1763: Zillow Fiasco, Rich Dad's Robert Kiyosaki, $500 Profit Per Hour, Inflation Induced Debt Destruction, David Harsanyi, Euro Trash

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Jason Aloha from the Big island of Hawaii. Hey, it's Andrew Freitas from Vancouver, Washington. Yesterday I met with a notary here on the island, signed for a cash out refi for my very first property I bought through your network, my cashed out refi. I got all my money back out of the property and put another 6,500 in my pocket. My liability is now zero in the property. I've got some extra cash in my pocket and all while on vacation in Hawaii.

Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it.

He's.

He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to episode 1763. 1763. And thank you for joining us today. A lot in the news, of course. The Zillow story continues to unfold. And one of our team members, Patrick, posted in our inner circle of the 650 homes that were analyzed by Zillow or analyzed by. Because of the Zillow crisis, I should say. Or the Zillow crisis is the wrong word. Fiasco, shenanigans again. We have a dysfunctional world where we have these overfunded tech companies. If they just had a bunch of real estate agents do this, they would have been in much better shape. But the arrogance of big tech. Yes, the arrogance of big Tech. You know what they say? Well, not what they say, but a great quote by Napoleon. This is one of my favorite quotes and it is a lesson for all of us. The most dangerous moment comes with victory. Why is that true? Why is it true that the most dangerous moment comes with victory? Well, obviously we are all human and we become prideful, we become complacent, we become arrogant. And we make mistakes when we are victorious. Now, Zillow was not victorious in any certain moment in particular. Well, maybe at their IPO years ago. But you know, they're another overfunded big tech company basically, right? And they thought they could do it better. They thought they had it figured out. They thought their algorithm, their zestimate, was so perfect that they could just go out and throw money at the market. And they massively overpaid. Now they're selling those properties back at a lower price than they paid. But again, this is not a big deal for the real estate market overall. I know a few people are saying that, folks, we gotta really learn that we are in an overhyped click bait world. And look, some of my content creator friends are the masters of clickbait. And I am not a fan, okay? But I'll admit I have to succumb to it a little bit myself because otherwise no one will listen, no one will, no one will find me, right? You know, it's, it's just a balance. But clickbait sells, right? It's the modern version of the old media adage, if it bleeds, it leads. So the sensationalism, the yellow journalism, it's everywhere nowadays. It has just become incredibly magnified in today's world. So anyway, these 650 homes, the cities in which the company had the highest percentage of homes that were listed below the purchase price were San Diego, Phoenix and Mesa, Arizona. So if you're thinking for a moment this Zillow thing is some, like, nationwide concern. Not even close. You know, they're only in several markets, big metros usually, and usually the markets that are included in the case, Shiller index, those 20 markets where 75% of them, 15 of them are in cyclical markets that we wouldn't care about anyway. So San Diego, well, I'll round off for speed here. 94% in San Diego, 93% in Phoenix and 92% in Mesa, Arizona. So these are the markets where they've really, really messed up. Messed up badly. But again, this really shouldn't be a surprise. Patrick also posted another article about this. In our inner circle group, Redfin listed the place a few weeks after purchasing it from me for roughly the same price they bought it. And I watched and waited for a sale, and waited and waited and waited. The house sat. Meanwhile, the price kept dropping. It finally sold four months later and Redfin ate a big loss. Now Redfin is another ibuyer like Zillow, but they didn't screw up as badly as Zillow, but they are another ibuyer and you know, included with Open Door. And even Keller Williams has one called Keller Offers there, there are several of them out there. And again, dysfunctional overfunded tech companies, right? You put tech in mix and you're going to get a ridiculous valuation and they're, they're just going to throw money at you because sadly these investors, these venture capitalists, the stock market itself at the IPO level or even before that at the mezzanine financing level for these companies, they just don't want to invest in real businesses, real industrial type companies that actually make things, that actually create things. These software companies are smoke and mirrors, right? They're like fiat money and they're printing fiat money through their stock. It's just a very dysfunctional thing. Anyway, this is the Redfin story, right? It says, all told, the company bought the place from me for roughly 9% more than they were able to get on the open market. They also carried the cost, so they had carrying costs, right? And they had fix up cost and maintaining the house. Well, it sat. So Zillow not the only guilty party here. Redfin also. But again, Zillow has done it in the biggest way and is certainly getting the most negative PR out of their mess. Now the interesting thing that I mentioned before on a prior episode is that there are some conspiracy theories floating around about this that this is maybe part of. Now this is my own interpretation of it, it's not what I've read or heard, but that it's maybe part of that concept of the giant bubble machine that Goldman Sachs was blamed for many years ago. But also the big banksters and all the rest, the whole thing is just, ah, it's a fiasco. It's not real business, not real business at all. Okay, so I was at Robert Kiyosaki's home, as I mentioned, on Sunday with the collective mastermind. And you know, I can't remember if I told you this, but I just want to tell you a funny thing. And he's got one of the rich dad books about it, right? So took a picture in front of one of his Ferraris, right? And the license plate says C. And the concept, which is another unfairness in society. But look, there are lots of unfairnesses, right? Unfairnesses? Is that a word? You can tell I'm not the A student, right? I don't know if that's a word. I think that's an invented word probably anyway, kind of like irregardless. I know that's an invented word. Anyway, so the A students work for C students and you know, I find that to be so true where the C students will be the people that Work wouldn't fit into the mold of school. They were generally bigger risk takers, generally more creative, more out of the box thinking and they just wouldn't kind of go along to get along. Right. So they end up hiring a students. And you know, I've just noticed that to be true so many times in life. It's really interesting. Not saying it's fair, not saying it's right, but it just is. That is the way the world is. And you know my philosophy. Stop complaining about everything and just align your interest with the forces, the drift of society that is much more powerful than any of us. Things that we are not going to change that we just simply need to take advantage of. We need to exploit these inefficiencies in the market and we do that in real estate all the time. And we, we help you do that here and of course reach out to us and we can help you with that extensively because that's one of the great things about the real estate market. It's inefficiency. The stock market, for example, is much more efficient. And by the way, I've got an episode coming up about this you're going to find quite fascinating, I think taking from an audio book that I was listening to on the airplane last night as I was flying back to Florida. So the inefficiencies in the market create opportunity and that's a good thing. It's a good thing for people who know what they're doing and are willing to take some degree of risk. But again, we tell you how to mitigate your downside risk quite substantially. So that's what we do here. Reach out to us. Jason hartman.com in the US 1-800-hartman you can call us. Okay. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the BLS reported its consumer price index, of course the cpi, this is the most widely used measure of inflation rose 0.9% in October, exceeding earlier projections of 0.6%. Now remember, that's just one month after rising 0.4% in September. It was ready for this.

