Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption Now. I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the recent report from ProPublica, which cited confidential IRS data it obtained to just spill the beans on the crazy level of tax avoidance that some of the wealthiest Americans are getting away with.
We'll also react to the suggestion that some scientists are making that the universe, as in, like, the universe, outer space, and everything that we know of is conscious, as in, like, what we think of consciousness. You know, like we are aware and present and so forth, and in addition to a lot of other things that may be conscious that we may not think of in that context. And they're doing that from a scientific and mathematical perspective.
Joining me today is a man who feels that money trees are the perfect place for shade.
Tunde Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to share with us how to turn a dollar into a million so we can all get some shade?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Man, I'm just enjoying the time under the tree here, man. I'm in a hammock and everything. It's great. All right, there we go.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: You enjoy that. Now we're recording this on June 14, 2021. And last week, ProPublica, which is a nonprofit newsroom which operates to provide investigative journalism on items of public interest, released a bombshell report.
It's based on leaked IRS tax records that exposed a shocking level of tax avoidance being done by some of the wealthiest Americans. And avoidance meaning legally avoiding tax. This isn't saying that someone's committing a crime, but just tax avoidance. But it's to the extent that it results in, like, billionaires, people who are billionaires, in some cases paying no federal income tax in a given year or multiple years.
Now, ProPublica is exposing this, apparently to advance the premise of that our tax system here in America is broken and results in a system that's just fundamentally unfair to most Americans and just, you know, it just doesn't work for its intended purpose. And so we want to get into that. But first, Toonday, do you agree with this apparent premise of the article, that the tax system is broken is in fact broken and potentially unfair?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: No, I'd say it's complex. That doesn't mean it's broken.
And I would say I think it's neither broken or unbroken in that way. Let me be a bit clear about that. I think, like many things, right, that our tax code, not only the collection of the revenue, but also the decision on how that allocation or how that revenue is allocated back for the national use, if I can put it that way, in all aspects, from overseas military stuff all the way to domestic policy stuff. I think it's just a general collective reflection of the values of a society. Right.
So I think when, you know, that's why I answer it. The way specifically I'm answering it is it's not broken or unbroken. We have it.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: So you're saying it's imperfect. It's not necessarily like it's a car that works.
It's not broken. It's not on the side of the road. But then it's not. Also, it's not something that is flawless either, is what I'm getting.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think, look it clear, clearly nothing is flawless, especially when you're dealing with a nation the size of ours, an economy the size of ours. Nothing's perfect. Right. So now we've discussed that in many levels, in various shows we've had, whether it be immigration or the responses to Covid or whatever. All these things are complex and they're just not. There's never a perfect answer. And I think as I was preparing for today, similar to some of those other complex topics we've discussed, I think part of it is also from what lens is the person making the observation and. Or the critique, from which lens are they viewing it? And that's what I mean. Like, I realize that probably one's relation to the tax situation or tax code in this country, whether they feel it's broken or not, generally stands from their relationship with it and how they stand. So I would say this. Most people, of course, have a negative view on taxes. You know, the only two things that are guaranteed our death in taxes. We tend not to think of taxes with a rosy feeling and.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Nor death.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's my point. Taxes and death are the two things people try to avoid the most in our society. So that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying anyone out there. I mean, I'm sure there could be one human being, but I don't picture that there's this group of people saying, yeah, the tax code's freaking awesome. It's awesome. I just think that it's.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: I think that the billionaires that are cited in this report might think that the tax code is awesome.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Well, I would say this. I'm sure they wish they would pay less than zero or some of them, you know, but. But if that was possible. But that's my point is saying that.
I would say this from someone speaking Myself that's an entrepreneur and uses the tax code in a. Nor in a legal way, in the way that I understand it.
I think that the tax system is fine, but I think can it be improved? Yeah, that's what I mean. It's complex. Is it messy? Yes. But I think that like we've said about other topics, that's what it reminded me of, not to get into other topics, but we've discussed other complex issues that our country has dealt with and we've said things like the things that we feel or a lot of people out there that complain about that think that is needed to fix it. They're already there.
Maybe things like enforcement of our existing rules and other things like that should be looked at at a much greater way. And then I do think there's obviously technology and other things that have led to the need to revise.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah. To take a look. So that's where I would go. Actually. I think it is broken and I think it is fundamentally unfair. But the reason being is that. And actually the ProPublica report shed light on this in terms of when it gave some history in the tax code.
