2021-10-12_Is_Freedom_in_the_USA_Doomed_Due_to_Forced_V

00:00:00.000 | ♪

00:00:05.440 | California's top casino and entertainment destination

00:00:08.440 | is now your California to Vegas connection.

00:00:11.940 | Play at Yamaha Resort and Casino at San Manuel

00:00:14.480 | to earn points, rewards, and complimentary experiences

00:00:17.680 | for the iconic Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

00:00:21.120 | ♪

00:00:23.660 | Two destinations, one loyalty card.

00:00:26.160 | Visit yamaha.com/palms to discover more.

00:00:30.620 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance,

00:00:31.820 | a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:00:33.320 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need

00:00:35.160 | to live a rich and meaningful life now

00:00:37.100 | while building a plan for financial freedom

00:00:38.560 | in 10 years or less.

00:00:40.200 | My name is Josh Rasheeds.

00:00:41.540 | Today on the show, I want to share with you,

00:00:43.700 | talk a little bit about freedom in a time of coronavirus.

00:00:47.140 | And I want to share with you, number one,

00:00:48.580 | why I think the United States is a pretty good place

00:00:51.740 | to be right now when judged from a global perspective.

00:00:56.640 | Number two, what I think will happen in the coming months

00:01:00.220 | and next year or two with the pandemic.

00:01:02.960 | And number three, how to prepare

00:01:05.120 | if things actually turn worse

00:01:07.460 | and the United States turns into a worse place to be.

00:01:11.900 | Much of my audience is based in the United States

00:01:14.760 | and I have spoken with many of my audience members

00:01:17.940 | who are quite concerned right now,

00:01:20.440 | concerned about decreasing freedoms

00:01:23.700 | in their life and lifestyle.

00:01:26.180 | Many are concerned about financial pressures,

00:01:29.420 | new legislation brought requiring forced vaccination,

00:01:34.420 | requiring employers to force their employees

00:01:38.760 | to be vaccinated, and many of the fines

00:01:41.560 | and financial pressures that come,

00:01:42.720 | many people are losing their jobs right now, et cetera.

00:01:46.040 | And so there are a lot of people concerned.

00:01:47.240 | So I just want to give you my perspective on these topics

00:01:49.200 | and tell you why I think the United States

00:01:51.040 | is a really good place to be right now,

00:01:53.440 | what I think will happen and how to prepare right now

00:01:57.140 | in case things get far worse.

00:01:58.840 | Because I am very concerned that things

00:02:01.620 | might actually get far worse than what they are right now.

00:02:04.720 | And I want to tell you what I think can and should be done.

00:02:07.820 | To begin with, why do I think the USA

00:02:11.660 | is a pretty good place to be?

00:02:12.800 | I have made the intentional choice for the moment

00:02:15.960 | to move my family back to the United States.

00:02:18.300 | And one big reason why I chose that,

00:02:20.740 | not the only reason,

00:02:22.160 | but one big reason why I chose to do that is,

00:02:25.200 | put simply, I'm done with the pandemic.

00:02:29.600 | I'm done with the pandemic.

00:02:30.640 | I don't understand why more people aren't done with it,

00:02:32.440 | but I'm done with it.

00:02:33.680 | And I don't desire to live as if it's 2020 anymore.

00:02:37.220 | I desire to live a lifestyle of freedom.

00:02:41.520 | Now, my experience is probably different

00:02:43.580 | than a lot of people's experiences around the world.

00:02:47.260 | I have been, since the pandemic started,

00:02:49.660 | I think I counted on the other day,

00:02:50.620 | I think I've been in 10 countries,

00:02:52.800 | 10 different countries,

00:02:54.200 | some for shorter periods of time,

00:02:55.640 | some for extended periods of time since the pandemic started

00:02:58.740 | and while I have made regular visits during that time

00:03:02.240 | to the United States,

00:03:03.340 | I have not been living in the United States

00:03:05.440 | for any of the pandemic.

00:03:06.740 | And so that's given me a different perspective on things

00:03:09.140 | than many other people.

00:03:10.840 | I've never been, throughout the pandemic,

00:03:12.740 | I haven't been a bunch,

00:03:14.020 | really an extremist on the different positions.

00:03:16.160 | I was concerned very early as I watched things develop,

00:03:19.860 | very concerned, my concern is lessened,

00:03:21.660 | but I've never, I haven't gotten on a bandwagon

00:03:23.900 | of this is what I, this is the side that I'm on.

00:03:26.900 | I've been fairly moderate, at least by my own assessment,

00:03:30.700 | I've been fairly moderate in my perspectives,

00:03:32.940 | kind of trying to balance in the best way

00:03:35.340 | that I could come up with a prudent balance

00:03:37.200 | of risks and rewards and trying to make my way through.

00:03:40.620 | Now, that has changed a lot over time,

00:03:45.620 | but I've tried that.

00:03:48.680 | But still, I reached the point over the past few months

00:03:53.680 | where I just said, I'm done.

00:03:55.020 | I don't wanna deal with it anymore.

00:03:56.660 | I don't understand why people are still living

00:03:59.300 | like it's 2020 when clearly it's not.

00:04:02.820 | And in my experience, and again,

00:04:06.220 | I think 10 different countries,

00:04:07.540 | nine or 10 different countries throughout the pandemic,

00:04:10.180 | I have observed that by far the place

00:04:12.820 | with the fewest restrictions, the most freedom,

00:04:16.060 | both legally speaking and culturally speaking,

00:04:21.000 | of all of the countries that I have been in

00:04:22.880 | has been the United States, most importantly, Florida.

00:04:26.300 | Now, there've been times throughout this pandemic

00:04:28.040 | that it has been quite shocking to me to experience that.

00:04:31.760 | You get used to, for example, in the United States,

00:04:36.140 | there is a major arguments that people have

00:04:39.940 | about whether or not they should wear masks.

00:04:42.640 | And there's an important argument to be had there,

00:04:45.320 | but the US, meaning medically speaking,

00:04:47.400 | does a mask do any good, blah, blah, blah,

00:04:49.040 | it's an important conversation.

00:04:50.620 | But in the United States,

00:04:51.880 | the culture has been arguing over this subject

00:04:54.880 | for many, many months.

00:04:56.600 | I'm not aware of anywhere else

00:04:59.000 | where there's been a clear argument about this.

00:05:02.200 | Maybe it exists, obviously the world's a big place.

00:05:04.500 | In many places, some places that I have been,

00:05:07.320 | some people don't wear masks,

00:05:08.760 | but usually they don't wear masks

00:05:10.280 | just 'cause they don't care.

00:05:11.840 | It hasn't been a real argument big time

00:05:15.000 | in the culture about whether we should wear masks or not.

00:05:17.920 | The only place I know where the culture

00:05:19.160 | has been clearly divided has been in the United States.

00:05:21.560 | And most of the places that I have been

00:05:23.320 | have been super into the wearing masks,

00:05:25.960 | the big deal, et cetera.

00:05:27.160 | So I became accustomed, right?

00:05:28.720 | I was accustomed to it and it became normal.

00:05:31.840 | And I remember coming to Florida kind of back in late 2020

00:05:36.000 | and kind of, it felt weird to be close to people

00:05:39.580 | at the grocery store.

00:05:40.580 | It felt weird to see people without a mask on.

00:05:43.600 | It was just strange because I had been so affected

00:05:47.160 | by living in the cultures where it's normal

00:05:50.800 | and it's just what you do.

00:05:51.640 | There's no question about it, it's what you do.

00:05:53.440 | And that was where I started to see so clearly

00:05:55.460 | the distinctions between the United States

00:05:57.260 | and some of the other countries.

00:05:59.480 | As I have traveled, I've studied the situation.

00:06:01.300 | I've been able to live in many different countries.

00:06:03.200 | I've been able to be fine.

00:06:04.320 | Like it's not been that bad.

00:06:05.320 | I certainly have not gone to Australia or New Zealand.

00:06:07.800 | No interest in going to those.

00:06:08.840 | I've not gone to China.

00:06:09.680 | No interest in going to China right now.

00:06:12.080 | But it hasn't been that bad, all things considered.

00:06:17.080 | But it did finally get to me over the summer.

00:06:19.840 | It did finally get to me.

00:06:21.280 | Every country that I have been in has had just,

00:06:26.480 | you face these dunder-headed regulations,

00:06:29.480 | these things that just don't make any sense on their face,

00:06:32.880 | but they are ham-fisted, clumsy attempts

00:06:35.960 | by government authorities to try to do something

00:06:39.400 | and be seen as doing something,

00:06:41.480 | even though that something makes no sense.

00:06:43.320 | Give you a simple story.

00:06:44.920 | We were in Portugal a few months ago.

00:06:47.660 | Portugal was overall fine, right?

00:06:50.200 | Not a lot of restrictions.

00:06:52.120 | Everyone was wearing masks, good social distancing, et cetera.

00:06:55.640 | Some big events closed down.

00:06:57.440 | But for the most part, when I was in Portugal

00:06:59.080 | in the summer, I didn't have many complaints.

00:07:01.780 | But I still saw a number of different events.

00:07:04.720 | For example, we wanted to take the children to a park.

00:07:07.000 | When you have four small children,

00:07:09.600 | you learn to appreciate the value of local parks

00:07:12.400 | and playgrounds more than you ever did,

00:07:14.520 | because they provide a really valuable opportunity

00:07:17.600 | for the children to let their energy out,

00:07:19.160 | to run, to play outside, to be crazy,

00:07:21.080 | to get just to move and get some sunshine, et cetera.

00:07:24.000 | And it's extremely valuable to you as a parent

00:07:27.040 | to have good access to good, high-quality local parks.

00:07:30.320 | So we were in Portugal, and there was this nice local park

00:07:33.160 | near where we were in Lisbon in front of a mall.

00:07:36.360 | And at that time in Lisbon and Portugal,

00:07:39.120 | all of the malls were open.

00:07:41.840 | You could go to the mall, the stores were open,

00:07:44.040 | no problem going there, no major counting.

00:07:46.960 | They weren't counting everybody at the door.

00:07:48.200 | There wasn't major problems.

00:07:49.520 | It was a relatively normal experience at the mall.

00:07:52.720 | But just outside the entrance of the mall,

00:07:54.240 | just around the corner, was this nice little kids' park

00:07:56.480 | that the mall had installed, with a nice playground,

00:07:59.000 | play set, benches for parents, et cetera.

00:08:01.320 | And so we took our children to play on the playground.

00:08:04.340 | And then the security guard comes over and says,

00:08:06.720 | "No, you can't, 'cause the playground is closed."

00:08:09.880 | Well, why is the playground closed?

00:08:10.960 | 'Cause the government says playgrounds are closed.

00:08:13.080 | And so just imagine this, right?

00:08:14.680 | Over here, about 10 meters away,

00:08:17.680 | you have the entrance to the mall,

00:08:18.920 | where my entire family can go into the mall.

00:08:21.600 | We can go and be in an enclosed indoor space

00:08:24.360 | with lots of other people,

00:08:26.040 | pushed up close to one another,

00:08:27.680 | standing in line, doing all the stuff,

00:08:29.460 | inside in a place with poor ventilation.

00:08:32.160 | And there's no limit on that.

00:08:33.520 | We could take the children there

00:08:34.480 | and let them run around and be crazy inside.

00:08:36.720 | But just outside the mall, 10 meters away,

00:08:39.960 | is an outdoor park with full sunshine.

00:08:43.860 | We're the only ones there,

00:08:45.560 | and we're not allowed to be there on the play equipment.

00:08:48.360 | I find that inconceivable.

00:08:51.600 | I find it inconceivable how any security guard

00:08:54.120 | wouldn't just think and say,

00:08:55.340 | "I'm not going to enforce this."

00:08:57.400 | And we've gotten kicked out of playgrounds in Mexico,

00:09:01.080 | got kicked out of playgrounds in Costa Rica.

00:09:03.880 | We got kicked off of a playground in Portugal.

00:09:06.600 | I think that's the places I remember

00:09:10.320 | getting kicked off of a playground.

00:09:12.360 | In addition to that, though,

00:09:13.760 | what really finally broke me was going to France.

00:09:19.040 | Because I remember back about a year and a half ago,

00:09:22.160 | after the initial chaos in China,

00:09:24.440 | China very quickly rolled out a vaccine passport,

00:09:27.900 | sorry, excuse me, a coronavirus testing passport,

00:09:30.580 | a tracing app that all the Chinese citizens

00:09:32.960 | had to have on their phone.

00:09:34.400 | And in order for them to ride the train,

00:09:36.800 | they had to show that they had a green check mark.

00:09:39.800 | And at the time, it wasn't vaccination,

00:09:42.320 | it was collecting the location data.

00:09:44.080 | And I remember sitting watching those videos and saying,

00:09:46.080 | "Man, I can't imagine living under

00:09:48.720 | where the communists require you to show your pass

00:09:51.200 | to get on a train.

00:09:52.200 | That's ridiculous.

00:09:53.220 | That is insane totalitarian tyranny."

00:09:56.480 | So then we went to France.