So here's the number. 6.2% higher year over year, the core inflation rate. Now remember, I've taught you about what's called core inflation or the core rate that excludes volatile. It's too volatile, so we shouldn't measure it. Food and energy prices. Right. Well, good luck surviving without volatile food and energy because that's what we all need and we all use it. But that rose 4.6% year over year. So notice how the core rate is always lower than the overall cpi, the consumer Price index, which is always lower than reality because it's manipulated down through weighting, substitution and hedonic indexing. Those are the three primary ways they lie to us. That rose 4.6%. So where they're saying the CPI was at 6.2%, the core rate was only 4.6% year over year. But that was the largest 12 month increase since 1991.

That's three decades, folks. So the official rate of inflation now is at a three decade high. And of course we have to know that that number is manipulated lower than reality. So it's actually much higher. So I'm going to revise my estimate of real inflation. I've been saying it's about 10 to 12%. Of course, we all have our own personal inflation rate, so it differs for everybody because we all have different spending patterns. But I'm going to revise the real inflation rate now and I'm going to say it's about 14% real inflation. And got home this morning, walked over to the grocery store and purchased a few things that I could carry with me in my little backpack, easily carry $43, got home, unpacked the groceries, and I'm thinking, what did I really get here? Not much. Not much at all. And with this whole news about the fertilizer shortage, we are bound to see prices go up a lot more. And again, philosophically terrible opportunity wise. Fantastic. Because we love inflation. We use my trademark technique that I've been teaching for many, many years, Inflation induced debt destruction. IIDD Inflation induced debt destruction to profit, to massively profit from this. To take advantage of the hidden wealth creator with real estate investments. Okay, one more thing before we get to our guests. We've got David Harsani here today as our guest portion of the show. But I was talking with one of our inner circle members who's also a member of the Collective. And we were sitting next to each other on Friday evening as we kicked off the Collective Mastermind at a beautiful cocktail reception under the stars. I was talking to Winston and Winston was telling me that he did a spreadsheet and he's got 150 units now, 150 properties. And he sent me the spreadsheet of it this morning. I invited him onto the podcast. He's going to come on, you're going to hear it right from him. But he was telling me that in the last year he has earned from appreciation alone. Just from appreciation alone. That doesn't include tax benefits, equity buildup, inflation induced debt destruction. All of the other Benefits of the properties. Right. Just from appreciation alone. Over $500 an hour, every hour of every week, of every day of every week of every month of every year. Think about that. Now, appreciation has been somewhat extraordinary, to be sure, coming out of the pandemic and so forth. But regardless, even if it was, see, I didn't say irregardless because that would have been bad. You know, that's just not a word.