In terms of the tax code as it stands right now, that it focuses on income and due to court decisions from earlier in the 20th century, income specifically excluded investment type things, unrealized gains from investments and so forth. So it basically created that type of thing, created a way to, if you are of a certain level of means, to avoid the bulk of a tax burden. And so if you have a system where your effective tax rate on your growth in wealth for a worker is higher than it is for someone who makes a lot more, I think that's fundamentally unfair and that gets into the broken. So I'm saying mechanically, yes, it's broken. People have figured out a way or a way a opening was created in it that made it no longer suitable for its purpose or made it so that the rules created an inconsistent outcome that no longer operates fairly. So I would say, yes, it is broken. And I was happy that this illustrated that. Now, what I would caution though, and I know that you kind of, you, I know you had this in the back of your mind because I know you so well. But the concern though, like, just because something is broken as it is right now, that doesn't mean you, you go from one, it's one extreme, so to speak, right now, you don't lurch to the other extreme. So I would actually, while I look at this and say, yeah, that, that's good, that's good, that's solid evidence that what we're doing right now isn't working. Right. That doesn't mean we go to the other extreme either, though. And so, like, that's where I would exercise caution here in terms of, okay, we caught the hand in the cookie jar. That doesn't mean we cut off the hand. You know, that just means maybe we need to tweak things a little bit so that these loopholes or these types of approaches that kind of avoid the point in a way that's legal, but it kind of undermines the whole point of what we're doing.
Let's try to address those. Let's be smart. Let's not just be mad. Let's let, like. Because we still want a system that works. We still want to incentivize people to take risks and reward people who take risks and succeed. But, okay, we have, we have a loophole here, an issue here where you're able to undermine the system, you know, pretty easily. And like, let's close that. So that's why I would say it's broken, like, just more mechanically like. Yeah, there's something about the way it works that is not working in a way that I would think it makes sense or is fair.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Well, you know, and this is where it's just interesting to me reading that ProPublica article. I really had an issue with the way they presented the information. And this is what I think, again, going back to the complexity of not only the tax code, but just how we deal with taxes in this country. Because I thought it dawned on me, I started looking and reading this and said, you know, these guys being targeted, I wonder what do they get paid, like salary wise? So I went to Yahoo Finance, which is a legitimate website of most people know, and it's actually finance.yahoo.com and because they have updated.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yahoo, thanks you for the plug.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but they have updated information. And see, again, this is the beauty of our system, right? A lot of this has been flushed out. To be a publicly traded company means you have to release certain information to the public and be transparent. So they have what's called 10Qs and all these things that they issue on a regular basis. And so the latest information they have is that Jeff Bezos salary at Amazon is $1.6 million.
And that's what I realized, like, okay, he's paying 39% on that tax, on that income above, you know, whatever the top bracket, you know, the 400,000 or whatever. Once you get over that number, you're paying 39 so most of his wage income is taxed at that level. And I thought, how come people aren't mad at NBA players and NFL players and movie actors? Why? Because, you know, you hear about LeBron James maybe signing a $200 million contract with the Lakers, but all that income is going to be taxed because he's just going to be earned. It's called earned income. Anybody making income from a W2 is called earned income. Now, what's not taxed at the same rate for Jeff Bezos is his shares of stock. Because Jeff Bezos took a risk in the 90s, started a company called Amazon, and while other people were getting salaries and being able to put food on their table, Jeff Bezos might have been struggling for his first few years. What happens is, out of millions of entrepreneurs, Jeff Bezos figured it out, has a great thing going. And what happened is the value of the millions of shares, the stock that he owned, appreciated over the years.
And until he sells those stocks, there's nothing to tax.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: And so that's, that's your own construct. That's not some rule from God. Like, there's no reason.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: That's not my own construct. Like, I made it up construct. But it's not.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Where is that?
[00:11:11] Speaker B: I didn't make that up.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: But no, but that's my point. If it's broken, it's broken. But where's that written that. That's.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: But here's the thing, James. But hold on. Let's say I, I worked hard like I do, and I paid taxes on my income, and now I build up my savings account to 2 or 300,000, and I take 200,000 of that, and I take the risk to go be an entrepreneur. I hire some people and 10 year. And, and for that, I, I, I issued myself 10,000 shares of stock in 10 years. I did a great job. And that stock now is worth $500 million.
I already paid taxes on that initial money.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: But you didn't pay taxes on the money that it grew.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: But that's the point. So that's my point is saying that people are arguing about something that doesn't exist, which is. Or if they want to elect people to change this, which is the tax code, is the way it is. We don't have a tax on wealth or capital.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Well, no, that was the significance of that Supreme Court decision is that it said that that growth was not income, and so therefore it couldn't be taxed. Right, but that, that's not right. But here's my point, though.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: We have, we Have. Well, obviously anything can be legislated and rules made. I'm just saying we also have an estate tax. So then at death, if I'm worth over a certain amount, my heirs have to pay up to 50% of that value. So if I die.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Not if you have a wealth manager like Tunde Oglana now.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Well, I can't help these billionaires. I mean, at some point you can'.