00:09:57.400 | And when we were in France over the summer,

00:09:59.880 | we followed all the rules to get into the country,

00:10:02.480 | had no problem, were granted access to the country.

00:10:05.840 | But at that time, France had imposed a vaccine passport

00:10:10.600 | where you had to register yourself with the government,

00:10:15.600 | download the government application,

00:10:18.760 | and then you had to put your vaccination records

00:10:21.120 | into the application in order to show

00:10:23.840 | that you were vaccinated and then demonstrate your QR code

00:10:26.800 | to gain access to any kind of facility.

00:10:30.000 | And at the time, it was extremely intense.

00:10:32.800 | I believe that they may have lightened it up slightly,

00:10:35.000 | but when I was there, no access to restaurants

00:10:38.040 | without the health pass, no access to stores,

00:10:42.800 | the entire malls were closed down,

00:10:45.240 | guards at every entrance,

00:10:46.360 | you had to scan your pass to get into the mall,

00:10:49.040 | no access to cultural events, no museums,

00:10:51.480 | no art galleries, no access to any cultural events.

00:10:54.300 | Quite literally, I couldn't even buy a coffee

00:10:57.200 | from a cafe on the street without showing a health pass.

00:11:02.200 | And thankfully, they didn't shut us out of a grocery store,

00:11:05.700 | so I was able to buy groceries,

00:11:07.280 | and we were able to go to the market

00:11:08.680 | and buy some food at a market, so we were able to eat,

00:11:11.680 | but pretty much nothing else.

00:11:13.560 | And my wife did not wanna go to France.

00:11:17.340 | She had no interest in living under that.

00:11:19.100 | She's like, "We're not gonna do that."

00:11:21.440 | And I convinced her, I was like, "No, come on,

00:11:23.120 | "let's go for a time, it's probably not gonna be so bad.

00:11:25.520 | "I know they have this,

00:11:26.460 | "and we're obviously not gonna participate in that,

00:11:28.740 | "but it's probably not so bad.

00:11:29.800 | "After all, I had read news reports,

00:11:31.740 | "the French are protesting, right?

00:11:33.040 | "There's people coming and bringing their lunch

00:11:35.000 | "and having picnics right outside the restaurants

00:11:37.240 | "that are enforcing the health passport."

00:11:39.880 | And so I thought, you know what, they'll probably be fine.

00:11:41.680 | After all, we're gonna be out in the country,

00:11:43.000 | we're not going to Paris,

00:11:44.000 | we're gonna be out in the country.

00:11:45.240 | I think the French people will be free-thinking.

00:11:47.160 | They're not gonna stand for that.

00:11:49.560 | The French have a long history

00:11:51.600 | of kind of standing up against totalitarianism,

00:11:54.640 | and they have a very proud history,

00:11:56.080 | they have a protest culture.

00:11:57.080 | I thought it'd be great.

00:11:58.440 | Well, while I was there,

00:11:59.640 | I would read from time to time news reports

00:12:02.160 | that, hey, there was a protest somewhere,

00:12:04.240 | but I could see no personal evidence

00:12:06.120 | of any of the French people actually standing up against it.

00:12:09.080 | I had one, one restaurant,

00:12:12.280 | the entire time we were there for a month,

00:12:13.760 | one restaurant served us food

00:12:16.960 | without forcing us to give a health pass.

00:12:20.160 | And man, you would not believe the tip

00:12:21.720 | that I left at that place.

00:12:23.160 | So we, in a month in France,

00:12:25.320 | we had one meal at a French restaurant.

00:12:28.000 | Every other time, rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected,

00:12:31.040 | go everywhere, rejected, because I didn't do that.

00:12:33.440 | And I asked them, I was like, why are you guys doing this?

00:12:35.040 | And they just rolled over and did it.

00:12:37.120 | And so being in France, I just, I thought, I'm done, right?

00:12:40.720 | I don't want to do this anymore.

00:12:42.080 | I'm gonna go where things are more free,

00:12:44.520 | because it's no way to live under that stuff.

00:12:48.480 | And you say, well, Joshua,

00:12:49.360 | just give them your vaccination records

00:12:51.780 | or go and get a negative COVID test, right?

00:12:53.720 | 'Cause every two days, the other thing is,

00:12:55.360 | if you're not vaccinated under the system at that time,

00:12:58.960 | then you could every two days get a COVID test

00:13:01.240 | and you could get that registered on your QR code.

00:13:03.400 | And I just find that utterly, like, no,

00:13:06.320 | I am not going to put up with these totalitarian Nazis

00:13:11.320 | putting their applications on people's phones.

00:13:14.200 | I'm not gonna support it.

00:13:15.520 | I refuse to give money to anybody

00:13:17.060 | who supports something like that.

00:13:18.800 | Like, that's just absolutely disgusting

00:13:21.040 | for anybody to participate in those kinds of schemes.

00:13:24.000 | I'm not gonna, I can't look myself in the face

00:13:27.440 | or look my children in the face

00:13:29.120 | and say that I care at all about human freedom and liberty

00:13:32.960 | and then do that, right?

00:13:34.000 | And you're there in France where, what is it?

00:13:35.640 | Liberté, égalité, fraternité, the French national motto.

00:13:40.120 | Well, you've got the jackbooted thugs

00:13:43.320 | keeping you out of anything

00:13:44.840 | and you've got the government coming by

00:13:46.160 | and destroying the business owners saying,

00:13:47.560 | you have to enforce this.

00:13:49.160 | It's insane to me.

00:13:50.600 | And so it kind of, it was the straw

00:13:52.640 | that broke this camel's back.

00:13:54.240 | I said, that's it, I'm done.

00:13:55.640 | And my wife said, I told you so, right?

00:13:58.160 | I told you you weren't gonna like it.

00:13:59.320 | And all right, well, I guess you're right, honey.

00:14:01.800 | You were right.

00:14:02.640 | I shouldn't have come here in the first place.

00:14:04.440 | I should have skipped the whole place, et cetera.

00:14:06.560 | But you see all across Europe,

00:14:07.760 | you see many countries have done the same thing.

00:14:10.520 | And I really wanted to go to France

00:14:12.520 | and I shouldn't have gone.

00:14:14.120 | It was a mistake.

00:14:14.960 | I should have just, I should have skipped the whole thing.

00:14:17.640 | But along the way, I couldn't get into Asia,

00:14:19.600 | which is where I wanted to get into.

00:14:21.560 | At the time, I was trying to go to Singapore,

00:14:23.440 | Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, this winter, Malaysia.

00:14:27.040 | I wanted to spend my time in those places

00:14:28.680 | and I couldn't, they were all closed.

00:14:30.880 | And I just, I'm not gonna go and do a two week quarantine

00:14:34.600 | and sit with my children in a hotel room for two weeks.

00:14:37.520 | And finally I said, that's it, this is not fun anymore.

00:14:39.920 | I don't wanna travel, this is not fun.

00:14:41.320 | So where should we go?

00:14:42.920 | And just being done with COVID,

00:14:44.480 | the freest place that I know of in the world is Florida.

00:14:48.040 | And I said, let's just go back to Florida for a time

00:14:50.160 | and just be done with this

00:14:51.480 | and wait for all this to blow over.

00:14:53.800 | The final kind of hurdle to pass

00:14:57.560 | was taking the stupid COVID test

00:15:00.280 | to get back into the United States.

00:15:02.040 | And what frustrates me about that

00:15:03.760 | is that they forced me to test my children

00:15:08.680 | to get back into the United States.

00:15:10.600 | Many countries, for example, in Europe right now,

00:15:13.620 | if you are over the age of 12,

00:15:15.640 | then you have to do a COVID test to enter many places.

00:15:18.320 | In some places it's six,

00:15:19.600 | just depends on the individual country,

00:15:22.560 | you can check their requirements.

00:15:24.240 | But to get in the United States

00:15:25.240 | is everyone over the age of two.

00:15:27.480 | I don't mind doing a COVID test.

00:15:28.960 | I don't understand why there aren't more easy tests

00:15:32.640 | available, but I've done lots of COVID tests for travel.

00:15:36.060 | I've done a bunch of self tests just to make sure,

00:15:39.000 | do a quick antigen test to make sure

00:15:40.640 | if you're gonna be in a place that,

00:15:42.000 | hey, I might not be infected and not know it, et cetera.

00:15:44.960 | So I've gotten pretty good at getting a Q-tip

00:15:47.600 | jabbed up my nose and jabbing a Q-tip up my own nose

00:15:50.200 | and do my own self test.

00:15:51.680 | It's not been that big of a deal for me,

00:15:54.320 | but it's very different for my children.

00:15:56.720 | And it's one thing when you impose

00:15:59.760 | some kind of hard medical procedure,

00:16:02.480 | painful thing on your children,

00:16:03.780 | because you know it's for their good.

00:16:06.080 | But we're sitting in the Madrid airport

00:16:08.700 | doing our COVID test to get back into the United States.

00:16:12.160 | And I have to hold my younger children down

00:16:15.920 | where I got their head cemented against my head,

00:16:18.920 | my legs and my arms wrapped around them,

00:16:24.160 | my legs wrapped around them, and I'm immobilizing them

00:16:26.560 | so a nurse can jab a Q-tip up their nose.

00:16:28.680 | To do that to your two-year-old and your four-year-old,

00:16:31.320 | it's just, it's not worth it.

00:16:34.640 | All of my children crying and done with it.

00:16:38.720 | And I've put a lot on them.

00:16:40.280 | And I just said, I'm not doing this anymore.

00:16:42.280 | There's no need for it.

00:16:43.120 | I'm not doing this anymore.

00:16:44.200 | We're not putting up with this.

00:16:46.720 | And it was so nice to get back to the United States.

00:16:49.440 | And let me tell you,

00:16:50.760 | if you think it's bad in the United States,

00:16:53.600 | I'm here to tell you,

00:16:54.640 | it's quite literally a breath of fresh air.

00:16:58.440 | I walked out of the Miami airport,

00:17:00.420 | I took my mask off, I dumped it in a trash can,

00:17:03.240 | and I haven't put one on since.

00:17:05.720 | And after two years of wearing a mask everywhere,

00:17:09.220 | that first week, I didn't realize

00:17:12.160 | how acculturated I had been,

00:17:15.160 | how conditioned I had been into this kind of new reality.

00:17:20.160 | And just being able to walk around

00:17:22.240 | and breathe fresh air again and not worry about,

00:17:25.800 | it took a few days for it to settle in.

00:17:28.640 | First week I was back,

00:17:29.680 | I was back at a conference in Orlando

00:17:31.920 | and in a room with 3,000 other people,

00:17:34.360 | elbow to elbow, no social distancing.

00:17:37.060 | Guy on my left, guy on my right,

00:17:38.320 | guy in front of me, guy in back of me,

00:17:40.400 | bouncing up and down, singing, talking, et cetera.

00:17:43.040 | 10% of the people wearing masks, 90% not.

00:17:47.080 | And people were done with it.

00:17:48.360 | And it just was this tremendous sense of relief

00:17:51.800 | to be done with the pandemic

00:17:53.820 | and to be out of it again.

00:17:58.000 | And it kind of affirmed to me,

00:18:00.040 | yeah, this is the right decision for now.

00:18:02.920 | And so I share that with you to know

00:18:04.780 | that if you think things are bad in the United States,

00:18:07.220 | I understand that things are difficult in some places

00:18:09.840 | and we're gonna talk about regulations, restrictions now.

00:18:14.000 | But I just wanted to share that kind of personal travelogue

00:18:16.080 | for you to know that if you think things are bad

00:18:18.520 | in the United States,

00:18:19.480 | they are much better than most places in the world.

00:18:23.200 | You would not believe what many places in the world

00:18:25.560 | have gone through and have been living with.

00:18:27.940 | That's not to say that everywhere in the world

00:18:30.080 | is a totalitarian, tyrannical place.

00:18:34.600 | When I was in Western Europe,

00:18:36.040 | I was very quick keen to get out of Western Europe

00:18:39.560 | and get into Eastern Europe.

00:18:41.420 | And all around the world,

00:18:42.260 | there are places and cultures where they've ignored it.

00:18:44.220 | I was planning to go to Albania,

00:18:45.760 | spend some time in Albania and all of my,

00:18:47.640 | I haven't been there,

00:18:49.000 | but all of my research indicated,

00:18:50.320 | yeah, the Albanians just, they're not into the COVID thing.

00:18:52.760 | No rules, no restrictions, no masks and all that stuff.

00:18:55.880 | Like they're just, they're moving on with their life.

00:18:57.440 | And all around the world, you see kind of similar things.

00:18:59.640 | I follow a lot of travelers who travel in countries

00:19:02.880 | and you have all these Western travelers coming in

00:19:05.240 | and coming back and say, giving their reports.

00:19:07.280 | And so I follow them with interest.

00:19:08.400 | So it's not that the whole world has been under that,

00:19:11.080 | but in much of the world that Americans

00:19:13.720 | are more closely related to,

00:19:15.240 | just know that the United States

00:19:17.360 | has been a vastly better place through it.