But I think I made up another word on today's episode, actually. What was the word? Don't remember. I'm having a Biden moment. Okay.

So, yeah, can you imagine how awesome income property is? All of those properties just working for you? And we calculated, you know, how long he was going to sleep after our cocktail reception and how much he would make sleeping just from appreciation alone. Just. Just appreciation alone. And even if appreciation were more moderate, that number would probably be about 200 to maybe $225 per hour. Per hour. Now, you might be saying, hey, Jason. Well, 150 units, you know, that's a pretty big portfolio. Sure, but it's doable. We've got clients that are moving right in that direction. Now, you know, Winston purchased many of these properties before we even met, before he joined the collective and before he joined the empowered investor inner circle. But this can be done. It's realistic. And look, you don't have to do all this. Get yourself a dozen properties, get yourself two dozen or three dozen properties. And it's amazing, truly amazing. Like I always say, the old saying, people overestimate what they can do in a year and they underestimate what they can do in five years. So let us help you with that. We're here to help you and to help, you know, and to assist you in growing a fantastic income property portfolio. All right, let's get to our guest. Let's talk to David Harsany. I think you'll enjoy this interview. And here it is.

It is my pleasure to welcome David Harsanyi to the show. He is the senior editor at the National Review, a contributor to the New York Post, best selling author of Nanny State, which has a very long subtitle, so I'll skip it. And the People have Spoken and they Are Wrong. The Case Against Democracy. And his newest book, Euro Trash. Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. And I tell you, just by the title alone, I couldn't agree more. Having been born in Europe and visited many, many, many times over the years. Couldn't agree more. David, welcome.

Thank you for having me. I Appreciate it.

Yeah, it's good to have you. So give us the thesis of Eurotrash, if we don't already know from the subtitle.

Got to be pretty blunt with that, the title. So, you know, over the years, I noticed that many elites in our society, pundits, academics, politicians, increasingly so, keep telling us to look to Europe for answers to our problems. They view Europe as a more sophisticated place, as a place that deals with a less selfish place, a place that deals with problems in more better ways than we do. And I think that that's false. So in the book, I go through issue by issue to try to debunk a lot of the claims that I call them Europhiles here in America make about Europe and how great it is. And of course, Europe has many, many positive things. It's a wonderful place in many ways, but it's also struggling in other ways. And I am more concerned about the trajectory that Europe is in, and I think that that would be a bad trajectory for us to be on. So I essentially make the argument that America outperforms Europe in almost every way that matters, every quantifiable way that matters, every moral and societal way that really matters. And so that's basically the book.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. It's amazing to me that the folks mostly on the left, of course, want to make the US more like Europe now. I don't know why people don't just kind of look around when they go to Europe, right? It's so obvious, right? Europeans drive crappy little cars, they live in crappy little apartments, and they have these very minimalistic lives. Now, certainly one could argue, hey, minimalism is a great thing, or something like that, Right? That would be a different argument. But by every measure of standard of living, Americans just have it so much better. You know, of course, the history is great, the old buildings are beautiful, the art, et cetera, but that isn't Europe in the past many, many decades, if not a century. It's riding on a very old reputation. Why do you think this is a thing? Why do you think the Obamas of the world point this out as if it's something great? I think they kind of use the Scandinavian countries as. As an example of socialism when they're not socialistic, but they. They say they are, which is not true. But what do you. What do you think?

Well, I think part of that is that people do go to Europe and they go to touristy places and they see beautiful things, and then they believe that everyone in Europe lives that way. All the time. Like everyone lives a couple of blocks from Parliament or the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. Exactly. That's not what where they live. You live in the suburbs or you live in the dense city where the average house is probably, I don't have the exact number in front of you, but 1,000 square foot smaller than the average American house. Americans who live in suburbs live in what anyone in any time before today would consider a mansion. Right. And they live in huge homes with beautiful surroundings with many cars. You know, they live, they live very wealthy lives. One stat that really jumped out at me was that if you take Britain, per capita income, if you made Britain a state in the United States and their per capita income would be the second poorest after Mississippi. They are not rich in Europe in the way that we are. Some city states like Luxembourg and Monaco.