Avoid the estate tax if you're that wealthy. And that's my point. Like somebody worth a billion dollars, their family might pay 4 or 500 million in state taxes.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: So what they're saying, that's kind of the thing. Like we don't know. But that's what I'm saying.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: The system has all these things already worked out in a. I'm not saying it can't be changed and things can't be updated and modernized and all that. I'm just saying that when I'm reading the article, it's making it out as if all these guys are such fat cats. And it doesn't describe the type of income they're making either.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Well, but no, it did. Some of them pay themselves. What does it say? Elon Musk paid himself a dollar? Or there were several of the people in here whose salary each year is a dollar, and that's public. And they make a big deal about that. And so there are many different ways for the billionaire to do it. And there's.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: What they don't talk about is when he sells Tesla stock to raise his own money so he can live, he's paying capital gains tax on that.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: But, but they do. They talk about how they don't sell the stock. They borrow against the stock and don't.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Okay, so that's. So that's another thing. So if you screw up whatever you borrow the money on, you don't pay it back. Guess what? The bank is foreclosing on your assets. The collateral you put up the stock and the real estate and all the stuff. My point is, is that there's always a risk for these guys and everyone acts like they're just getting it for free. And, and that's what I mean.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: I'm not like people are acting like they're getting it for free, though. They're just saying you do really well. You should have to contribute more. That's the whole. And I want to get into the why, though.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: But here's my point. I read about Carl icahn. He's got 1.2 billion in loans against his Manhattan apartment and a bunch of Other assets. So my point is, if he mismanages that loan, that 1.2 billion, the bank's coming for his apartments and everything else. So he is still.
That has nothing to do with taxes, too. That's just lending against your assets. So why should he be punished for that? That's a totally different game than taxes.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Well, no, it's done, though. What was pointed out is that that type of borrowing a lot of times is done. It's not like they're borrowing the money because they don't have the money. They're borrowing the money because if they access that money, they will have to pay taxes.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: But that's.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: So they borrow it. Borrow funds from someone else so that. It's not like if you take a $10 billion loan, but you're worth 100 billion, you're not risking it in the same way that somebody's taking out a mortgage.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: And.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: And they. For 300,000 and they make 50,000 a year. But I want to bring this back to tax discussion because, yeah, you can always come up with hypotheticals on how things can work out and how things can be good. I think you're correct.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: I'm pointing out this is what the article said these guys are doing, but
[00:15:03] Speaker A: it also said that they're using it for living expenses. I mean, so that's the velocity of money, too.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: They're paying mortgages, they're paying expenses and buying cars.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: You take. Give yourself a dollar, you obviously can't live on a dollar. And so you take a loan out for living expenses so you don't have to pay yourself more and therefore don't have to pay taxes.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: I guess what I'm saying, James, is, for some people is never enough. Look, Bezos pays himself 1.6 million. I'm sure. Jeff Bezos is a grown man who's a CEO of a big company. He doesn't have a lot of time.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: I'm sure he's not about targeting these guys individually, though. It's about trying to set up a system that makes sense. It seems like you're doing the opposite of. What I was saying is you're saying, well, if you don't like this, then you have to do something that is extreme on the other side. And I'm not saying. All I'm saying is that if I say that either.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: I'm just saying that the ideas proposed, I think would hurt.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Hurt.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Like if I was making. See, this is where I could appreciate that if I was making over a million and they raised that tax rate that high, I'D probably just make sure I made less than a million. I'd make 950 just to say go screw yourself.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Well, that's how it worked in the, in the New Deal. And that actually corrected wealth inequality. That, that is the point is that you said it. So it's not advantageous to withdraw that much money from the economy for yourself personally. But I want to, I mean we can get lost in the nuance of it. Yeah. And you know, some of the like, what I'm saying is more high level in that we're looking at something a system. And there have been workarounds created in the system. And so therefore let's try to address the workarounds not to be punitive, not to stick it to anybody, but just to try to bring the system back align so that for example, a billionaire on his earnings pays a similar tax rate than someone who is working a salary like Warren Buffett isn't like radical Warren Buffett said, made this argument in 2011.
He said that there is class warfare going on and my class has won. And so all I'm saying is that let's look at the big picture. Let's not be stuck in what is or what has been. Let's look at this. Let's try to create a system that's fair. And there are a lot of proposals out there for doing that. And I don't think we should look at things and say we got to go to this stream or that extreme or we should look at it and say, hey, well if you don't like this, then we got to blow the whole thing up. None of those things are as helpful as just trying to say, like just what we just see here is here are some of the ways in which outcomes that are out of whack are being delivered. So let's try to look at these and see if we can bring this back in line to just something that's fair. But I know we always like to get into the why on a lot of these as well. And so, you know, like it'll allow us to be on the same page as far as how we're viewing taxes and the tax system in our country. So broadly speaking, like from the point you're coming from, what do you see as the purpose of our tax system?
And from that, you know, like, does it appear from the numbers that you see here based on the purpose that you see, do you think there's a misalignment there or not?
[00:17:48] Speaker B: I mean, I think to answer the first question directly, obviously the Purpose of a tax system, I think is generally similar everywhere. Right. To raise revenue for operation. Right. Of a society, a country, so on and so forth.
