure. Sure.

Shawn (44:35.908)
We daddy government is going to say that that was an unfair exchange that you both freely entered into.

Matt (44:41.24)
Well, sure. Well, those contracts are always disputed, right? Government has to oversee those contracts. There's things you can and can't put in contracts by law.

Shawn (44:49.694)
99 % of the time there's a free exchange happening. What do you mean? Like the people

Matt (44:52.24)
you

I'm saying, Sean, all I'm saying is, isn't it a better free exchange if you enter into this agreement to work for a company? And then as part of that agreement is when the person who started the company dies, all that wealth goes to everybody who works there.

Shawn (45:07.454)
Okay, that's a different question. You're saying don't force it. You're... Go ahead, Melanie.

Melanie Miles (45:08.461)
I really think the employee

I just don't think the employer-employee dynamic is as beautiful as you think it is, at least not all the time. Because you have the employers who have the means to give resources to whoever they want to give resources to. And then you have the employees who need resources. They aren't going to survive without a job. So they have to go to a company, and there's an inherent imbalance in the power dynamic.

Shawn (45:17.818)
Okay, go for it. Yeah, that's good. Go for it.

Shawn (45:29.66)
Wait. Keep it. Melanie.

What you're saying, I think you've learned this from your father. What you're saying is that people are pathetic and people don't have the ability to do well in life. What you're saying is so many people like the employee, this is the left view of people, of individuals. People are not good. People are not effective. They need someone to take care of them. But that's not the truth. That employee is so valuable to the employer and

Matt (45:39.594)
It's true. It's true.

Melanie Miles (45:46.948)
No!

Matt (45:58.487)
Okay.

Melanie Miles (46:00.385)
No, no, I'm-

Shawn (46:06.002)
they are willingly entering into that free exchange and that employee is saying, this is the life that I want. I want to do X amount and I don't want to do more because they very, very well could go and start their own business and become an employer. They don't want to. And so the exchange is beautiful.

Matt (46:23.47)
So Sean, I'm gonna give you...

Melanie Miles (46:23.513)
I just think like I've lived a lot of life as a minimum wage employee who said I don't have the resources to start something beautiful on my own. Like not where I'm at right now. So I have to just take what I can get. When I was 16 in high school, I did not.

Shawn (46:34.846)
you do know that is the wrong attitude Melanie. Yeah, but you weren't even an adult. Now you're an adult. You're a return missionary. You're the smartest person I know. You are a charismatic you have like seriously you are everything there. The sky is the limit. Honestly, like I would not be shocked if you rule the world someday. And but if you get stuck in the mentality of no, I'm not good enough. I don't have the resources. I don't

Matt (46:40.728)
Sean.

Matt (46:57.613)
Yes.

Shawn (47:02.93)
That's garbage. Most people who are employers today didn't start with the resources.

Matt (47:08.44)
Okay, Sean, here's my example. My sons, well, first of all, when Melanie was at home, she said, dad, I wanna get a job while I'm in high school. And I said, no, you can't get a job. She wasn't allowed to do that because she was a minor and I could control her life. Okay, so then my sons say, I wanna get a job. And I say, perfect, let me write up a contract. The contract says, if you get any grade below a B, you have to quit your job.

Shawn (47:21.724)
Yeah.

Matt (47:31.502)
It says that 50 % of your money that you earn is gonna go into your mission fund and 10 % is gonna go to tithing and you can keep the other 40 % as personal spending with certain caveats. Like if you do certain things I don't like, then I can penalize you and force you to put a higher percentage of your income into your mission savings. And both of my sons entered into that agreement. Nobody coerced them. They signed the contract that they were given and both of them, from the moment they signed it, complained to me incessantly saying,

Shawn (47:50.142)
Okay.

Shawn (47:56.979)
Well.

Matt (48:01.09)
This is not fair. I'm earning this money and you're making me put it in savings. And I say, but you, you signed the paper, you agreed to it.

Shawn (48:05.18)
Right. Right.

Right, but that is a, these are minors, right? These are children, these are kids. That's a huge difference. We're talking about consenting adults. And you as the parent have over the children the ability to do whatever you want, right? They are completely dependent upon you. Adults are not, adults are not. Adults.

Matt (48:12.737)
Sure, sure.