00:19:21.360 | By the way, I will cover, if you're screaming,

00:19:23.040 | yeah, but 700,000 dead, Fairpoint.

00:19:26.320 | If I remember it, I'll come back

00:19:27.440 | and cover that at the moment, a little bit later.

00:19:30.320 | So let's talk about where we go from here

00:19:32.480 | and what I think will happen.

00:19:33.960 | Let's go back to the beginning of the pandemic

00:19:35.240 | when I laid out what I saw as kind of the three off-ramps

00:19:39.000 | out of the pandemic.

00:19:40.400 | When you have a global pandemic, what happens?

00:19:42.560 | How do you get out of it?

00:19:43.800 | How do you overcome it and be done with it?

00:19:46.780 | And at the time, I believe I said

00:19:48.400 | that there were three off-ramps that I saw.

00:19:50.080 | Off-ramp number one is that the virus

00:19:53.800 | turns out to just be not such a big deal.

00:19:56.520 | Okay, off-ramp number two is you develop good therapeutics.

00:19:59.880 | And then off-ramp number three

00:20:01.240 | is you have widespread immunization,

00:20:03.520 | either through the development of vaccines

00:20:05.440 | or through natural immunity through widespread infection.

00:20:08.080 | So let's talk about number one.

00:20:09.960 | Virus is no big deal.

00:20:12.120 | Now, this was one where at the beginning of the pandemic,

00:20:15.120 | back in early 2020, it was unclear.

00:20:19.080 | It was really unclear because all of the initial indications

00:20:23.240 | about the severity of SARS-CoV-2 were unclear.

00:20:30.240 | You had, on the one hand, you had this general sense that,

00:20:35.240 | "Hey, this is no big deal.

00:20:37.960 | It's not a big deal."

00:20:38.840 | The Chinese government was saying,

00:20:39.760 | "Oh, it's no big deal, no problem."

00:20:41.760 | But then you had all kinds of wacky stuff.

00:20:45.280 | You had leaked videos of people tumbling over on the street,

00:20:50.280 | like literally falling down while walking down the street.

00:20:54.040 | You had, and that didn't make much sense medically,

00:20:59.080 | but then simultaneously you had the Chinese government

00:21:01.760 | welding steel plates onto apartment buildings.

00:21:06.120 | They came to apartment buildings

00:21:07.800 | and they welded steel plates over the doors

00:21:10.920 | to keep everybody locked in the apartment building

00:21:13.360 | so that they didn't spread an infection.

00:21:15.240 | You had Chinese government building

00:21:16.600 | these massive hospitals just overnight.

00:21:19.600 | And you're thinking, "What is going on?"

00:21:22.520 | We knew for a long time, since 2003 with the SARS pandemic,

00:21:25.640 | we knew that the Chinese government lied

00:21:28.160 | right through their teeth back then.

00:21:30.240 | And so the most probable answer

00:21:32.320 | was they were lying this time.

00:21:33.520 | And yep, yep, they lied completely, concealed everything.

00:21:37.400 | Just the whole thing, it's just been a nightmare

00:21:40.080 | to watch how insane the Chinese government has been.

00:21:44.840 | And I mean, don't get me started.

00:21:47.200 | Like you'll go and look at the World Health Organization

00:21:49.960 | so-called investigation.

00:21:52.240 | It's just, stay on point.

00:21:55.480 | The data was unclear.

00:21:57.280 | And so then you started to get data.

00:21:58.480 | And if you remember in those early days, nothing made sense.

00:22:01.680 | Nothing made sense about what was actually being said

00:22:04.920 | and done.

00:22:05.760 | So just take you back in your,

00:22:07.680 | and you remember, I don't have the timeline of this,

00:22:09.240 | all this stuff, but remember that in the first,

00:22:11.480 | the whole concept of there being a deadly virus

00:22:13.720 | was supposedly a hoax.

00:22:14.800 | Remember you had the, in Washington, DC, a march,

00:22:18.000 | and the person in charge of health of Chicago

00:22:21.400 | is saying, "No, go march."

00:22:22.680 | And you had Nancy Pelosi saying,

00:22:23.880 | "Go and stand up in New York and do your marches

00:22:25.920 | "and whatnot while the data's coming out."

00:22:27.240 | People were saying, "Minimize gatherings."

00:22:29.480 | Then all of a sudden, hey, there starts to be more stuff.

00:22:31.520 | And then there was the mask debacle, right?

00:22:33.160 | Anthony Fauci in the United States comes out

00:22:35.440 | and he says to the American people,

00:22:37.360 | "You shouldn't wear a mask

00:22:38.720 | "because this is a virus that won't affect it.

00:22:40.880 | "And so you should not wear a mask.

00:22:42.760 | "Definitely not, it doesn't do anything for you.

00:22:44.440 | "It just creates a false sense of security.

00:22:45.960 | "There's no need to wear a mask."

00:22:47.560 | Meanwhile, the FBI is stealing masks

00:22:50.200 | from private entrepreneurs who had collected them

00:22:52.920 | and were selling them to medical professionals

00:22:54.560 | at inflated prices.

00:22:55.800 | The FBI is sending cops in New York

00:22:59.600 | and stealing the thousands of masks

00:23:01.960 | that the guys had accumulated and stockpiled

00:23:04.160 | and they were selling in the private market

00:23:05.680 | to medical professionals who couldn't get enough PPE.

00:23:09.440 | And so then all of a sudden, everything changed

00:23:11.920 | and you didn't know what to believe

00:23:14.000 | 'cause you knew everyone was lying

00:23:15.600 | and you didn't have a clue what to do.

00:23:16.960 | And so we all sat in our homes and waited to see.

00:23:20.760 | And the data was difficult to discern

00:23:23.680 | for many people in the beginning.

00:23:25.760 | Remember we had many of the early predictions

00:23:29.120 | that were hardcore predictions of millions

00:23:30.840 | and millions of people dying across the United States

00:23:33.600 | and there was really mixed results.

00:23:37.680 | And it took a while to emerge that COVID is largely a disease

00:23:42.680 | of highly variable outcomes depending on who was involved.

00:23:47.440 | And so for people who are old

00:23:49.400 | or for people who have a lot of underlying conditions,

00:23:51.880 | people who are fat, people who have poor metabolic health,

00:23:55.000 | then COVID is a very serious disease.

00:23:57.720 | For people who are not old, for people who are not fat,

00:23:59.960 | people who are in good metabolic health,

00:24:01.760 | most of the time it's a very minor disease.

00:24:04.320 | And so you had kind of these two narratives

00:24:06.440 | that took time to emerge from the data.

00:24:09.680 | But what has emerged is that in terms of the virus,

00:24:14.680 | what actually the first off-ramp, the virus isn't as bad,

00:24:17.560 | for most people, the virus has turned out

00:24:19.600 | to be not so bad as feared.

00:24:22.640 | For old people, for obese people,

00:24:24.920 | for people who have underlying conditions,

00:24:28.200 | who are unhealthy, it is very severe.

00:24:30.640 | And so that's one good off-ramp.

00:24:32.920 | The second thing though, that's valuable to know

00:24:35.880 | about that off-ramp is, hey, can the virus weaken?

00:24:38.720 | That was the other expected thing.

00:24:39.960 | Most viruses have a tendency to weaken.

00:24:42.280 | And so then you had the variants

00:24:46.000 | and you had the emergence of the Delta variant,

00:24:49.160 | which while not stronger, seems to be more contagious

00:24:52.800 | and certainly supplanted the previous iterations

00:24:55.320 | of the virus.

00:24:56.960 | So off-ramp number one, I would say,

00:24:59.640 | is a story of two diseases

00:25:02.480 | based upon the person who is sickened.

00:25:05.160 | Young people, healthy people, et cetera,

00:25:08.720 | most of the time it's mild with a few moderate cases.

00:25:12.560 | Old people, sick people, fat people,

00:25:17.080 | much of the time it can be quite serious

00:25:19.320 | with a lot of complications.

00:25:20.880 | So that one has not been an obvious off-ramp.

00:25:24.480 | The second off-ramp though,

00:25:25.800 | was the development of new therapeutic treatments.

00:25:28.920 | The idea is, if you can develop good therapies

00:25:32.440 | that allow you to effectively treat a sickness,

00:25:35.360 | then you can open things up and kind of go about your life

00:25:38.800 | and not worry about much.

00:25:40.360 | And so there, I think tremendous progress has been made

00:25:42.640 | all around the world with the development

00:25:44.000 | of good therapeutic treatments.

00:25:45.760 | It's well understood now that simple things

00:25:49.000 | like vitamin D levels make a dramatic difference

00:25:52.240 | in your outcomes with coronavirus.

00:25:56.720 | And so I can't imagine anybody

00:26:00.200 | not regularly taking vitamin D

00:26:02.960 | and making sure that vitamin D levels are high

00:26:05.560 | in their entire family to make sure

00:26:07.040 | that they minimize the impact of the virus.

00:26:10.080 | You have the importance of vitamin D, of zinc.

00:26:12.160 | There've been the development of a number of drugs, right?

00:26:14.840 | The much debated arguments about ivermectin

00:26:19.320 | has been quite interesting to watch,

00:26:21.600 | but I still am persuaded that

00:26:24.360 | while not being a medical researcher,

00:26:28.080 | I still am persuaded there's pretty good evidence

00:26:30.480 | that that is effective, especially as a prophylactic.

00:26:34.400 | Much argued about, still no conclusive data,

00:26:38.040 | but that's an interesting debate that people watch.

00:26:42.520 | And then actual therapeutic treatments, right?

00:26:44.920 | I guess what would be the biggest one?

00:26:45.840 | Monoclonal antibodies, some of the development

00:26:47.880 | of these new systems of treatment

00:26:49.760 | that have been having really good effects.

00:26:52.360 | And especially if caught early enough

00:26:54.200 | and treated early enough,

00:26:56.440 | then COVID is not a death sentence for many people.

00:27:01.440 | And so there's a number of good things

00:27:04.320 | that all reasonable people I would imagine are doing

00:27:08.920 | to protect their health, getting healthy,

00:27:11.120 | building up their metabolic health,

00:27:13.000 | getting lots of sunshine, taking vitamin D supplements,

00:27:17.720 | doing all the stuff that can result

00:27:20.280 | in having the experience of the virus

00:27:22.880 | be much less significant for most people.

00:27:25.760 | And so I think we've made tremendous progress there.

00:27:28.180 | And then even in the worst cases,

00:27:29.840 | I'm not an emergency room physician or nurse,

00:27:33.880 | but it seems like even in the worst cases,

00:27:37.360 | they have gotten better at treating

00:27:39.600 | even some of the worst cases of COVID.

00:27:42.640 | So that's been a good off-ramp

00:27:43.920 | that is clearly visible and available.

00:27:47.680 | Then the third off-ramp is immunity,

00:27:50.760 | widespread immunization and immunity.

00:27:54.780 | So here there are two obvious opportunities.

00:27:59.780 | Number one is vaccination,

00:28:02.200 | and number two is natural immunity,

00:28:04.400 | just people who are infected

00:28:06.760 | and is there natural immunity

00:28:09.420 | that is conferred because of that infection.

00:28:11.880 | So in the beginning days of the virus,

00:28:14.280 | it seemed very unlikely that vaccines

00:28:17.720 | could be developed quickly enough to do much good.

00:28:20.660 | You were dealing with a viral infection,

00:28:23.480 | which is famously difficult to develop a vaccine for.

00:28:26.040 | We all heard the stories about how

00:28:27.800 | they never successfully developed a virus for AIDS,

00:28:32.040 | never successfully developed a virus for SARS,

00:28:34.960 | I think it was, the difficulties with the flu virus,

00:28:37.960 | things like that.

00:28:39.080 | And so nobody really thought we'd be able to develop

00:28:42.560 | an effective vaccine quickly.

00:28:45.260 | And then we did, right?

00:28:47.600 | In the United States,

00:28:48.740 | President Trump did Operation Warp Speed

00:28:51.360 | all around the world.

00:28:53.280 | I think if memory is right,

00:28:54.240 | the Sputnik vaccine was the first to be trialed

00:28:57.100 | in humans out of Russia.

00:28:58.940 | You had vaccines developed in South America,

00:29:02.080 | in Asia, all around the world.

00:29:04.840 | So where today there's so many vaccines

00:29:07.000 | that have all been developed and been trialed

00:29:09.680 | and with differing amounts of efficacy

00:29:13.000 | and different results all around the world.

00:29:14.800 | And it's been remarkable to see that.

00:29:16.920 | It's just absolutely incredible

00:29:19.440 | how quickly the vaccines have been able to be developed

00:29:25.160 | and rolled out and manufactured.

00:29:27.240 | It's truly amazing.

00:29:28.720 | It's an amazing story of the modern era.

00:29:30.840 | I feel like for everything

00:29:31.980 | that you wanna criticize people about,

00:29:34.600 | you kinda gotta see the opposite side

00:29:36.980 | and recognize that people are not stupid.

00:29:40.640 | I've said this recently, for example,

00:29:41.880 | talking about the supply chain.