Then, you know, and our tax, just for a little bit of history for the audience, you know, our income tax goes back to 1913. It was ratified by the 16th amendment to the US constitution. So income tax has not been something that has been a fixture since the start of the country's founding. No, what happened is, as I was doing my reading on it, it's interesting just to learn all this stuff, right. Like prior to 1913, the sole source of revenue for the United States was tariffs and excise taxes.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Well, they tried, remember, Congress tried to put on some income taxes and Supreme Court kept knocking them down. That's why they had to do a constitutional amendment to actually put them in.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's why. Because.
Well, similar to today, right. The wealth class controlled the courts and lobbied and all that. So it's no different than today. So that's one thing. That's why capital and power always find each other, no matter what.
But, you know, even if it takes 100 years.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: But yeah, they came with the GTFOH.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: But, but no, so, so, so the thing is, is that. But that's what was happening, right. Is that it was kind of sloppy because every time the government was in a hole, they had like an excise tax, like the stamp tax of like 18 something. Because they have to just make up
[00:19:19] Speaker A: from Civil war is when Civil War started. Yeah.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: So it's just. And you had all these finance. You had banking crisis in the late 1800s, just, you know, it was still the wild west of finance in the United States, especially after the Civil War, when you didn't have the, the kind of the economy of the planter class and slavery, which actually was a consistent driver of economic growth at the time. So what happened is you had a couple new systems put in place around the same time, actually these two in the same year, which lend themselves to conspiracy theorists. But looking back, if you actually read the history, they were just necessary an income tax in 1913 and the implementation of a central bank called the Federal Reserve Bank.
So both of those created financial stability for the country going forward. One, giving stability for an actual national banking infrastructure, and then the second, giving stability of revenue for the Treasury. So that goes back to kind of the why of the taxes. And I think, yeah, like we've talked about, right. All that ebbs and flows. It's been literally 108 years since taxes were first implemented at the income Federal level.
And you know, that's why I agree with you. I'm not opposed to having a discussion about, you know, looking how to improve it and all that kind of stuff. I'm just saying my issue in this conversation is the projection that this article makes of these people, like, and this assumption, because I was looking at some of these folks and this is just kind of because I do this for a living. Like something like the municipal bond environment. What a great example, you know, that income is all tax free.
So someone could have a billion dollars in municipal bonds. If they're earning 5%, they're making 50 million a year. It's all tax free. But the reason why municipal bonds exist is to promote private capital to go into public infrastructure works.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: So for example, whether it was the stadium by us that was built years ago for the Miami Marlins, whether it's airport projects, you know, the big airport in Atlanta, I remember it was all on the news when they expanded it and it was a municipal bond offering. And so all those things. And governments don't buy municipal bonds because governments don't pay taxes. So that's why it's the only vehicle for a private person that is 100% tax free in terms of the income. So the municipal bond market today is about $4 trillion in size.
So think about that's really 4 trillion that was private capital that just went in and said, okay, we, you know, we're wealthy people, we want tax free income. But in exchange, the municipality, the city, the state can hold our money for 30 years and do stuff with it. So my point is, is that, is that perfect? I don't know. But it's a kind of, to me, it's a cool way of a kind of private public partnership through the tax code. Because wealthy people don't like paying taxes. So the IRS gave them a carrot which was you can get tax free income here, but the stick is it's got to be a bond.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: And, but that's, that's targeted maturity. Yeah, and that's targeted, I mean, and that's a way, like I would say
[00:22:21] Speaker B: that's what I would want to add
[00:22:22] Speaker A: to what you were saying though, because I think only part of the reason that you have tax system, like I would say the revenue generation part is the checkers part, but the chess part actually, and the one that actually is important for beyond just financial stability, but political and social stability is to manage wealth inequality. It's one of the few ways that the government can regulate how the spoils in capitalism are distributed. The way capitalism works, and this is something that for whatever reason is not common knowledge, but all money flows to the top in capitalism. That's the point of the system. The reason it's called capitalism is because your capital is what brings more money in. And so with all money flows to the top, if you do not have an effective mechanism to keep money flowing back down into the system, back down to the bottom, or at various points in the system, then the money ends up sticking at the top. And the natural result of capitalism is one rich person and everybody else has nothing. And so in order to prevent that from happening, essentially, this is why, just for example, this is why, if left unchecked, you end up with merger after merger after merger. This is why we have to have antitrust. Because unchecked, whoever wins is going to buy the loser, and then they'll fight somebody or battle somebody else, and then they'll win, and then they'll buy the loser. And so they just keep consolidating. This is what Rockefeller did, you know. And so in order to prevent that, tax code is one of the ways to do that. And income tax in particular was used, for example, in the New Deal to try to prevent, try to push down wealth inequality, to try to stop either the trend or to reverse the trend. And so you have to look at it from both of those perspectives, though, if you really want to understand the full scale of what tax is capable of and what it's there for. And that's where I think it's that second piece. I would, I would never argue with you if you say, as far as the wealth generation piece, maybe we shouldn't be spending so much money on things like that's definitely needs to be on the table with any discussion in terms of government money management. But the tax code is definitely letting us down right now. And this is kind of, to Warren Buffett's point, the tax code is letting us down right now in terms of managing wealth inequality, because that has been exploding over the past 40 years or so to levels unseen since feudalism or at least.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: But that's where I think we have a misunderstanding. And just the relationship of capital and the tax code and everything else, because the tax code can't be singled out, I should say, for income inequality. I was gonna say there's a lot more that has, I think, led to income inequality over the last probably 30 years, 40 years, than. It's not the only thing, just the tax code. And I would say this, number one is we don't look at the corporate tax issue because a lot of companies and industries have had subsidies, right? Like from the tech industry, the oil and fossil fuel industry and all that. So I think we keep dumping on individuals and individual tax rates when there's corporate America that obviously is getting away with a lot. Number two is just the reality of just low interest rates, the ease to credit and money. And the thing is, and you're right, James, at some point there is a compounding effect, right? Like there's a lot of people that already had capital, for example. And then last year you had, let's say the pandemic.