Do better per capita. But those aren't real nations. Certainly scaling those kinds of systems to 350 million people would be quite something, I think that the average person sees that. So they think Europe's great. As far as these technocrats go, they hate. It's not so much that they love Europe is that they just don't like the messiness of American life. They don't like the risk taking that goes on. They don't like the economic uncertainty that goes on. But we are a nation. This sounds romanticized, but we are a nation of self picked risk takers. People who come here took a risk just to be here. And it's a meritocracy in many ways. It's never perfect, but more than Europe. So I think those are two of the leading things that propel their, either their hate of America or their love of Europe.

Yeah. So, you know, Europe seems like a place, of course we're generalizing here, you have to just for time's sake. But it seems like a place that's just stuck in its history. And it seems like a place that is rooted in bureaucracy. You know, for example, I remember after one of my many trips to Europe, coming back, I posted or no, I think when I was there, I posted on my Facebook, I said, in America the customer is always right. In Europe the procedure is always right. And you know, it's just funny, you know, there's like this sort of stagnant sort of lack of creativity, which is odd because the whole continent, you know, where the Renaissance took place and it was born of this creativity that has been just completely suppressed, I think by bureaucracy. Thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great Point about Europe, it's never been great as far as bureaucracy goes. You know, that's always been a feature of Europe, of modern Europe, for a long time, in different ways. But now you have the European Union, which sets these centralized regulations that govern virtually everything you can do that.

Subsumes the continent, that takes away the individuality of different countries and their cultures and just creates this insipid place that's run by a bureaucracy. And that's why in America, you know, when we have this huge expansion of the state that a lot of people want, mostly Democrats, where you have a welfare state run, you know, in a bureaucratic state running things, you really strip America of its diversity, its real diversity. Not just, you know, your color, but the where. Do you live in the desert? Do you live on the beach? Do you live in the mountains? Do you live in an urban place or rural place? These things work because of federalism, because that people have freedom to do the things they want to do. And the ironic thing is that the European Union was actually based on the federalist idea of the United States. It exists to compete against the United States, but it's just grown, as bureaucracies always do, with mission creep, and undermined the flavor of Europe. And as you mentioned, it manifests, or as you alluded to, it manifests in them undermining entrepreneurship and creativity. The top 30 tech companies in the world. In that top 30, there's only one European company company, and the rest are almost all American and Chinese. That says something about a continent. It's not like Europe is a small place or a poor place. It should be much more competitive.

Yeah, it definitely should be. With what you just mentioned, I must ask you about Brexit. I'm guessing I could guess your take on Brexit, but if we gained our independence in 1776, maybe England just had theirs recently. What do you think?

Hope it's not too late for them. Yeah, I mean, that is. Our DNA is to say no to Europe. Our DNA is to leave Europe. Our DNA is to not want to live in a place of bureaucracy and of rules and to come to a place of meritocracy. So I think we get a lot of that from the British. I mean, I think our greatest ideas come from Europe. I think they've manifested in better ways here and matured in better ways, and we take them more seriously than Europe does. But Britain is this. The idea of America is initially a British idea. Right. So I'm always. Of all the European countries, I'm a big fan of Britain, you know, I want them to do well and I'm happy they left. And I think that it was simply a case that the British were not ready to allow their individual, their national traits, their individuality as a nation to be part of a big blob called the European Union. And I think the people unexpectedly, I guess, because I don't think anyone expected to prevail, Brexit fought back. And I think you might see that a little bit in Central Europe and Eastern Europe happening with Hungary and other countries. But I think it's a good sign not to say that they do everything right, but I think it's a good sign because you don't need to be part of this blob to compete with the United States. Many small countries around the world are successful. Singapore, let's say they don't need to be part of some big conglomerate, which is essentially just an economic blob. Right. There's not any kind of cultural distinction. The European Union is an invented thing that doesn't. No one wants to pick up a gun and fight for the European Union. And I should put, no one's going to pick up their musket and protect the European Union. It doesn't mean much to people.

It seems just like a very flawed idea from the beginning. I mean, the idea that really weak countries like Greece, Greece would be in the mix with really strong countries like Germany. I just don't know how that relationship could ever work.