00:29:43.380 | On the one hand, the modern supply chain

00:29:46.060 | is a very weak thing when subjected to stress.

00:29:50.200 | To me, that seems very obvious, right?

00:29:51.880 | The just-in-time delivery system

00:29:55.480 | has resulted in not much slack in the supply chain.

00:29:58.540 | On the other hand,

00:29:59.380 | the modern supply chain is an absolute miracle.

00:30:01.160 | When you look at how quickly it can adapt,

00:30:03.440 | it's actually really remarkable.

00:30:05.320 | And so I feel like most things are like this,

00:30:08.760 | where honesty compels us to acknowledge

00:30:12.020 | that there's been massive progress

00:30:14.040 | while simultaneously there being frequently

00:30:16.520 | many challenges that are new and different.

00:30:18.840 | So this vaccine rollout all around the world

00:30:20.640 | has been remarkable to see.

00:30:23.640 | And while we don't have any long-term data

00:30:27.920 | on the safety of vaccines

00:30:30.840 | and we don't have any long-term data

00:30:32.520 | on the efficacy of vaccines,

00:30:34.040 | the short-term data seems really, really good, right?

00:30:37.360 | The short-term safety, very high,

00:30:39.160 | short-term efficacy of the vaccines,

00:30:41.680 | at least in terms of measuring from protection

00:30:44.640 | from the most serious of cases

00:30:46.600 | seems to be really, really good.

00:30:48.120 | And so that's exciting

00:30:49.840 | because especially for the most vulnerable people,

00:30:53.120 | the most vulnerable people can be vaccinated

00:30:55.880 | and can be hopefully protected

00:30:57.600 | against many of the worst case outcomes

00:31:00.560 | of the coronavirus pandemic.

00:31:03.640 | And so that's just been an amazingly effective

00:31:06.760 | and productive thing.

00:31:07.960 | And then if we match that with natural immunity,

00:31:11.320 | we haven't known, and a year ago we didn't know

00:31:13.960 | how strong the natural immunity was,

00:31:17.080 | how long the antibodies would stay around.

00:31:19.200 | Of course, we still don't know any long-term data,

00:31:21.080 | but it seems really good

00:31:23.320 | that people who have had the previous infection

00:31:25.920 | are very well protected against current

00:31:29.480 | and future infections.

00:31:31.000 | And so that's just phenomenal news, right?

00:31:33.240 | To know that the body retains its ability

00:31:35.240 | to protect against the virus.

00:31:36.400 | It means that you could pretty much go about your life

00:31:39.280 | and not worry too much about it.

00:31:41.600 | So where do we go from here, right?

00:31:43.200 | Those are the three off-ramps that I sketched out

00:31:45.520 | for you in a podcast a year or so ago.

00:31:47.960 | And to me, those three off-ramps, we've made progress,

00:31:51.280 | tremendous progress on all of them.

00:31:54.040 | Anybody, virtually anybody,

00:31:55.720 | anybody listening to me who wants a vaccine has had one.

00:31:59.840 | Anybody listening who wants good therapeutic treatments

00:32:02.840 | can have them.

00:32:03.720 | And the disease itself has proven to be

00:32:11.240 | more of a nuisance for most healthy people

00:32:16.200 | rather than something really serious

00:32:18.360 | and really long-lasting.

00:32:19.680 | And so the data on all fronts is really good.

00:32:23.440 | Now, what is quote-unquote not good?

00:32:25.480 | Well, what's not good is the fact

00:32:27.680 | that there is simply no containing the virus.

00:32:30.040 | The last holdout on this was obviously Australia

00:32:34.520 | and New Zealand, right?

00:32:35.360 | Australia was committed for two years to a zero COVID plan,

00:32:40.200 | turning the entire former penal colony

00:32:43.520 | into a current day prison

00:32:45.520 | for all of the inhabitants and residents,

00:32:47.400 | not letting people in, not letting people out,

00:32:49.040 | not letting people out of their houses.

00:32:51.000 | And the goal was zero COVID, zero COVID.

00:32:55.440 | Well, they finally abandoned the zero COVID policy

00:32:58.840 | a few months ago in reality,

00:33:00.480 | and then started making public statements

00:33:01.880 | a month or so ago,

00:33:02.720 | "Hey, we're officially abandoning zero COVID.

00:33:05.440 | We're just gonna, we're gonna abandon zero COVID

00:33:08.240 | when we get everybody vaccinated."

00:33:10.000 | And, but what has become obvious

00:33:12.880 | is that coronavirus is endemic.

00:33:16.880 | It is not a pandemic, it is endemic.

00:33:19.120 | It's something that is within the culture

00:33:21.360 | and will never go away.

00:33:22.920 | It will change, it will mutate.

00:33:24.240 | It'll just be there along with all of the other,

00:33:26.560 | the other sicknesses and diseases that afflict us,

00:33:29.880 | the other viruses and the respiratory things

00:33:32.160 | that we catch, et cetera.

00:33:34.000 | And so you see many people openly discussing that,

00:33:37.320 | and you see many people accepting it.

00:33:39.880 | Several European nations have led the way.

00:33:42.360 | Is it Norway, Denmark, Sweden, I think were the three,

00:33:46.440 | but I could be mistaken in those specific countries,

00:33:49.000 | but they have said,

00:33:50.680 | "We're removing all coronavirus restrictions.

00:33:54.080 | There's no restrictions, there's no rules,

00:33:56.160 | there's no mandates."

00:33:57.800 | It just is, it is what it is.

00:33:59.480 | And we're gonna try to keep our hospital system

00:34:01.440 | strong enough to help people who are sick enough

00:34:03.720 | to need hospitalization,

00:34:05.200 | but we're not enforcing specific policies.

00:34:10.200 | Singapore has said this several months ago,

00:34:12.920 | they said they were moving in this direction.

00:34:14.400 | I listened to a talk by the chief epidemiologist

00:34:16.480 | of Singapore and he explained

00:34:18.080 | how they were moving in this direction.

00:34:19.440 | And that's even as of this last week or so,

00:34:22.520 | while they've imposed some short-term things,

00:34:24.280 | he said, "As quickly as we can build hospital capacity,

00:34:26.360 | that's where we're going."

00:34:27.440 | Is we're just, we're gonna eliminate

00:34:29.160 | all coronavirus-related restrictions

00:34:33.320 | and we're moving on with life.

00:34:36.040 | And I think what you see very clearly

00:34:37.760 | is that the people broadly have decided that.

00:34:42.000 | It's very obvious here in the United States,

00:34:43.880 | that it's been obvious for some time,

00:34:45.920 | that the people have decided that they're done.

00:34:48.200 | They're done with restrictions, they're done with it.

00:34:52.120 | As at the conference last week,

00:34:53.320 | with 3,000 people, you got 3,000 people in a room

00:34:56.040 | who have all decided we're done.

00:34:57.680 | And the vulnerable people,

00:34:59.120 | I'm sure there were many people

00:35:00.160 | who have various vulnerabilities

00:35:03.080 | and they chose to watch things virtually,

00:35:05.920 | but there were 3,000 people in a room

00:35:07.800 | who've decided they're done.

00:35:08.740 | You see the football stadiums all around the country,

00:35:10.800 | full of people.

00:35:12.600 | Every event that I go to is full, right?

00:35:14.760 | People are done, they don't care, they're done.

00:35:17.680 | Everyone who wants to be vaccinated is vaccinated.

00:35:20.760 | Lots of other people have had the infection

00:35:22.840 | and have natural immunity,

00:35:24.440 | and everyone's pretty much made their own risk assessment

00:35:28.520 | and decided that, hey, you know what, we're done.

00:35:31.080 | And I think that's, I've seen it the strongest

00:35:34.200 | in the United States, but I think the same thing

00:35:37.460 | is happening in many other places.

00:35:39.240 | At least as best I can read the cultural signals,

00:35:43.240 | it seems like many people all around the world

00:35:45.260 | have made exactly the same decision to different areas.

00:35:49.320 | Americans are much more brash about it,

00:35:50.920 | much more open about it, much more kind of stubborn

00:35:53.560 | and willing to fight, but all around the world,

00:35:56.160 | you see the same kind of thing.

00:35:57.960 | And I hope that it continues.

00:35:59.960 | I hope that people continue, this last week,

00:36:02.080 | there were major protests in Rome about vaccine mandates,

00:36:07.040 | several major protests all across Europe.

00:36:10.500 | You see the disarray in the flight system,

00:36:15.500 | which seems like there's a very good chance

00:36:17.600 | that right now, all the disarray with Southwest Airlines

00:36:20.360 | and their vaccine mandate in the United States,

00:36:22.920 | I think that there's a good chance that that will spread.

00:36:27.920 | I don't expect to spread everywhere,

00:36:29.640 | but I think there's a good chance

00:36:31.080 | that that movement will continue to spread.

00:36:34.800 | And so, as far as I can see,

00:36:36.600 | I don't see why anybody should be living

00:36:38.340 | at this point in time as though the vaccine's still on,

00:36:47.040 | or sorry, the pandemic is still on.

00:36:49.040 | I don't see the point at this point in time.

00:36:52.640 | Which brings us to now the concerns

00:36:54.240 | and the fears that many people have.

00:36:56.800 | Right now, the thing that concerns most people

00:36:59.840 | is imposition of mandates.

00:37:02.280 | There are many millions and millions of people

00:37:05.120 | all around the world who have decided

00:37:07.680 | that they don't want a coronavirus vaccine,

00:37:11.600 | or at least they don't want any of the coronavirus vaccines

00:37:14.280 | that are currently available,

00:37:15.640 | or at least they don't want a coronavirus vaccine right now.

00:37:19.000 | And they have decided that they are making a different choice

00:37:22.400 | for whatever their personal reasons are.

00:37:24.640 | And yet governments all around the world

00:37:26.360 | have decided to impose forced vaccination on people.

00:37:30.760 | And this was big news in the United States.

00:37:32.660 | Some weeks ago, President Biden announced

00:37:34.980 | that he was going to direct OSHA to rule out

00:37:39.280 | and that any employer with more than 100 employees

00:37:43.580 | was going to require all of its employees to be vaccinated.

00:37:47.480 | Now, I'll tell you just my opinion on this.

00:37:49.800 | I studied, so on the one hand,

00:37:52.040 | I think that in the United States,

00:37:53.520 | there is a good legal precedent

00:37:56.560 | where the federal government potentially

00:37:59.680 | could mandate vaccination for all people.

00:38:03.560 | I think, what was it, Jacobson versus Massachusetts,

00:38:05.960 | if memory is right, back from the early 20th century,

00:38:08.900 | was I think a case that, to my non-lawyer brain,

00:38:12.960 | seems like it could be applied.

00:38:14.520 | And you could say, look, the federal government

00:38:16.000 | has the legal ability based upon this case law

00:38:19.280 | to force and mandate vaccination.

00:38:21.420 | But having the legal ability to do something

00:38:24.960 | and having the actual moral authority,

00:38:27.940 | having the actual mandate given to you by the people

00:38:30.480 | to do something is a very different thing.

00:38:32.800 | And I think, at least in the United States,

00:38:35.560 | where I understand the culture, I believe,

00:38:37.840 | not a chance in the world that they would

00:38:41.720 | be able to effect that.

00:38:44.320 | There would be harassment and killing widespread

00:38:48.920 | of any government agent who tried to enforce that

00:38:52.440 | across the board.

00:38:54.080 | Now, what I think is really interesting

00:38:56.080 | is if you study how the government

00:38:58.440 | is actually in the United States trying to force compliance

00:39:01.640 | through the employers and through the fines,

00:39:03.640 | I think that's probably the best lever

00:39:05.200 | that they could push on to kind of accomplish that goal,

00:39:08.400 | to accomplish the goal of forcing everybody

00:39:11.240 | to be vaccinated.

00:39:13.480 | But even that, I think that in the United States,

00:39:16.880 | I don't think it will go through eventually, right?

00:39:18.840 | You've seen OSHA do absolutely nothing on this

00:39:22.800 | in the month and a half since President Biden

00:39:25.600 | announced the policy.

00:39:27.160 | Now, of course, OSHA says, oh, it takes us months

00:39:29.640 | and months to develop the regulations,

00:39:31.000 | as it should, as it does.

00:39:33.480 | But if and when they finally actually come out

00:39:35.860 | with some kind of regulation,

00:39:38.200 | then we'll see what it actually says

00:39:39.880 | and then see what people actually are willing to enforce.

00:39:43.840 | I don't think that this forced vaccination scheme

00:39:47.280 | in the United States will win, I don't.

00:39:50.280 | First, I think that many of the mandates

00:39:54.060 | that are already issued are facing legal challenges

00:39:59.040 | that are very, very significant.

00:40:00.520 | You look at the people who are suing various employers,

00:40:03.480 | suing the government,

00:40:04.800 | I think that the legal challenges are quite high.