And now it's not like the billionaires colluded and say, oh, let's have Apple and Amazon and Tesla and all this just go through the roof and bitcoin. But what happens is those companies were the ones seen as the ones going to make money with everyone staying home. So all the concentration of money went there and the people that were already sitting on those stocks and those kind of companies just got richer. I don't know what the tax code would do about that. There's other areas of finance that could be used.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: But just because you don't know what the answer is doesn't mean there isn't an answer though.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: No, I know. But also I can say the same
[00:26:13] Speaker A: thing back to you.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Just because you don't know the answer
[00:26:14] Speaker A: doesn't mean no, there is an answer for that. Elizabeth Warren has answers for that.
There's answers floating around in Congress all around for that. Now whether those answers, it'll address that one issue. Will it create unintended consequences? I don't know. And so whether the answer would be long term workable. But that's the point is to have the discussion, try some stuff. Don't just paralyze yourself and say, oh well, because we don't know 100% if it'll work. We don't want to do anything.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: Well, I'm not saying that. I'm just making the point that people look at and at the like rich people as this boogeyman. And I'm just saying that, you know, you could squeeze all the money out of these people.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: Look, I'm not saying they're a boogeyman. I'm saying I want a system that makes sense.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: I'm not saying you are. I'm saying we're talking about the article. The article says that they're boogeyman the way that it's written.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I don't think my article says that. I know that.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: You definitely let me, let me read this to you because I'm ready for this. One of the things, and I agree with you, James, that the tax code can be manipulated in a way to drive behavior. Just like we talked about municipal bonds, right? The tax free nature of the income means that the behavior will be that.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: What were you going to say? Because I wanted to things like charitable
[00:27:16] Speaker B: deductions like, or, sorry, charitable contributions. So if you look at the Gilded Age, you know, the hundred years ago, the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, there's a reason why most of the museums and hospitals and all that in the big cities in this country are named after those wealthy people because they gave a lot of their wealth away because it was in the interest of, you know, the tax code.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: So you want to go back to feudalism and nobility then?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Well, no, I don't.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Is that how that worked too?
[00:27:38] Speaker B: No. I'm going to read something for you. This again. We're talking about the article, not necessarily you and I trying to solve the world on this show, but they say, and they're talking about Specifically Michael Bloomberg's $1.9 billion income in 2018.
Then the first thing that the author says right after that is that he made charitable donations of 968 million.
And so then he says he paid 70 million in taxes and so on an almost 2 billion income, that tax amount is 3.7. And I'm like, hold on, that's not right. Because he's allowed to deduct his charitable donation from his income. So really he made it.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Didn't misrepresent that.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: It did misrepresent it as saying he's only paying 3.7% taxes when he's really paying 7.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Well, no, he's allowed, because the income,
[00:28:24] Speaker B: I mean, but James, we just acknowledged that the tax code can be used to manipulate and incentivize behavior. They've done that. They've incentivized wealthy people given to charities by letting them deduct it from their income. So this guy did that. He donated 900, but it's still his income.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: I mean, you're saying.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: But you can't. But that's, that's not fair, man. That's manipulating the numbers.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: It's not. They laid it out clearly for one to see. You took the conclusion that you didn't like the way they said it. But that isn't accurate. What they.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: Because you just read. It's misrepresenting. He paid 7% of his net income in taxes.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: But no, he's allowed 3% of his total income. So you're just mad that.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: No, I'm not mad. I'm saying the 968 is not considered income. He gave it to a chairman.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: It's not like they hid that from you. They say that right there.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: So then they should say he paid 7%. He paid 7% on a billion. He didn't pay 3. That's my point.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: But no, he did make that.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: And the other point, James, is they don't break down. But here's my point. They don't break down his income. We don't know if he paid himself a billion dollar salary that he should be paying 39%. That's my point. What if 700 million of that was bond income? You know what I mean?