Especially when Germany just dominates the relationship all the time. Right. And reminds me of the United States a little right now. Where you want. There are people who want to have a centralized government. The people of New York who live in Park Slope want to tell the people in Wyoming how to live their lives. That can't work. The American project does not work like that. Shouldn't work like that. So I think Europe is a good example for us not to be centralizing government as much.

Yeah. You know, the US is certainly just littered with problems. I mean, where would you start? Right. But talk to us a little bit about that tax, Value added tax and maybe what is that and why is that a thing in Europe? But it's. Some have suggested, some really bright people that I respect actually have thought maybe that's a good idea to solve some of the US's problems. Tell us about that and the take on that. I don't understand it very well.

Well, I am not an economist, but I am not opposed to a value added tax. That's a consumption tax. I think it's fair to Tax people for the things they consume rather than always taxing their investments or their profits or things like that. I think it dissuades people from investing and from taking risk. I don't want to do that. The problem with the value added tax is that no one in Washington is going to say, okay, listen, we'll eliminate income tax or bring it really low.

And then just, they're just going to add it.

It will just be an added tax. So that's what it is in Europe and in places like in Scandinavia, for instance, if, you know, you pay off the bat, you know, off the top. If you. In Sweden, let's say, I think your tax rate is going to be something like 59%. And on top of that you have a sales tax or, you know, consumption tax. It's a lot of money. So yeah, you have a lot of, you know, so called free things going on. But nothing's free. You're paying for it. And there's a big bureaucracy dealing with that. Basically Sweden and these countries are capitalistic nations with huge welfare states. Again, I just don't think Americans. We can't even raise taxes on the middle class now. The idea that they're going to pay 60% of their salaries in income tax is just, to me, just not realistic. You can't scale it to this country and people just won't do it.

You made me think of, sadly, funny thing that happened to me. I can't remember what country I think I was leaving, either Iceland or Norway or something like that. I was exiting the country and I had purchased some things. So I brought my receipt and at the airport, you know, they'll give you your money back or part of your money back. Right. And when I got the refund, I really didn't have any idea how much it would be. It was like 25%. And I said to the woman, I said, your sales tax is 25%. Here's what she said. Knowing that I'm obviously an American. Yeah, but we have free health care. That was the answer. You stupid Americans, you get sick and you'll go bankrupt. You know, that's what they all think of us.

I mean, people in America move to Florida, right, because they want to get away from more taxes. And there's a constant movement of people to states that have low taxes. Can you imagine asking them to pay for a gigantic welfare state? I just, you know, the rich can't afford to pay for all of that, despite what Bernie Sanders thinks.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. You know, there's this sort of pattern throughout history where a society in the beginning obviously starts and it struggles and it's, it's poverty stricken. And then, you know, if the people are industrious enough and bright enough, they become successful and then they become apathetic and comfortable and then they, you know, then the bureaucracy and the welfare estate expands. You know, we certainly saw it happen here a couple decades after World War II, right, where all these new agencies and the Great Society and all this disastrous stuff we're still, you know, stuck with in these iron triangles. Is that what happened in Europe? If you just sort of look at the history, you know, it's all these sort of once great places. And even on a state level, you know, my home state, California, it was a once great place and now it's just gone down the tubes. I think that's just sort of a cycle of things, isn't it?

In a way there was a, you know, I mean, the Austro Hungarian Empire had a massive bureaucracy that was very different, difficult to deal with. You know, the Prussian, you know, Prussian and the Germans came first, came up with the ideas of Social Security and stuff like that. So it's always been sort of, I think, part of Europe to have these kind of bureaucracies. But I think that after World War II, because of American help and because of American ideas, there was a massive boom in Europe and many countries had, you know, they were in their own languages called miracles, right in Germany and elsewhere. And they really adopted many of the free market ideas of Americans championed at the time and did very well. And for instance, everyone talks about Scandinavia and Sweden, but it wasn't until the 70s they started adopting the socialistic ideas. Before then they were very free market oriented and they grew using that system. So I think it's been progression. I mean, government always grows and the wealth. I've been thinking about this idea quite a lot lately where the richer we get, the more discontent we seem, which is weird. The more we have in the United States right now, a young person is richer than and safer than any person has ever been in history of the world. And yet they complain more about the state of things than anyone ever probably has. So that's confusing to me in some sense. But I think that, yeah, I mean, there's always mission creep and there's always government grows. That's its natural tendency. You know, the Roman Republic didn't. It wasn't an empire first and then a republic, it was a Republican, then an empire. So I'm always kind of cynical about what's going on. And I think that the role that I like, you know, I consider myself a classical liberal, and I would want the state to be small. But, yeah, I mean, I think that that's the natural evolution of these things. And in Europe, that's the case as well.