00:40:07.720 | When you actually, and again, not a lawyer,

00:40:10.320 | but when I listen to the lawyers explain

00:40:12.920 | the duty of proof that somebody has to offer

00:40:17.040 | when they mandate vaccination,

00:40:18.000 | the proof is simply not there, right?

00:40:19.860 | They cannot fulfill what the law requires them to fulfill

00:40:23.520 | in order to prove that something could happen.

00:40:25.320 | When you listen to what the OSHA regulations say,

00:40:28.600 | like they cannot prove it.

00:40:30.360 | They cannot prove that this is a,

00:40:33.880 | I can't remember what legal language,

00:40:35.040 | they cannot prove that this is a compelling danger

00:40:37.720 | for most people and they cannot prove

00:40:39.220 | that this is the best alternative, et cetera.

00:40:40.680 | Like none of that stuff can be proved.

00:40:42.200 | And what happens is when some,

00:40:44.240 | in the court system in the United States,

00:40:46.360 | when something goes into court,

00:40:47.760 | it requires a very different level of evidence

00:40:50.960 | than it does in the public space.

00:40:52.720 | You can have all kinds of things in the public space.

00:40:54.720 | You can have people say all kinds of things,

00:40:56.480 | but when it actually comes down to lawyers

00:40:59.080 | submitting documents into court,

00:41:01.000 | the judges don't fool around

00:41:02.300 | and the stuff actually has to be true.

00:41:03.940 | It actually has to be proven.

00:41:05.880 | And if it's not, it all falls apart.

00:41:08.080 | You see this all the time with lawsuits.

00:41:09.800 | Politicians says, "Well, I'm gonna sue so and so."

00:41:11.800 | And they can say whatever you want.

00:41:13.280 | You can say whatever you want.

00:41:14.120 | You can shout on Twitter, et cetera.

00:41:15.920 | But then the only thing that actually matters

00:41:17.720 | is what do the lawyers say in the court documents

00:41:20.760 | and what is the testimony in court under oath

00:41:23.640 | where there are actually penalties for lying.

00:41:25.420 | And all of a sudden it's a very different scenario.

00:41:27.560 | And so on that regard, I just,

00:41:29.560 | I don't see how they can prove it

00:41:31.040 | with any of my knowledge of,

00:41:32.640 | and kind of layman's observation of the data,

00:41:35.520 | the studies, the arguments, the efficacy,

00:41:38.320 | the actual danger of the disease for workers, et cetera.

00:41:41.840 | I don't think that they win those lawsuits.

00:41:44.520 | Number two, if they do win the lawsuits,

00:41:48.820 | I don't think the American people will put up with it.

00:41:50.840 | I really don't.

00:41:52.440 | Now, I have questioned this a lot of times.

00:41:54.640 | I never thought the American people would put up

00:41:56.320 | with having their gyms closed for a year.

00:41:59.480 | I never thought that they would.

00:42:00.740 | I couldn't imagine it.

00:42:02.560 | But I was really saddened to see that they rolled over,

00:42:06.200 | businesses closed, they shut everything down,

00:42:08.720 | and they dealt with it.

00:42:11.400 | I was surprised.

00:42:13.480 | But I've also seen a little bit of backbone

00:42:15.760 | be stuck back up and people have said,

00:42:17.600 | "No, we're gonna keep pressing on."

00:42:20.000 | And so things have gotten better along the way

00:42:23.600 | in terms of the Americans' willingness to stand up

00:42:25.940 | and just not put up with tyrants.

00:42:28.480 | And so I'm happy to see that.

00:42:29.760 | And that's encouraged me.

00:42:32.400 | Along the way, as I've watched the mandates

00:42:34.840 | and everything that employers have put down,

00:42:36.420 | it's been an interesting conversation to watch.

00:42:39.780 | I think even this week, it'll be fascinating

00:42:42.480 | to see what emerges from the airline industry.

00:42:44.840 | Right now, there's a hot debate going on

00:42:46.960 | with the Southwest Airlines.

00:42:51.040 | And so you have the airlines saying,

00:42:52.420 | "Oh, we're having problems with air traffic control

00:42:54.520 | "and we're having weather problems,

00:42:57.400 | "so we're canceling flights."

00:42:58.480 | Meanwhile, you've got lots of text messages

00:43:01.020 | and lots of inside information and everyone saying,

00:43:03.060 | "Hey, it's because people are walking off of their jobs

00:43:05.740 | "due to vaccine mandates."

00:43:07.640 | And yet that's generally being suppressed.

00:43:09.640 | You go back and look at what happened in Australia

00:43:11.240 | a few weeks ago, right?

00:43:12.080 | The truckies had a big strike,

00:43:13.680 | but the government said,

00:43:15.520 | "We're absolutely going to shut down

00:43:17.400 | "any information on this."

00:43:19.080 | And so they refused to allow the reporting on it.

00:43:21.480 | Social media wasn't allowed.

00:43:22.840 | And the truckies said like,

00:43:23.680 | "Look, we're striking for freedom.

00:43:25.440 | "If you look on the maps,

00:43:26.360 | "you can see where we've shut everything down,

00:43:27.680 | "but we're just gonna keep it all quiet."

00:43:29.920 | Or at least that's the news reports that I have read.

00:43:32.260 | Australians feel free to confirm or deny.

00:43:34.820 | But I think that right now you see a war of information.

00:43:37.380 | And when you have a war of information,

00:43:39.660 | the truth will always prevail.

00:43:41.620 | You cannot hide truth.

00:43:44.100 | It's never hideable.

00:43:46.900 | And so the best thing to always do

00:43:49.100 | is to have your arguments and debates in public

00:43:51.680 | where the truth can come out clearly, quickly.

00:43:53.820 | That results in the best thing.

00:43:55.380 | But right now you don't have that.

00:43:57.500 | So we'll see what happens in the coming months

00:43:59.740 | as more and more employers mandate vaccines

00:44:02.600 | and the government.

00:44:04.240 | I think that most of the government regulation stuff

00:44:07.000 | is primarily a publicity coup.

00:44:08.400 | It's trying to create cover for individual employers

00:44:12.720 | saying, "Hey, listen guys, you go ahead,

00:44:14.800 | "private market, you go ahead and do what we can't do."

00:44:17.960 | Think of it like this.

00:44:19.760 | It's like censoring information.

00:44:22.920 | What does the government do?

00:44:24.440 | Well, the government knows, in the United States,

00:44:26.680 | the government knows that the government

00:44:28.680 | is not able to restrict speech.

00:44:30.800 | Can't do it legally.

00:44:33.720 | First Amendment right to open speech.

00:44:36.280 | So what the government does is try to incentivize

00:44:41.280 | individual businesses and corporations

00:44:43.600 | and entities at a local level to restrict speech.

00:44:46.420 | And so the goal is get Facebook to say,

00:44:50.100 | "Okay, we're not gonna do that."

00:44:51.200 | Get YouTube to scrub all arguments about,

00:44:55.880 | what was the thing they just banned?

00:44:57.240 | Vaccines, right?

00:44:58.680 | You're not gonna argue about vaccines,

00:45:00.040 | not gonna talk about vaccines.

00:45:02.000 | Get YouTube to remove all the channels

00:45:04.240 | and all the videos related to anybody

00:45:05.940 | who questions a vaccination

00:45:08.200 | or wonders what vaccination schedule is right.

00:45:10.640 | Get YouTube to do it.

00:45:12.040 | And so the government uses its winking authority

00:45:17.040 | to say, "We'll give you cover to do what we can't do."

00:45:20.560 | And so I think basically you see the same thing

00:45:22.580 | happening right now with vaccine mandates

00:45:24.980 | that the US government is trying to give cover

00:45:28.700 | to companies and employers who are saying,

00:45:31.080 | "Yeah, we're gonna do this

00:45:32.160 | "because this is what we want to be done," et cetera.

00:45:35.200 | But I don't think it works, I really don't.

00:45:38.100 | If you look at, look at right now,

00:45:40.520 | the situation this week with all the canceled flights

00:45:42.580 | from Southwest Airlines.

00:45:44.320 | People have no concept of how easily

00:45:49.900 | the entire American society could be shut down

00:45:54.460 | by a few angry, organized, coordinated people.

00:45:59.460 | The one that I always think about

00:46:00.960 | is I always think about when I was younger,

00:46:02.600 | there was the Maryland shooter.

00:46:05.260 | If you remember this story,

00:46:06.760 | there was a shooter in the Washington DC area

00:46:09.840 | who was shooting people on the street

00:46:11.500 | with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

00:46:13.020 | I forget how many people he killed, handful of people.

00:46:15.880 | The entire Capitol was shut down

00:46:21.200 | for a couple weeks at least, I think.

00:46:25.100 | A couple weeks at least for one guy with a gun.

00:46:29.880 | One guy with a gun.

00:46:31.540 | People were scurrying around, scared to be outside,

00:46:34.180 | everything was shut down for weeks with one guy with a gun

00:46:38.940 | who was angry and shooting people on the street randomly.

00:46:43.120 | Now, imagine in the United States

00:46:47.580 | where you have a few thousand people

00:46:49.140 | or a few hundred people who decide,

00:46:51.620 | you know what, I'm done with this,

00:46:53.680 | and they start doing crazy stuff

00:46:55.560 | and just gumming up the works of the wheels of government.

00:46:59.020 | Right now, it's really easy stuff to do.

00:47:01.700 | Right now, it's, hey, I'm not gonna go to work today.

00:47:04.160 | And look at the chaos that ensues.

00:47:07.500 | And just imagine if a few hundred people start going beyond.

00:47:12.340 | Now, I think those kinds of people

00:47:14.060 | are just sitting back and watching and waiting

00:47:15.900 | and saying what actually happens.

00:47:17.300 | But there is a line, and whenever the public decides

00:47:20.060 | that's enough, the public is the one

00:47:22.380 | who has all of the power, right?

00:47:24.060 | That's where all the power is,

00:47:26.020 | especially in a country like the United States.

00:47:28.260 | The people allow the government to go

00:47:30.580 | as far as they believe the government should go,

00:47:33.280 | and then things change.

00:47:34.660 | And you can't predict where that line is.

00:47:36.820 | You can't predict it, because a lot of it

00:47:40.500 | has to do with crowd dynamics, right?

00:47:41.860 | I'll just say, for me, I have not been involved

00:47:44.580 | in, I never protested against masks.

00:47:46.460 | I didn't say I'm not gonna wear one.

00:47:47.660 | I admire people who did, but to me,

00:47:49.180 | I'm like, eh, okay, no big deal, wear a mask.

00:47:50.700 | I'll be polite, I'll be kind.

00:47:52.620 | I don't, you know, I just wanna be kind to others.

00:47:54.580 | Maybe I can protect others.

00:47:56.500 | Maybe it does do some good,

00:47:57.660 | even though the box says it does no good.

00:47:59.420 | Maybe it does do some good.

00:48:00.460 | Maybe statistically, if enough people do it,

00:48:02.780 | it will bend the curve, and this seems like an easy,

00:48:05.700 | an easy thing that I can do.

00:48:07.460 | So I do it.

00:48:08.420 | And I respect those who refuse to comply,

00:48:11.340 | and I respect those who absolutely say,

00:48:14.500 | we're gonna wear a mask no matter what.

00:48:15.780 | That's fine, it's your own position.

00:48:16.940 | You can do as you like.

00:48:18.100 | But if you, but over the last few weeks,

00:48:20.740 | like I've changed dramatically,

00:48:21.980 | where I have become, in the past,

00:48:24.140 | no, oh, it's probably medical, it makes sense, et cetera.

00:48:27.220 | I've become more of an extremist over the last few weeks.

00:48:29.220 | No, this is enough.

00:48:30.620 | This is absolutely, this makes no sense, right?

00:48:33.780 | And I look at other countries where I can see more,

00:48:35.820 | it seems more clear.

00:48:37.420 | Like, it makes no sense for you

00:48:40.820 | to be imposing these things.

00:48:42.260 | It makes no sense.

00:48:43.940 | Like, time and again, right?

00:48:46.180 | You have to be vaccinated

00:48:47.900 | to protect the vaccinated people, right?

00:48:50.060 | You have to get the vaccine that doesn't protect you

00:48:53.260 | from those who don't have the vaccine.

00:48:54.620 | So because of that, we have to vaccinate

00:48:56.460 | all the unvaccinated people

00:48:57.940 | so the vaccinated people can be protected from the,

00:49:00.340 | it makes no sense.

00:49:01.900 | And you hear people twist themselves in knots

00:49:03.700 | trying to explain it, and I followed all the medical stuff.

00:49:05.540 | And like, you're an idiot.

00:49:07.220 | It doesn't work.

00:49:08.260 | You can't, there's no point.

00:49:12.180 | And so I think it's over.

00:49:15.100 | I think we're in the last bits of it

00:49:16.540 | because the people decided it's over.

00:49:18.780 | And I have no intention of changing my lifestyle

00:49:21.060 | at this point in time for coronavirus stuff.

00:49:24.860 | And I think that most people are in the same position,

00:49:27.500 | at least in the United States.