[00:29:29] Speaker A: I mean. Yes. Okay, so that's all I'm saying is, I mean, you just want to nitpick the article. But I want to discuss the point, the premise, the whole thing, not just I didn't like their tone. They were snarky. Or I didn't like the way they worded that because from that standpoint, you're avoiding talking about the main issue because you want to take issue with the authors and how they presented it. And like I said, I think I
[00:29:49] Speaker B: addressed the main issue, which is it's a complex tax system. I'm open to suggestions of changing and updating. But I'll tell you this, though, maybe this is where we just disagree. I disagree with the idea of taxing capital in a way that it's income. I mean, I just disagree with that fundamentally.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: So that's fine.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: We can disagree on that.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: That is a construct in the same way that many constructs have existed and we've decided they were no longer good for society.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: No, I agree. Look, I'm someone change this. It ain't going to be me. But I'm just saying I'm not wed to it.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: If it doesn't work, if it results in a system where I pay a much higher percent of my growth in myself and my financial self than people who are worth hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of times than me, then maybe that system doesn't work, right? Maybe that system doesn't work for the purposes of revenue generation or for the purposes of managing wealth inequality. And you may say, oh, the tax code doesn't work for this and work for that. But you, on the other hand, acknowledge that the tax code does manipulate behavior. It can be used to promote certain behaviors and other behaviors, and it's the only mechanism really that was proven to reverse the trend of wealth inequality.
That is not Something that normally happens. Reversing the trend of wealth inequality rarely ever happens, particularly in the context without changing the context of a capitalist system. By maintaining a capitalist system. But reversing the trend of wealth inequality is a miracle. It happened here and it happened when our top tax rate was 90%, 93% and it had, it happened a little bit more at 75%. And I'm not saying you need to go there, but to take this off the table and say well, this wouldn't work anyway, does definitely doesn't seem like the right approach. The other thing I'll say is with the financial game, and this is where we definitely would disagree. The financial game is the only place in the world where the higher you go, the easier it is to go higher. If you want to be a bodybuilder, the stronger you get. Guess what? It's harder to get stronger. If you want to be a racer, guess what? The faster you get, the harder it is to get faster. Go up the list. You were a high level athlete. It didn't get easier to compete at the higher levels once you got higher. Oh yeah, I was great in high school, but now it's easier that I'm in college. If I go to the NBA, it'll be even easier. It doesn't work like that. That's not how the world works. The better you get at something, the harder it should be to keep going up. The financial game is the only thing that's not like that. And that's because the system isn't set up in a way that doesn't make sense. So let's try to make it make more sense. Let's try to make it more fair to everyone. And so that as you keep going up, it's not because it doesn't become easier, the road doesn't become wider for you as you get more and more and more successful. Because again, that's unnatural. That doesn't happen anywhere. And so that's my whole point with this thing, is that this system is set up in a way that doesn't deliver results that are fair and that deliver results for a society that makes it gives us financial and political stability.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: Well, I'll just say that in my dreams my basketball career worked like that. But you're right, when I woke up it was definitely not didn't go that direction.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Well, let me show you this here. I want to. Now I'm going to lean into you. Though I do think there were problems with the article. I don't want to get to that.
So the Thing I saw that I don't know if I'm comfortable with is that this is private stuff.
This isn't stuff that should be public in any way, shape or form. This is leaked. And if this was WikiLeaks doing this, or if this was Putin doing this, we'd be like, hey, what's going on here? So how do you feel about that aspect of this where we're looking at people's public tax records, excuse me, private tax records that have been made public for the purposes of essentially a. Now I look at it as a takedown of the system. I know that you feel like you've expressed that you're like, yeah, I'm like the way that they did these guys, which, you know, I get you on that. I wouldn't argue with you on that. But I think it's a takedown of the system ultimately. But these guys are like collateral damage. But what was your take on that?
[00:33:39] Speaker B: No, I think you're right. I mean, it's, I think it's, it's, it's, you know, lack of a better term like that, you know, that these people's per. And that's my point, right. It's like they're putting all this stuff. That's why I get back to the Bloomberg thing or even Warren Buffett, the way they talk about his tax taxes and, and you know, because they only, they leak out this little bit of stuff, but then they don't really tell us what the, what the total summation of their income is. That's my point is saying that because of the complexity of the tax code, that, that we don't know what their, their whole situation was and how they came to these lower tax rates. And that's why, like one of the things I saw said that between 2015 and 2019 or something, Warren Buffett's wealth grew at 23 billion.
But he paid taxes of this. So his tax rate was like 1 point something or 0.89%, I'm thinking. But the way the tax code worked, the two, you can't put them together just because his wealth. That's what I was saying. We got a bull market here the last decade, so everybody that owns stocks, their stocks went up. And Warren Buffett founded a company 70 years ago that he owns a majority of the shares.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: I had a different take from that. I thought, again, I thought that argument was not that he was supposed to pay taxes on that, it's that he was unfair that he didn't have to pay taxes on because that's an unrealized gain. No, neither of us are saying.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Exactly, but that's my point.
That's why, but that, but James, you said a great point there and that's why I think the system, when it comes to that specifically, I'm not talking about the other 50,000 pages in the tax code, but what you said is very important. It's unrealized gains.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: So how are you supposed to tax that? Because then when he sells it, you tax him again. I mean kind of. That's my point.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Well, no, when he sells it, when he has tax. Well, no, if he passes that on to like there's ways to avoid that as well. I mean now.