Matt (48:28.748)
Yes. But they might, but even if you're not completely dependent, Sean, there are situations in life that compel a person to enter into an agreement that might be suboptimal for them. They might not be maximizing their full potential when they're entering into that contract. And they might not be getting all of the things that they're hoping for, but they don't have a choice because there's not another option available to them. Right? Like,

Shawn (48:54.984)
This is the big difference between our philosophies. You view people as inable, unable to make decisions for themselves. And I disagree with that wholeheartedly.

Matt (49:07.586)
I'm not saying they're unable to make decisions. I'm saying they're unable to advocate for the full value of their labor.

Shawn (49:15.678)
And I disagree and maybe it takes time to learn like Melanie maybe it takes like it's at 19 Maybe you need experience to learn how to advocate for the value of your labor But now you're 22 You know how much you know better how to do it and you will continue to learn how to do it and you will eventually get to the point if you don't believe That you don't have that ability then you will you will get there. It's a choice you make

Matt (49:18.092)
like interns, right?

Matt (49:28.663)
No?

Matt (49:44.302)
Well, how about this idea where it's not the government, Sean, but not the government. The government just creates a law that says, it's not the government taking it away. It's just a part of the contract, right? It's a part of a, the government creates a special benefit or some, I don't know, the government creates an incentive of some kind, right? We, we, we regularly say to companies, you should provide money for health insurance. You should.

Shawn (49:50.568)
HAHAHAHA

Melanie Miles (49:51.594)
You

Shawn (50:06.398)
Just a moment.

Matt (50:13.528)
provide money, should match 401ks or something like that. You should help have a retirement fund. We just say then a business should, every employee who enters into a contract with a business, the agreement is that the wealth of the CEO upon their death goes to the business. And if the CEO has no wealth because they've given it away to charity, fine. But if anything that they have left, it cannot go to their children.

It has to go to the employees of the company that helped them earn that wealth.

Shawn (50:46.194)
That is a tyrannical, communist, Marxist approach to the world. And it is actually evil.

Matt (50:48.039)
You

Melanie Miles (50:52.1)
And how would the government motivate that incentive? Because it wouldn't come into play until after the CEO has died, at which point they really have no stakes in the well-being of their company.

Matt (51:03.8)
Well, you motivate them to put it into the contracts that they enter into with employees, right? You give them a tax break.

Melanie Miles (51:09.295)
but then they just find some legal ease to change the contract.

Matt (51:12.994)
Well, then you can find about that later on. But I think that, you know, the way that we got to employers providing health insurance, because it didn't used to be that way, was it was really dangerous to work on the railroad. And so they couldn't find people to work on the railroad, but they said, if you come work on the railroad, we have hired our own doctors and we have our own hospitals. So if you get injured, you can get healthcare through us for free. And so then other employers were like, hey, that's a really good idea.

and they started doing similar kinds of things and they had other ways of developing it. And that's where the idea started that an employer should provide that.

Shawn (51:46.054)
Matt, what you just described is the free market. That is capitalism in its purest form right there.

Matt (51:50.604)
Hahaha

Melanie Miles (51:51.195)
You

Matt (51:54.008)
Well, that's where it started, but then the government got involved. now employers have to provide health insurance for their companies or their employees.

Melanie Miles (51:56.688)
You

Shawn (51:56.786)
and

So now the reason some principles, because I know that you don't like scripture very much, but this scripture is very clear. We believe that no government can exist in peace except such laws are framed and held in violet as will secure to each. I see Matt doesn't like the scripture. Each as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscious, the right and control of property and the protection of life. That is the point of government.

Matt (52:11.894)
jeez.

I love it, I love it, Sean. I love scripture.

Matt (52:25.098)
Mm-hmm. We're not talking about...

Melanie Miles (52:26.915)
So hear me out, is money actually property?

Shawn (52:28.67)
Go ahead, Nolani.

Matt (52:30.904)
That's right. It's not you should not own money.

Shawn (52:32.437)
really, what is it? What is it? What is it then, if it's not proper?

Melanie Miles (52:35.405)
A plot of land upon which you reside.

Shawn (52:38.832)
No, what is money if it's not property?

Matt (52:38.89)
Hear me out about, how about this one, Sean? Once you're dead, how about this, Sean? Once you're dead, you own no property. So we're not talking about taking property away from somebody. We're talking about when they're gone, what happens?