00:49:28.820 | So I think that by maybe this winter,

00:49:31.020 | I mean, certainly we expect cases to go up this winter

00:49:33.140 | in many places in the cold climates,

00:49:35.060 | but I think that over the coming months,

00:49:37.780 | all the stuff will be gone.

00:49:39.900 | They'll withdraw the regulations,

00:49:41.420 | at least in the United States,

00:49:42.580 | and things will continue forward.

00:49:44.740 | I don't know about on a global basis,

00:49:46.420 | but I think that by next year, we'll be done.

00:49:51.420 | That's my opinion.

00:49:52.900 | Now, we'll see if it's right or wrong.

00:49:54.620 | It's on the record now.

00:49:55.860 | We can go back and listen to this in a year and see.

00:49:58.740 | Certainly things could change, right?

00:50:01.500 | A new variant that proves to be more deadly,

00:50:03.980 | a mutation that winds up causing more destruction,

00:50:10.580 | all of that would change.

00:50:11.620 | But at the moment,

00:50:13.340 | I think that we're pretty much done with COVID.

00:50:16.140 | I think that it's endemic.

00:50:17.820 | And I think that a lot of the restrictions will go away

00:50:20.900 | because in places where they're trying,

00:50:24.700 | I don't think the people are gonna put up with it.

00:50:26.540 | And it just doesn't make any sense.

00:50:28.540 | It doesn't make any sense to impose restrictions.

00:50:32.660 | So let's now pivot.

00:50:35.620 | What can you do or what do you do

00:50:39.540 | if things turn into a worse situation?

00:50:43.020 | For example, I have a significant number

00:50:45.620 | of listeners in Canada, right?

00:50:47.180 | What do you do if you're living in Canada

00:50:50.020 | and the Canadian government says,

00:50:52.700 | you can't, what did the recent couple of days ago?

00:50:56.020 | You can't go on a plane.

00:50:57.860 | You can't go on a train.

00:50:59.300 | You can't go on any kind of public transportation.

00:51:02.740 | You can't move around

00:51:04.500 | unless you have your vaccine certificate.

00:51:07.020 | Now, I don't think the Canadians

00:51:08.780 | are gonna put up with it,

00:51:09.660 | but the Canadians have become a lot softer than I thought.

00:51:14.660 | And the same thing with Australia.

00:51:16.460 | The most shocking thing to me has been Australia.

00:51:18.940 | I thought the Australians were like this independent people,

00:51:22.380 | freedom-oriented, like we're tough people

00:51:25.220 | living in the outback and everything.

00:51:26.420 | That was always the reputation

00:51:29.020 | that I always had of Australia.

00:51:31.060 | And it doesn't seem to be the case.

00:51:33.140 | I mean, you see videos of the cops knocking on people's door

00:51:37.460 | or pushing a social media post in their face.

00:51:39.700 | And so I have badly misjudged the Australians evidently,

00:51:42.820 | and I don't understand.

00:51:44.100 | I don't understand what's happening.

00:51:45.540 | And so similar things in Canada.

00:51:47.180 | So what do you do if you are being targeted?

00:51:49.500 | What do you do if you don't want to take a vaccination

00:51:53.860 | that is being forced on you

00:51:54.900 | and your employer says you have to do it?

00:51:56.740 | What do you do if the government says you have to do it?

00:51:59.780 | How can you protect yourself and prepare?

00:52:02.340 | I see this as where fundamentally everything we talk about.

00:52:05.660 | One of the reasons why you build financial freedom

00:52:08.740 | in addition to other freedoms

00:52:10.940 | is so that you have the freedom

00:52:13.100 | to simply follow your conscience,

00:52:14.740 | to do what you believe is right.

00:52:16.620 | People who are slaves, people who are wage slaves,

00:52:20.420 | don't have many options.

00:52:22.380 | And I think it's important to recognize that,

00:52:25.980 | that the reason you build freedom

00:52:27.420 | is so that you have options when you need them.

00:52:30.220 | Let's say there's a guy who says,

00:52:34.980 | I don't want to take a vaccine by force.

00:52:37.300 | I don't think this is the best for me.

00:52:39.660 | Maybe I already have natural immunity

00:52:41.540 | or I have something I'm concerned about.

00:52:43.060 | I don't want to have my heart messed up

00:52:46.340 | 'cause I think that the danger of having my heart messed up

00:52:48.700 | by this vaccine is worse potentially

00:52:51.220 | than potentially the disease.

00:52:55.980 | I'd rather take my risk with the disease.

00:52:57.340 | Whatever reason you decide.

00:52:58.780 | I'm not your boss, I don't care.

00:52:59.980 | You decide for whatever reason you want.

00:53:01.900 | I'll do me, you do you.

00:53:03.500 | But the guy decides he's gonna do that,

00:53:06.180 | but his boss comes along and says,

00:53:07.700 | yeah, on this company, we're all gonna get vaccinated.

00:53:11.020 | I don't fault that guy.

00:53:12.180 | If he's got no money and he's a wage slave,

00:53:14.380 | I don't fault that guy for taking the vaccine.

00:53:17.060 | To be able to support your family

00:53:18.300 | and to be able to do stuff is,

00:53:21.540 | you do what you gotta do because it makes sense.

00:53:23.740 | There are lots of laws that I follow,

00:53:25.740 | lots of things that I do that I don't think should exist,

00:53:28.300 | but I do them because, you know what?

00:53:30.020 | They're the guys with all the force and I'm gonna do it.

00:53:33.620 | You know, I have a concealed carry permit.

00:53:38.540 | I don't think you need a concealed carry permit

00:53:40.460 | to carry a gun, right?

00:53:42.500 | It is your absolute natural right for you to carry a gun

00:53:45.820 | to protect yourself and your family.

00:53:47.820 | I believe in so-called constitutional carry,

00:53:50.980 | which means that, hey, you don't need anything.

00:53:53.460 | Constitution says the right of the people

00:53:54.940 | to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

00:53:57.460 | I'm not gonna infringe upon you.

00:53:59.380 | I'm not, if you tell me, yeah, Joshua,

00:54:01.180 | I don't have a concealed carry license,

00:54:04.180 | but you roll up your shirt

00:54:05.300 | and you show me a 45 strapped to your hip,

00:54:08.500 | I say, yeah, good for you, doesn't matter.

00:54:10.740 | But I still have chosen to get a concealed carry license

00:54:14.020 | because I figure if I can reduce my legal risk a little bit,

00:54:18.060 | then I'm gonna do that.

00:54:19.500 | And even though I don't think it should be the law,

00:54:22.740 | I'm gonna choose to do what seems best for me,

00:54:25.500 | even if it's potentially a compromise.

00:54:27.880 | So I'll go ahead, I'll get the license,

00:54:30.300 | and then I'll bide my time.

00:54:33.220 | And so I think about it like that, right?

00:54:34.580 | You may say, you know what?

00:54:35.780 | I don't think I really want the vaccine,

00:54:37.540 | but I need this job, so I'm gonna go ahead and do it.

00:54:42.220 | I think that's what you should do.

00:54:43.460 | If you need to feed your family,

00:54:44.540 | you gotta make sure that you prioritize.

00:54:46.860 | And you can't be an activist on everything,

00:54:49.420 | or you wind up twisting yourself into knots.

00:54:51.380 | You can't make any forward progress.

00:54:53.780 | And so I don't think that, I don't look down on you.

00:54:57.780 | If you are choosing to do things,

00:55:00.140 | you don't wanna do because that's what you believe is best.

00:55:02.620 | That's what allows you to have a job.

00:55:03.900 | That's what allows you to go the places you need to go.

00:55:06.780 | That's what allows you to protect yourself.

00:55:08.660 | That's not wrong, right?

00:55:10.020 | That's understandable,

00:55:11.300 | and that's probably the right thing to do.

00:55:13.340 | I would have a hard time if I were dependent upon a job.

00:55:16.760 | I would have to be really confident being an activist

00:55:20.620 | and walking away from that job because of something.

00:55:24.420 | Respect for those who do.

00:55:25.580 | I hope that if I ever have to face it,

00:55:27.820 | I am that confident,

00:55:29.300 | but I don't fault you for doing it.

00:55:30.900 | What I point out though is the whole reason

00:55:32.500 | you build freedom and resiliency and backup

00:55:34.660 | and options in your life

00:55:36.100 | is so that you don't have to ignore your conscience.

00:55:39.380 | The whole reason you build a freedom fund

00:55:43.200 | is so that when you're asked to do something unethical

00:55:46.120 | or illegal or immoral at your job,

00:55:48.300 | you can just walk out the door and you can not look back.

00:55:52.100 | It's for the good times, but it's also for the bad times.

00:55:54.980 | The whole reason why you stockpile food in your house

00:55:59.900 | is so that you don't have to potentially run the risk

00:56:02.300 | of going out and stealing from your neighbor

00:56:03.940 | to feed your children.

00:56:05.820 | I understand why a man goes and steals food

00:56:10.540 | from his neighbor to feed his children.

00:56:12.940 | If my children were hungry and desperate,

00:56:14.980 | I like to believe that maybe I wouldn't,

00:56:16.940 | but I'm scared that I probably would.

00:56:18.900 | I probably would go and steal from my neighbor.

00:56:20.980 | And so what you do is you put resiliency in,

00:56:23.420 | and you say, I don't wanna be forced in a position

00:56:25.500 | where I have to go and steal from my neighbor,

00:56:27.460 | so let me go ahead and stockpile some food from my family

00:56:30.580 | so that I can avoid that moral risk.

00:56:32.740 | So by extension, what I'm saying is you prepare,

00:56:37.140 | you build freedom so that you're not forced,

00:56:39.140 | you're not subject to it.

00:56:40.720 | I don't think that most Americans should leave the country

00:56:44.860 | for the reasons stated early in the show.

00:56:46.500 | I think the United States

00:56:47.700 | is probably a pretty good place to be right now.

00:56:49.660 | I've made a pretty good,

00:56:51.300 | I've made an intentional choice with regard to COVID freedom

00:56:55.700 | to come back to the United States right now

00:56:57.500 | because I'm tired of living under the pandemic.

00:56:59.700 | I don't understand why the countries

00:57:01.140 | are not dumping all their regulations.

00:57:03.740 | And at least in the United States,

00:57:05.080 | although the government has dumped its dumb regulations,

00:57:08.340 | the people have decided they're done with it,

00:57:09.860 | and I can live a normal life in the United States.

00:57:12.740 | But maybe it does get worse.

00:57:16.460 | I think here, your best plan is still what I talk about.

00:57:19.380 | Number one, it's basic preparedness,

00:57:21.420 | making sure that you have money,

00:57:23.020 | making sure that you have savings,

00:57:24.580 | making sure that your debts are under control,

00:57:27.860 | making sure that you have food,

00:57:29.600 | making sure that you have protection,

00:57:31.600 | making sure that you have energy resiliency.

00:57:34.140 | Just imagine that people start rioting in a serious way.

00:57:39.140 | Imagine that truckers in the United States decide,

00:57:45.260 | you know what, we're gonna go ahead and protest.

00:57:47.980 | If you think a little bit of chaos at some airports

00:57:50.300 | and a few thousand canceled flights

00:57:52.140 | because of air traffic controllers and pilot striking

00:57:55.100 | has an impact, just imagine what a trucker strike would do.

00:57:58.100 | It would shut the country down.

00:58:01.060 | It would shut the country down.

00:58:04.180 | And that's just the tip of the iceberg of what could happen.

00:58:07.900 | Just imagine some guys go out

00:58:09.940 | and they start cutting off power, right?

00:58:13.620 | And imagine that they sat back

00:58:16.180 | with a 22 single action or a pellet gun

00:58:19.980 | and guys start shooting power crews

00:58:22.660 | that go out to work on restoring the power.

00:58:25.020 | Imagine if every power crew

00:58:28.640 | that's going out to fix infrastructure

00:58:32.380 | that a few guerrilla terrorists have destroyed

00:58:37.020 | to wage their protest against government overreach.

00:58:42.860 | Imagine that every power crew

00:58:45.220 | has to have two or three police officers

00:58:47.380 | protecting the power crew

00:58:48.740 | from being shot at by random people.

00:58:52.220 | And then it catches on,

00:58:53.940 | kind of like the, shall we say,

00:58:56.420 | the let's go Brandon chants,

00:59:00.500 | aka the FU Biden chants have taken off in the United States

00:59:03.940 | at every game you go to,

00:59:05.680 | the crowds are, to use the euphemism,

00:59:08.700 | are calling out let's go Brandon and pounding it.

00:59:11.540 | Just imagine it comes out.

00:59:12.580 | And basically the idea gets out,

00:59:14.100 | you know what, let's shut things down

00:59:16.300 | and take a few potshots here and there.

00:59:18.220 | Like that kind of thing is,

00:59:19.200 | that kind of guerrilla warfare is utterly indefensible.

00:59:22.060 | There's no answer to it.

00:59:23.540 | And the entire thing,

00:59:24.660 | the entire country would be paralyzed

00:59:26.860 | and shut down overnight, absolutely overnight.

00:59:30.700 | Think about a few years ago,

00:59:33.020 | the Dallas police shootings, right?