David, I understand that you're not an economist. However, I have to ask you, what do you think is next for the US Economy? We've had this massive amount of money printing. I mean, the government is just expanding. And one of the things I say about the pandemic is that it sort of checks all the boxes for totalitarian dictators, surveillance, control of money, currency, travel, just everything. You know, it really scares me. I mean, we are living in possibly a real inflection point in history. You know, the concentration of wealth and the inflation that we're starting to experience, you know, what's next?

Well, I was actually quite taken aback by how we reacted to the pandemic in the sense that it's not a very American.

Reaction to allow the state to say unilaterally, through fiat, without any debate, without any vote, that we will just shut down your business, that we will shut down your church, that you must wear this mask. I think that we were scared and people acted scared. And that is not really like I was talking about. The risk, the nature of risk that Americans usually embrace just didn't seem right to me. And it hasn't gotten. I mean, there is pushback now, but it is. I think it portends bad things.

And I think that, as you mentioned, when an emergency came, government took more power and the state took more power. And I think they never give that power up. So I think we're in a bad spot with that. And not just do we print money, not just did we throw $2 trillion into the economy last year or this year, even during what is, I think, the worst inflation we've had in decades, maybe three decades. So that, to me, makes no sense, the way that the administration dismisses concerns about this. Jen Psaki the other day said, oh, you'll have to wait a little longer for your treadmill. Right. I mean, well, inflation is a wealth. It destroys wealth. It's a tax on people, especially people who have savings, especially retired people. I mean, I think it could be devastating. And so I am concerned. Not even. Listen, even if I wasn't, if I was an economist and gave you a prediction, it would probably be wrong, because they're almost always wrong. But so I don't have a prediction other than to say I think that it is a very dangerous moment in the sense of government, expansion of power. I don't know if totalitarian, but in authoritarians, there's a faction in this country that is very comfortable with authoritarian ideas, meaning not like Nazi ideas, but compelling people to act certain ways. I think that's very concerning.

Speaking of which, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the censorship by tech companies and really the control of language. I mean, so many of the things Orwell wrote about just seem to be coming true. I mean, it's. It's incredibly disconcerting, this control over language through political correctness and banning people from platforms and. And this kind of stuff. Yeah, this is crazy.

Well, it's funny because for years, you know, people would say, this is Orwellian or that is Orwellian. It became sort of a trope and it didn't, you know, wasn't actually Orwellian what they were talking about.

Right.

But now we're actually. Yeah, now we're actually talking about Orwellian things, and not even in the way that people always imagine it. Orwell wrote an essay. It was an introduction to Animal House. Animal House.

Animal Farm. Animal Farm.

Think about. John Belushi wrote a.

And.

It wasn't about state censorship. It was about a society censoring itself. And that's what we're doing in many ways. So a society that's scared to say certain things because it doesn't want to hurt other people's feelings, but not because of politeness, but because they're scared to speak truth as they see it. And I think that's a very dangerous idea and a very dangerous trend. And with tech companies in Europe, for instance, you have government control kind of over tech companies and what they can and can't say. And that doesn't work either, because when you have a government without much power, then it just is always trying to undermine, you know, the opposition speech. So it's a very difficult. It's a very difficult problem. But, yeah, I mean, I am very worried about free expression. I think it's in trouble in Europe. It's much worse than here, even. I really don't have answers for that one because I don't want the state to get involved. But I also don't think that giant corporations, what they're doing is also authoritarian in a way, and I think that that's truly problematic.

Yeah, Well, I think antitrust laws were there for a reason, and that's what we need to be exploring. Exploring, David, any action items people can take from this and then give out your website.

Well, you can read my book I guess. I think that one of the most important things that we're not doing is teaching young people civics and why things are the way they are, why our system works the way it does, or should. I just notice a lot of young people don't know, don't believe in those things, but don't really understand them either. They don't understand why we don't have a majoritarian country, why our government is the way it is. So I think it's important for people to at least know it before they reject it and know history and put American history in context. People can read me@nationalreviewnro.com they can and New York Post sometimes and they can buy my book anywhere books are sold. Amazon and Barnes and Noble and places like that.