But we don't have to again, I
[00:35:23] Speaker B: know, let's not get out of billions of dollars either. That's tough to avoid all that.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: That's my point. But it's not impossible.
And you know, like, but either way, like again, I thought the, the point of that and again I wouldn't argue with you that the way they presented things was to make a point. And the point was that this stuff, it's not fair that these type, these unrealized gains aren't tax taxed now they
[00:35:44] Speaker B: throw out different tax realize that's why maybe, maybe not.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: That's, you don't know that necessarily there are. And so either way, if that's the premise, you disagree with that premise, that's fine. I don't disagree with that premise. I don't know how you would do it necessarily. But I'm not Elizabeth Warren going through all these papers all the time or whoever else has ideas as far as how to do that, whether it be these, these wealth taxes or whatever people are coming up with, I think in order to solve a problem or to address a problem, if you deem it to be a problem, the first thing you have to do is identify what's going on and then try to come up with a solution. I think it would be irresponsible to not look at something like this before you try to figure out how to make a system more fair if you're going to do that, if you don't think it's fair in the first place. And I'll say on the privacy thing, I was uncomfortable, made uncomfortable by this personally, but I don't object to it in the sense that this is a matter of public concern and I do think it's messed up what happened, but the thing like this kind of thing happens. You can argue that what happened to Nixon is messed up, that his private recordings are getting turned over and stuff like that. But it becomes a matter of public concern. And so in this instance, I don't see this.
This doesn't appear to be something that was partisan. This doesn't appear to be something that was vindictive. I don't know if it was my tune would change if it's something like that.
But this looks to be about whether our tax system misses the mark. And if that's. That is a matter that Americans should be concerned about and should have information about and should, if it is, figure out ways to get around it.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: So I'm conflicted.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: I'm honest and I'm conflicted cuz I don't like the privacy part of it.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: And that's the thing. I mean, who knows the motivation of it, you know, political, vindictive, whatever. But again, that's the issue I have with it, right? Is apparently I heard that they got a bunch of tax return. We're talking thousands of individual tax returns. And that's kind of my issue. Right? Like, so they chose to just pick on like five people. Like, and they hear that for newsworthiness
[00:37:46] Speaker A: though, I mean, I'm sure.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: But if they were serious. Because here's the thing, a way I look at. And this again, maybe getting creative mentally with how this is done. And again, I don't know how to judge who's a good billionaire versus who was a bad billionaire in terms of like if you really were going to put something and process. But I think like everything, not everything is the same, right? Not all billionaires are the same. I think the guys that we've been kind of focusing on here, specifically Warren Buffett, Bezos, Bloomberg, guys like Mark Cuban or Elon Musk, they seem to have made their wealth in a way that was in a kind of positive way, right? Like they built companies, they, they kind of employ people, they have new innovations and technology and all that.
Then you've got the type of billionaires we hear of from let's say Eastern Europe when kind of the former Soviet Union collapsed and you basically had literally gangsters just getting control of like you know, the state oil company or the state telecommunications company. And here 20 years later, the guy's worth $35 billion.
So I'm just.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: Or oligarchs that are put in places when government takes over things. And like there's a lot of ways.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Well that's what I was saying, like the Russian example or the Eastern European just don't want to pick on Russia. But a lot of the, in other
[00:38:52] Speaker A: parts of the world too.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's what I was going to say, that the oil billionaires in the Middle east, there's, there's billionaires in Africa that, that didn't get their money. They're kind of above board way. Right.
So my point is, is that, or
[00:39:02] Speaker A: at least within the construct of a system that everybody, at least in theory, can participate in.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: And that's what I give you. I mean, I'm not arguing that point
[00:39:10] Speaker B: and that's why I'm saying that I'll, I'll, I'll say that I would look at it differently. And that's why I say I would look at a fourth generation person that's sitting on, you know, $500 million from a trust from the time they were born and never asked to lift a finger.
I could, I could appreciate maybe a different taxation system for them than the Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. The guys that actually put their elbow grease in there and for 20 years were busting their ass doing something that to me, because to me it's more about they're adding value to society, they're creating opportunities, they're shaking up industry and shaking up technology and that advantage.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: And you want that to be rewarded. And I get that rewarded too. I actually, again, I don't feel good about what was done to these guys. I don't look at any of these guys as bad or evil or anything like that again. But I do think it's, there's value in pointing out, in my view, my read of this and looking at, in my view of taxes, as I pointed out with multiple different roles, is that this is information that the public needs to have in order to make decisions. I mean, this is part of the reason you said it's a reflection of the public. Well, if the public doesn't know a bet this level of tax avoidance is perfectly legal and you know, is, it's just, it's just standard operating procedure. Then is that really the reflection of what the public wants? You know, like, or maybe or not, you know, like. And so, but again, I'm still uncomfortable. I don't like, I don't like. And to the extent that any of these guys are presented in a light to make them villains, I would disagree with that. And like, I didn't take it that way, but I could, I could see how you could take it as, that they were trying to cast them as villains.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: But I'll just say I'd be honored if they did hack me and they released my tax return. That would be cool. Then I'd just be like, wow, I actually was. You guys were looking at me, too.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: That's cool if that was why you were mad. Cause you were either mad that you weren't on the list or mad that you were, so I didn't tell you.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: I'm trying to figure out which one.