00:59:34.540 | One guy, one guy went out

00:59:37.060 | and started shooting police officers in Dallas.

00:59:39.960 | Imagine if government health inspectors were harassed

00:59:43.920 | and people just actually decided,

00:59:45.720 | you know what, we're done with this.

00:59:46.860 | And they start doing that.

00:59:47.700 | They would shut everything down.

00:59:48.880 | So what do you need?

00:59:49.880 | Well, you gotta be prepared to do

00:59:51.120 | without systems of support, right?

00:59:52.780 | You need food, you need water,

00:59:54.400 | you need alternative energy.

00:59:55.680 | You need to be able to deal with and not go to work.

00:59:58.120 | You need money to pay your bills

00:59:59.600 | so that you can not have your house foreclosed on

01:00:01.640 | when you can't get to work because the roads are shut down.

01:00:04.620 | And so the point is that we're always living

01:00:07.000 | right on that edge.

01:00:08.280 | And the vast majority of the time,

01:00:09.720 | you never see it,

01:00:10.840 | but we're always living right on that edge.

01:00:12.720 | Think of it like a virus.

01:00:14.880 | At every single year,

01:00:16.280 | every single time through human history,

01:00:17.920 | there are millions and millions and millions of viruses

01:00:20.840 | that are mutating and mutating and changing, et cetera.

01:00:23.360 | And at any point in time,

01:00:25.620 | any one of those viruses can emerge

01:00:27.720 | and cause a worldwide pandemic.

01:00:29.540 | So that's basically the situation we live in is,

01:00:34.520 | what was it, Jonathan Edwards had the sermon, right?

01:00:37.920 | Where sinners walking across a precarious bridge

01:00:41.080 | over a lake of fire, right?

01:00:43.160 | Life is actually extremely fragile and we live on the edge.

01:00:45.600 | So from a practical perspective, you save money,

01:00:49.480 | you cover your bills, you control your debts,

01:00:51.440 | you make sure you're covered,

01:00:52.280 | you build resiliency in your business,

01:00:54.520 | and then you build your skillset.

01:00:56.560 | Back to kind of mandates.

01:00:57.960 | I'm trying to focus in on what do you do if you get fired?

01:01:01.040 | Right, there are lots of employers

01:01:02.720 | who are requiring their employees to be vaccinated.

01:01:07.760 | First thing you should obviously have

01:01:10.280 | is you should obviously have the ability

01:01:13.480 | to create the necessary paperwork

01:01:15.320 | that will satisfy your employer.

01:01:18.020 | In any tyrannical society,

01:01:20.920 | the way that you get life done is by knowing people.

01:01:24.560 | Go and study any society that's given over to tyranny

01:01:27.280 | and you will find that many, many people

01:01:29.620 | do not obey the laws, but how do you do it?

01:01:31.800 | It's always about connections,

01:01:33.200 | it's always about network, et cetera.

01:01:35.040 | You have to know who you need to talk to

01:01:37.100 | to get the paper that you need from the right person.

01:01:39.120 | You have to know who you need to talk to

01:01:40.440 | who has access to the computer records to put that in.

01:01:43.040 | You have to figure out how do I get the person

01:01:45.200 | the necessary payment for their services?

01:01:47.440 | This is how the world works.

01:01:48.960 | This is how the world has always worked.

01:01:51.120 | Some people are equal, but some are more equal than others.

01:01:53.480 | It's a classic scenario, it's always that way.

01:01:56.120 | And so in every society,

01:01:58.280 | there is always a way to get done what you needed.

01:02:01.200 | Now what has happened is that Americans

01:02:03.960 | have been lulled to sleep by the basic expectation

01:02:07.620 | that hey, society should leave me alone.

01:02:09.260 | And Americans have never really seen the need to know that.

01:02:12.220 | They haven't ever seen like,

01:02:13.860 | why would I need to know the doctor

01:02:16.300 | who can enter in the appropriate vaccination record

01:02:18.840 | into the computer and squirt the serum into the air

01:02:22.620 | while scanning the barcode so that I can have my pass?

01:02:25.220 | Like that's just unthinkable for most Americans.

01:02:28.140 | But that's the way the world works,

01:02:31.500 | is you just simply need to know the right people.

01:02:33.740 | You need to know the right people

01:02:34.680 | who give you the paperwork that you need,

01:02:36.280 | who give you the passes that you need,

01:02:37.580 | and you need to know how to compensate them

01:02:41.120 | for their services in a way that provides them

01:02:42.980 | with plausible deniability.

01:02:44.580 | Yes, I'm talking about bribing people.

01:02:46.380 | That's the way the world works.

01:02:48.680 | In most countries around the world,

01:02:50.780 | where you don't have this kind of broad, orderly scenario,

01:02:54.900 | the way that you move forward is you pay the people

01:02:56.860 | that you need to get the paperwork that you need.

01:02:59.220 | Now that's different, and that's kind of a foreign concept

01:03:01.780 | in the United States.

01:03:02.780 | But if we go down the road of more and more restrictions,

01:03:05.500 | more and more mandates, that's the fundamental foundation.

01:03:09.100 | And so that's on you.

01:03:10.260 | You've gotta have the friends.

01:03:11.460 | You've gotta know who the contacts are.

01:03:13.460 | You've gotta know the people that you need

01:03:15.660 | to get the necessary paperwork to be able to live,

01:03:17.940 | to be able to get onto an airplane,

01:03:19.160 | to be able to get onto a train, et cetera.

01:03:21.240 | It might be easy in a world of paper COVID vaccine cards

01:03:26.060 | to be able to simply print out

01:03:27.500 | and scrawl out the necessary vial numbers

01:03:30.660 | and dosage numbers and address and dates and everything,

01:03:33.260 | and now you have your vaccine card.

01:03:34.740 | Boom, done, et cetera.

01:03:35.840 | Go on with your day.

01:03:37.440 | But it might be more important in New York City

01:03:40.680 | or in San Francisco that now you need to figure out

01:03:44.180 | who am I gonna know who's gonna get this stuff

01:03:45.700 | entered into the computer for me.

01:03:47.300 | And so you need connections.

01:03:48.620 | You need relationships.

01:03:49.560 | You need a network.

01:03:50.640 | And that's something that you can be building.

01:03:52.700 | Now the same exact thing is necessary for you

01:03:55.460 | when it comes to actually building

01:03:58.700 | more options for yourself.

01:03:59.980 | Let's say that you say,

01:04:00.820 | "Listen, I'm not gonna get around.

01:04:02.020 | "I'm not gonna give a fake vaccine card.

01:04:03.960 | "If my employer's gonna require this,

01:04:05.400 | "I don't even wanna work here.

01:04:06.780 | "Like, that's not for me."

01:04:07.960 | So you need the network, the contacts

01:04:10.180 | that you can leave the job and go and get another one.

01:04:12.900 | And what I wanna tell you is right now,

01:04:15.380 | stop this bellyaching of whining about,

01:04:18.560 | "Oh, everything is bad and it's gonna get worse."

01:04:21.220 | There has never been a better time

01:04:23.420 | in the history of mankind for you

01:04:26.740 | to be able to make a fortune,

01:04:29.300 | for you to be able to provide for your family,

01:04:31.380 | for you to be safe and secure,

01:04:32.900 | for you to be free than right now.

01:04:35.100 | There have never been more money-making opportunities

01:04:37.740 | that you and I can do from a computer in a library,

01:04:42.740 | from a Chromebook on a Starbucks Wi-Fi

01:04:47.220 | or a McDonald's Wi-Fi.

01:04:49.140 | You can make a fortune simply

01:04:52.060 | with any number of businesses online.

01:04:54.700 | And you can transact more freely, right?

01:04:57.540 | We, even as the rules go up,

01:05:00.660 | we're developing new alternatives to that.

01:05:03.140 | The rules go up, we develop alternatives.

01:05:05.500 | So whether it's, there's so many examples we could give.

01:05:10.100 | The point is stop bellyaching and complaining

01:05:12.680 | and stop being a doomer and a pessimistic doomer saying,

01:05:16.680 | "Oh, everything is so bad.

01:05:17.840 | "What am I gonna do?

01:05:18.700 | "How am I gonna feed my family?"

01:05:20.700 | Get out, get out, right?

01:05:22.540 | Leave the company and go start your own business.

01:05:25.440 | You can do it.

01:05:29.760 | My words are failing me, which is frustrating.

01:05:34.720 | Buy a, go buy a pressure cleaner at the store

01:05:38.860 | and start knocking on the doors of houses

01:05:42.100 | that clearly need a driveway pressure cleaner.

01:05:44.020 | Start selling your services as a pressure cleaner.

01:05:46.500 | No mandates, no restrictions, no business license needed.

01:05:49.900 | All you need is a pressure cleaner.

01:05:51.700 | Go online and find furniture that's old and beat up

01:05:54.940 | and buy it, paint it and resell it.

01:05:57.220 | The thing that is remarkable to me

01:05:59.040 | about coming to the United States,

01:06:00.420 | one of the things that I always notice

01:06:01.880 | when I come to the United States

01:06:02.900 | is the abundance of money-making opportunities.

01:06:05.840 | I was talking to a buddy of mine, he's a professional guy,

01:06:08.720 | but he was talking about how he finds himself

01:06:10.900 | just in his spare time flipping couches.

01:06:13.940 | He's like, "It seems like I make 600,"

01:06:15.500 | he's always flip buying and replacing his furniture.

01:06:17.300 | He's like, "I make 600 bucks every time I flip a couch."

01:06:19.980 | And he said, "If I wanted to, I got a pickup truck.

01:06:23.580 | "I could flip a couch a week

01:06:25.780 | "and make just an easy five or 600 bucks a week

01:06:29.180 | "with flipping couches."

01:06:30.660 | And he's kind of in the market that he's in,

01:06:33.140 | in South Florida, where there's lots of high-end stuff

01:06:35.680 | and desire for high-end couches.

01:06:38.740 | And my point, I respond, I was like,

01:06:40.980 | "You're absolutely right."

01:06:42.380 | One of the things about the United States

01:06:43.820 | that is so obvious is there are

01:06:45.340 | money-making opportunities everywhere, everywhere.

01:06:49.180 | And they're good money-making opportunities.

01:06:50.900 | They're often not glamorous,

01:06:52.820 | but they're good money-making opportunities.

01:06:54.660 | When I come to the United States,

01:06:55.860 | I'm overwhelmed by the number of businesses you can do

01:07:00.060 | that are just simple things.

01:07:02.580 | I'm not joking about the pressure cleaner.

01:07:05.420 | Like, a simple guy with a pressure cleaner

01:07:07.180 | can make a living.

01:07:08.080 | A guy with a handyman sign on his van

01:07:13.420 | can make a lot of money.

01:07:14.980 | You can flip washing machines online.

01:07:19.540 | You can do all, I mean, those are just simple things

01:07:22.700 | that don't require a lot of intellect.

01:07:23.740 | They don't even require a computer.

01:07:25.300 | A guy with a pickup truck hauling junk

01:07:28.100 | can make a thousand bucks a week.

01:07:29.820 | So don't complain and cry and be pessimistic.

01:07:34.820 | Just go out and ignore the laws

01:07:37.040 | that you don't think are right and go out and do it.

01:07:40.180 | Go out and build something better.

01:07:42.220 | And I think the idea here is,

01:07:45.060 | I don't have the full list of here's what you do,

01:07:47.740 | because it's all the same stuff we talk about

01:07:49.140 | all the rest of the time.

01:07:50.420 | But most of what you do is in your attitude.

01:07:52.540 | And I don't like seeing people cry and worry

01:07:54.740 | about this stuff,

01:07:59.060 | just about the mandates and all of that.

01:08:01.260 | At least in the United States.

01:08:03.060 | Guys, toughen up and get busy and go.

01:08:07.340 | Go build the connections that you need

01:08:09.220 | to get the paperwork aligned

01:08:10.600 | and get your name in the appropriate computer system

01:08:12.580 | with a checkbox in it.

01:08:14.060 | That's the obvious kind of level 101.

01:08:18.220 | Most people, many people will just go ahead

01:08:20.580 | and automatically take the vaccine

01:08:22.140 | because they believe it's better for them.

01:08:23.580 | That eliminates the vast majority.

01:08:25.540 | If you're in the minority

01:08:26.500 | and you don't want to be forced to take a vaccine,

01:08:27.980 | I'm with you.

01:08:29.020 | It's stupid, it's tyrannical.

01:08:30.620 | But I don't think that it's gonna wind up

01:08:32.740 | being that big of a thing.

01:08:33.820 | You just have to deal with your individual employers.

01:08:36.380 | And this will blow over soon.

01:08:39.020 | In the United States, the last thing I said was,

01:08:41.060 | I talked about, I don't think these laws

01:08:42.340 | will actually become laws.

01:08:43.660 | If they do become laws, I think that if we've ever seen

01:08:47.820 | an opportunity for jury nullification,

01:08:50.980 | this very well might be it.