Good stuff. Well David, thank you so much for joining us and keep up the good work.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Do you ever wonder why mass inflation is still a thing threat to rich Countries? Some countries are privileged to have stable currencies. As the reserve currency of the world, the US Dollar has enjoyed an enviable position that most countries would die to have, except for the 1970s stagflation scare. The US has cruised along without many inflationary hiccups in its recent history. Some countries haven't been so lucky. At one point, Venezuela was one of Latin America's wealthiest countries. In fact, its wealth was so impressive that by the 1950s it became a magnet for migration from countries like Italy, Portugal and Spain. Oil was its primary export, but it had a growing steel and mining industry as well. Its currency, the Bolivar, was one of the strongest currencies in Latin America. In this regard, Venezuela was indeed exceptional because Latin American currencies tended to be very volatile. However, in the 1970s, Venezuela's economic model began to change. In the middle of that decade, its oil industry was nationalized. From there, the Venezuelan state began to embark on massive spending ventures and relied on high oil prices to finance such largesse. But when oil prices plummeted, economic reality set in. Government programs do not come cheap. Eventually, someone must pay the bill. In 1983, the Bolivar underwent its most significant devaluation to date, ending a relatively unblemished track record for the nation's currency. Although many believed that this was a temporary setback, things never went back to normal in Venezuela. Towards the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the country attempted a series of market based reforms with limited degrees of success. That said, the government could never contain the inflation beast. In 1989, inflation stood at 84%, poverty was growing and the Venezuelan populace was growing restless. Eventually they took to the streets, with some protesters resorting to acts of violence. The government response was rather brutal, leaving hundreds of people dead. Known as the Caracazo in 1989, this crackdown was a major turning point in modern Venezuelan history. Venezuela's otherwise robust democracy started to be called into question. To make matters worse, a rising lieutenant colonel by the name of Hugo Chavez launched two failed coup attempts against the government in 1992. Although Chavez was imprisoned for his actions, the damage was already done. On top of that, none of the country's structural economic problems, such as inflation, were ever really addressed. Inflation reached near triple digits 100% in 1996 and continued eating away at everyday Venezuelans savings. By 1998, when Chavez threw his hat in the country's presidential race, Venezuelans were completely infuriated at the political system and pulled the lever for the former lieutenant colonel who marketed himself as the anti system candidate at the time. Unfortunately, Chavez's rule did not fundamentally address Venezuela's economic problem. In fact, his administration arguably made the situation worse, especially with regards to inflation. This goes to show that there is strong institutional inertia in politics and even when so called reformers come onto the scene, they're unable to roll back the policies their predecessors put in motion. Chavez's successor, Nicolas Maduro, has also failed to tame the country's inflation scourge. According to recent figures from the statistics website Statista, Venezuela's current inflation rate is hovering around 2,300% to 6,000%, which is considered hyperinflationary. From a big picture view, inflation has been a hallmark of the Venezuelan economy for the past few decades. Here's some perspective. The last time inflation was below double digits was in 1983. In effect, the average Venezuelan millennial has never witnessed a year with inflation below 10%. Here's the thing about economic they can wreck even the best of nations and they usually can't be controlled, regardless of who is in charge. There's a lesson here, and Jason has taught you this many times. You can't control the political or economic elements, but you can take advantage of crises and benefit from them. While I doubt that inflation will reach Venezuelan heights, you should always remain vigilant about the U.S. s economic climate. Currently there are debates about whether the US's inflationary spell will be transitory or more durable. Jason tends to believe in the latter. Nevertheless, you should never lose your cool and think the whole world is doomed. To the contrary, inflationary moments provide a host of new opportunities for real estate investors to thrive in. And they can do so by using Jason's favorite four letter word, debt. In this case, he's referring to mortgage, not consumer debt. Consumer debt is a big no no in his book, but taking on a mortgage is a different story. You see, this kind of debt is an asset when inflation hits first. First you acquire an income property, then you rent it out to a tenant. In doing so, the tenant picks up the carrying cost of the mortgage. Meanwhile, the mortgage's real value depreciates due to inflation. This infuriates the banks but creates a great opportunity for you. So learn from Jason and take advantage of his inflation induced debt destruction strategy. It's a great time to to be alive. For more information, visit jasonhartman.com for real.

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