Melanie Miles (52:42.459)
I don't know.

Shawn (52:44.316)
Hahaha!

Shawn (52:51.902)
Matt, when I before that's ridiculous. Matt, when I die, I have already decided if I've already, this is the way the law works. If I have not decided and dictated what I will do with my property. Yeah. Then it goes to a court and the court decides what to do with it. But when I decide what to do with it, like give some knuckleheads a wow factor life. That is my property and I have chosen what to do with it.

Matt (52:57.485)
huh.

Matt (53:08.91)
But we-

Matt (53:19.086)
You just told me that the law is what allows you to do that. And I'm just suggesting we change the law. Change the law so that when you're dead, we all agree you can't take it with you. So you don't get to say what happens to it when you're gone. You're gone, you're gone. And it's...

Melanie Miles (53:23.576)
You

Shawn (53:32.168)
I'm sorry, I just read to you that it is God's law that tells us what to do with our property.

Matt (53:35.462)
The property. But who once you're dead is you don't have property, Sean. So that verse doesn't apply because when you're gone, you have no property.

Shawn (53:41.384)
But that's, we just covered that. We just covered that. If I dictate what I choose to do with my property before I die to give it to my children, then that is the control of the right and control of property.

Matt (53:51.214)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Matt (53:57.976)
So what you're saying to me, Sean, is that we have laws in place that say that if you fill out a document before you die, you can have some say in what happens to your property. But if you don't fill out that document before you die, then the government gets to have say.

Shawn (54:11.302)
Matt, what would happen in that situation is that everyone would just start giving their money away before they die. I would literally just put it. Matt, they would give it to the same people. They would give it an inheritance. It would go to their children. It would not go to the employees. It would go to their children.

Matt (54:16.8)
I would love that. We should do that. Good.

Matt (54:26.306)
Well, then he could be a lot more satisfied in creating the wow factor while he's alive and he can actually enjoy seeing people have their wow factor. I have no problem doing that while you're alive. If you want to give your money away while you're alive, do it. Once you're gone, it goes to the employees who built the company. It's hard to persuade you of these things, Sean, but I really enjoy trying. I really think it's a lot of fun trying.

Shawn (54:31.614)
That's true. That's a good point.

Melanie Miles (54:33.243)
you

Shawn (54:49.554)
I want to hear Melanie's final, like not final, but what do think of all this, honestly?

Melanie Miles (54:55.139)
I honestly think that it's wrong that someone would have enough money that they could assign arbitrary wow factors. I just think the fact that there are people who spend money so frivolously when there are other people struggling to stay alive does not sit right with me. And I don't know what the perfect solution to that is, but

Shawn (55:13.086)
Can you tell?

Can you, can you, since this is the latter day lens, can you tell me, there a, a God, a principle or a spiritual principle that, that, says that is there sprint principles that say you're wrong if you have too much money? You're,

Melanie Miles (55:31.033)
I just think a lot about the book of Mosiah, right? When they're implementing the church and these people who are converted to God and his gospel want to give of what they have. And they keep enough to have a comfortable life, right? I think it's fair if people want to be able to live comfortably and just give beyond that. But it pains them to see others who are struggling, right? They feed the hungry, they clothe the naked. And I think that's what we should be doing, not

Shawn (55:58.216)
But those are, yeah.

Melanie Miles (56:01.389)
allocating wow factors to people who already have enough.

Matt (56:06.03)
Sean, you're gonna make me come up with verses that show that Melanie's right. Is that really what you want? You want me to, I'll open my list, my Marxism list in my scriptures.

Melanie Miles (56:15.259)
Like, don't get me wrong, I want a boat one day. I would love to have a boat. But if sacrificing a boat means that somebody else gets a meal. we lost Sean.

Matt (56:26.414)
that's okay, go ahead.

Melanie Miles (56:28.217)
Somebody else gets a meal with all three food groups. I'm in favor of that.

Matt (56:33.068)
Okay, Melanie, you get the last word because Sean left us. So we're not gonna share the scriptures that say all the things why money is wrong because it's not fun unless Sean's there to get mad about it. Hey, listener, thank you so much for joining us this week. If you have any comments on the show or you wanna join the podcast and let us know what you think, send us an email. Otherwise, talk to you again next week.

Melanie Miles (56:43.931)
you