01:08:52.460 | Remember that in the United States of America,

01:08:54.820 | in the jury system, any juror can vote any way

01:08:59.580 | that he or she wants for any reason or no reason at all.

01:09:02.860 | And it's hard for me to imagine

01:09:05.780 | that if you have this stuff actually go to trials,

01:09:08.940 | it's hard for me to imagine that every jury

01:09:11.340 | doesn't have at least one man or one woman on it

01:09:14.980 | who on principle refuses to ever say guilty

01:09:19.940 | for anybody who's broken a law related

01:09:21.660 | to the vaccine mandate.

01:09:23.440 | I think that takes off.

01:09:25.640 | And I think that today in a world of social media,

01:09:28.640 | where someone can, if we actually get trials

01:09:30.660 | and people start popularizing that,

01:09:32.460 | and you just have jury after jury after jury,

01:09:34.620 | hung or a hung jury because of no ability

01:09:38.900 | to come to a thing, the whole thing falls apart.

01:09:41.060 | And that's the ultimate check and balance

01:09:43.140 | in the US American system, is that you have,

01:09:45.500 | the juries are ultimately in charge

01:09:47.780 | of what actually happens.

01:09:49.260 | The politicians can write any laws that they want.

01:09:52.580 | The people can choose whether they follow them or not.

01:09:54.780 | And they choose whether they follow them

01:09:56.380 | based upon the incentives

01:09:58.380 | and based upon their own good nature.

01:10:00.140 | And so people follow the vaccine laws

01:10:02.140 | because they believe that the vaccines are good for them

01:10:04.060 | because, hey, we've got good short-term safety data.

01:10:06.380 | They seem to be saving lives for many people.

01:10:08.900 | And so most people follow them.

01:10:11.100 | But I still think, today I'm more confident

01:10:15.300 | than I was a year ago, but I think that the Americans

01:10:17.760 | will stand up and reject the overall tyranny.

01:10:21.380 | There are a lot of people right now

01:10:23.580 | who are fully vaccinated, who refuse to participate

01:10:28.580 | in vaccination schemes because of the principle of things.

01:10:31.460 | So I think we're good, I think we're safe.

01:10:34.580 | And then finally, the ultimate check and balance

01:10:36.700 | is jury nullification.

01:10:37.620 | And I think there's definitely enough people

01:10:39.860 | that would just simply consistently vote

01:10:41.620 | to vacate any enforcement, any penalties

01:10:43.980 | for anybody who's ever prosecuted

01:10:45.740 | for any of this COVID restriction stuff.

01:10:49.540 | If you can actually get it to a jury trial,

01:10:51.320 | I think that we're good to go.

01:10:52.820 | So those are my opinions on it.

01:10:54.380 | I know that, I hope that it's useful to you.

01:10:57.220 | I've tried to label this show clearly.

01:10:58.720 | Sometimes I worry about,

01:11:00.580 | there's not enough financial planning in this,

01:11:02.240 | but it is a big deal.

01:11:03.440 | What I wanna point out to you is simply

01:11:04.660 | that all the stuff you do for every other emergency

01:11:06.780 | still applies in this current one.

01:11:08.660 | And so don't be downhearted, don't be depressed.

01:11:12.020 | Press forward and fight.

01:11:13.440 | Build the life that you want

01:11:14.600 | so that you can ignore most of the mandates

01:11:17.100 | so you can go where things are better.

01:11:19.220 | And I guess I didn't talk much about fleeing

01:11:21.300 | 'cause I think the United States is a good place,

01:11:22.820 | but I tell you is keep your passports up to date.

01:11:25.820 | There are a bunch of Canadians

01:11:27.460 | who have successfully fled to the United States.

01:11:29.500 | And who knows, maybe someday there'll be a bunch

01:11:32.420 | of Americans who successfully fleed to Albania.

01:11:36.080 | By the way, Americans can go

01:11:37.920 | on a 365-day tourist visa to Albania.

01:11:41.780 | So if you are looking for a country,

01:11:43.720 | but from all I haven't been there,

01:11:45.980 | all of my research when I was trying to get out

01:11:48.500 | of the Western Europe craziness,

01:11:49.940 | and I was asking in various travel groups,

01:11:52.060 | I asked, I said, "Where do you go

01:11:54.500 | "to get out of these ridiculous mandates

01:11:56.460 | "and occupancy laws and everything shut down?

01:12:00.080 | "I'm just tired of it."

01:12:01.700 | One of the strong answers I got was,

01:12:04.380 | Albania and Eastern Europe.

01:12:06.280 | And so all of my data says

01:12:08.420 | that the Albanians don't really care much about COVID

01:12:10.820 | and Albanians like Americans.

01:12:12.860 | Again, you can come in and be in Albania

01:12:15.060 | for a 365-day tourist visa without any problem.

01:12:20.060 | So if you're looking for a place to go

01:12:22.080 | and you need to get out of the United States,

01:12:24.100 | tuck that away and consider Albania

01:12:25.940 | right on the Mediterranean Sea.

01:12:27.100 | You can rent yourself a little beautiful seaside villa

01:12:29.420 | and build your internet business living

01:12:33.020 | in your inexpensive seaside villa on the Mediterranean Sea.

01:12:36.020 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:12:38.620 | Hope this has been useful to you.

01:12:40.780 | Let's talk about kind of where I see things going.

01:12:43.940 | I think we're pretty much getting to the clear of the thing.

01:12:47.860 | I didn't talk about the 700,000 dead.

01:12:50.220 | I need to cover that.

01:12:52.080 | I will be fascinated 15 years from now

01:12:57.340 | to read some of the books, okay?

01:12:59.100 | Because here is the weak point

01:13:00.500 | in kind of the freedom argument.

01:13:02.800 | It's too important of a point to not cover.

01:13:04.940 | The Australian government believes

01:13:09.620 | that what it is doing is in the ultimate best interest

01:13:14.140 | of the people because said government is protecting life.

01:13:18.560 | That we're gonna turn our country into a large-scale prison.

01:13:24.060 | We're gonna bankrupt businesses left, right, and center.

01:13:27.540 | We're going to destroy any concept of freedom.

01:13:29.980 | We're not gonna let our own citizens leave the country

01:13:32.740 | without an approval from the government.

01:13:38.500 | But we're gonna do it because it's gonna save lives

01:13:40.620 | and we're gonna have a low death toll.

01:13:42.500 | It'll be interesting to see

01:13:44.780 | if that does turn out to be the case.

01:13:46.620 | That will be a fascinating data to see.

01:13:50.260 | You can compare that with the Americans

01:13:56.980 | who have a death toll of, again, 700,000 people.

01:14:00.940 | And you can wait and see and say,

01:14:03.900 | okay, well, maybe the Americans said, you know what?

01:14:06.100 | We're not gonna, we're gonna stick to our freedom.

01:14:08.060 | We're not gonna social distance.

01:14:09.340 | We're not gonna wear our masks.

01:14:11.420 | We're not gonna take a vaccine.

01:14:13.420 | We're just going to live free and we're gonna die.

01:14:18.100 | History will be the judge.

01:14:21.140 | There are too many factors

01:14:24.940 | that are kind of interfering factors

01:14:28.660 | to make any obvious argument, in my opinion, at the moment.

01:14:32.760 | There's no way that you can argue that, for example,

01:14:36.500 | well, the American death toll is all because of this.

01:14:39.220 | There are many reasons.

01:14:40.060 | Americans are fatter than many people,

01:14:41.820 | more old people with other diseases than many other places,

01:14:47.260 | a very different structure

01:14:48.500 | than an island in the middle of nowhere.

01:14:50.420 | And so I'm super interested in that topic.

01:14:53.580 | But I think here you have the classic argument

01:14:57.860 | between risk and safety.

01:14:59.300 | Imagine a beautiful lion

01:15:04.500 | that is locked behind the bars of a zoo.

01:15:07.500 | And you say to the lion,

01:15:10.100 | would you rather be here in perfect peace and safety

01:15:14.380 | in your 100 square meter cage, locked behind the bars,

01:15:19.020 | fed an easy diet where it shows up

01:15:21.820 | and you just simply have to eat it,

01:15:23.680 | or would you rather be out in the savanna

01:15:26.800 | with dangers on all sides,

01:15:29.200 | people coming through, hunting you, et cetera,

01:15:31.220 | but be out on the savanna?

01:15:33.540 | The life expectancy of a lion in captivity

01:15:37.260 | is much higher than the life expectancy

01:15:38.980 | of a lion in the savanna.

01:15:40.500 | And yet I think most of us would rather see the lion

01:15:44.540 | have the choice and be placed out on the savanna

01:15:47.580 | versus behind the bars of a zoo.

01:15:49.380 | That's life.

01:15:52.260 | And the older I get, the more I realize

01:15:56.460 | that it's not the number of years that you live

01:16:00.620 | that really makes the difference

01:16:02.180 | in your satisfaction with your life.

01:16:04.600 | Rather, it's the amount of living

01:16:08.500 | and the quality of living that you do

01:16:11.120 | in the years of your life that make the difference.

01:16:14.400 | An appropriate balance seems right.

01:16:19.540 | I try to avoid certain things

01:16:20.880 | that I think are distinctly physically dangerous.

01:16:22.820 | I do my best, but the older I get,

01:16:25.100 | the less I care about the number of years that I live,

01:16:28.140 | and the more I care about the life that I live

01:16:31.180 | during the years that I live.

01:16:35.020 | If you remember, I did the show

01:16:37.820 | about my friend who died of COVID,

01:16:40.060 | and he was late 60s.

01:16:43.020 | I forget if he was 68 or 69, something like that.

01:16:45.620 | Died of COVID.

01:16:47.020 | He lived 69 years, but he managed to pack,

01:16:50.420 | in my estimation, maybe 15 years of living

01:16:53.340 | into his almost 70 years.

01:16:58.060 | That death rocked me hard.

01:17:00.820 | Not the death, meaning, as I stated publicly

01:17:04.580 | and I did that show, that death affected me

01:17:07.220 | because it showed me crystal clear

01:17:10.500 | what a tragedy not living is as compared to dying.

01:17:15.500 | And it showed me that here's my friend

01:17:17.700 | who died of COVID, or at least he died

01:17:21.460 | while being infected with COVID.

01:17:23.660 | I don't know.

01:17:27.460 | I think it's probably a legit COVID death.

01:17:29.940 | He had many of the symptoms, went to the hospital,

01:17:32.500 | did the test, he's got COVID.

01:17:34.180 | So the point is, here's my friend who died of COVID,

01:17:37.200 | but he died never having really lived.

01:17:40.400 | And I think that it's much more important

01:17:47.100 | to think about the way that you live

01:17:49.020 | than the way that you die.

01:17:51.740 | Or said differently, it's much more important

01:17:54.820 | to think about the way that you live

01:17:57.660 | than the date that you die.

01:17:59.360 | And so that doesn't mean that you have to be prudent,

01:18:03.380 | that you have to be imprudent.

01:18:04.780 | It doesn't mean that you go into a

01:18:07.460 | COVID-filled household just willy-nilly,

01:18:12.980 | especially when you don't know anything

01:18:15.020 | about your own risk.

01:18:16.980 | I'm not saying that you'd be foolish.

01:18:19.220 | That's where you wanna be thoughtful and be careful.

01:18:23.620 | But when you look at the world of the living and the dying,

01:18:27.740 | I look at it as a pretty clear example

01:18:31.700 | when I think about the United States right now

01:18:33.620 | versus Australia.

01:18:35.380 | I think about it like the lions behind the bars

01:18:40.380 | versus the lions on the savanna.

01:18:42.380 | And it's not a perfect analogy.

01:18:46.180 | I'm not, don't make it more than what you do.

01:18:48.580 | You and I all have to think about how it applies.

01:18:52.160 | But the older I get, the more concerned I am

01:18:55.080 | with how I'm living versus when I die.

01:19:00.080 | And when I do die, I want it to be said at my funeral

01:19:05.900 | that I really lived,

01:19:08.600 | not the focus being on the fact that I died.

01:19:14.960 | Make of that what you will.

01:19:18.140 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/consult

01:19:20.240 | if you would like to speak with me.

01:19:21.960 | RadicalPersonalFinance.com/consult.

01:19:25.200 | Do more together this holiday in a new Chevy.

01:19:27.940 | Take on more adventure

01:19:29.140 | in the strong and capable Chevy Silverado.

01:19:31.680 | More confidence in the Chevy Equinox.

01:19:33.800 | Winner of the JD Power Award for initial quality

01:19:36.180 | among compact SUVs, two years running.

01:19:38.740 | And more value in the all new Chevy Trax

01:19:40.940 | with an available 11 inch diagonal touchscreen.

01:19:43.620 | Bring the holidays together in the new Chevy.

01:19:45.860 | Click to learn more.

01:19:47.420 | Chevrolet, together let's drive.

01:19:50.180 | For JD Power 2023 US Initial Quality Study Award

01:19:52.780 | information, visit JDPower.com/awards.

2021-10-12_Is_Freedom_in_the_USA_Doomed_Due_to_Forced_V_Mandates