Let's hope that I came up on their radar to look at. But, yeah, they don't need to put
[00:41:07] Speaker A: my stuff in an audience they didn't
[00:41:10] Speaker B: want to give you. I'd be embarrassed how small it is compared to everyone else.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: They didn't want to give you the free publicity, man, you were jobbed.
[00:41:18] Speaker B: I would just go tell everyone it's shrinkage, you know, it was cold that day.
My number shrank. Oh, man.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Well, look, I just got out the pool.
We can move on to the next topic. But that was a lively one, you know, So, I mean, it's. I think anybody can kind of make up their mind as far as how they view it, how they feel about how the article presented things. But I think you do have to look at the issues and the underlying point, and maybe it's easy to kind of lose that because of the way that things were presented or that this is private information that was being leaked and all that. But I do think it's important, us as citizens, in a citizen government, at least, we're selecting representatives that we see where things may be producing outcomes that are not consistent with what we might think is fair to everyone. Or maybe they are. If you think it's cool, then, you know, you. You support the status quo. If you think that it's not, then again, you don't lurch to the other side and start saying, oh, we need to get rid of capitalism. That's not the answer, but there probably isn't. There has been ways in the past to. To. To address these things a little more, in a way with a little more care, a little more delicate, that you end up with a system where everybody kind of is. Ends up contributing a similar percentage of how they're growing to the. To the government enterprise that we all are supposed to be running.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: But I did learn that everything is. Everything bad in the world is billionaire's fault. So I did learn that.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Or you could say everything good in the world is billionaire's fault. So, you know, it depends on your perspective now. There's no easy transition here, but you sent me this, and, you know, I'm going to let you take the first swing at this, but. So we have scientists now that are out here saying that the universe is conscious. And the underlying premise really is that anytime you have a certain level of complexity with things that need to interact, not just complexity, but things that need to interact, that you basically, the consciousness on a quantum level is or what we deem as consciousness, what we understand as consciousness on a quantum level is what is playing a role there. And so in that case, maybe Tunde, you might think that the tax code is conscious.
How complex that is, I'm going to say for the purposes of this piece from.
From Popular for Popular Mechanics, the Do you buy that the universe or any level, anything that we can look at with a certain level of complexity may be conscious as we understand it? And they have experience that even though we can't relate to, is there?
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Well, I'm first going to stop and say, this is what I really appreciate about the show, that I can go from an argument with you about taxes on billionaires to the universe. So this is pretty cool. So
[00:44:03] Speaker A: I categorize those things in the same.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Hey, fuck it. You know, I really enjoy.
[00:44:08] Speaker A: Those are eternal questions.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Hey, I'm enjoying this nerd situation here, man. This is awesome. So. So, yeah, we go from complexity of the US tax code, ratified by the 16th Amendment in 1913, to the universe being conscious.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: So ratified by the Big Bang 13 billion years ago. Yep.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: So, look, this. This was when I read it. That's why I knew we'd have some fun with this one.
It's actually just like a lot of things we talk about on the second half of our shows a lot with the science stuff, which is fascinating to me.
It's interesting. One thing to learn, you know, they went through the definition of what consciousness is from the Oxford Dictionary, which people can look up only to the sentence I liked was, scientists simply do not have a unified theory on what consciousness is.
We also don't know where it comes from or what it's made of. And I thought, well, you know, what made me think of is religion. Yeah, I said, there you go.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: Boom.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: That's what religion helps us answer as human beings. The kind of those kind of why questions?
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Well, yeah, those are the ones that still exist, like we've talked about before. Like it used to be. Well, they answer the question religion would tell us the answers to, like, why does it rain? Or, you know, why are there earthquakes? Or, you know, why is there. Like, those are the questions that religion used to answer people when science didn't have the answers. Now science answers those, but there's still questions that religion that the science has no clue. And religion can give us answers to tide us over, so to speak.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Yeah. No. And so one of the things that is another thing that is true. You can't rule this out as much as somebody might say, you know, how can a desk have consciousness?
But it says we can't exhaustively say other organisms or even inanimate objects don't have consciousness.
Just. And it's talking about, like, we can relate to our dogs and cats because they respond to us. We can see how they kind of process stuff and learn expressions. It said, yeah. Just because we don't relate to rocks doesn't mean.
Or the ocean or the sky doesn't mean that it doesn't have consciousness. And that made me think of something which. This goes back to living organisms. But I remember listening to a show about trees and trees actually having consciousness.
And it was actually a real scientific field that's of study that began in the 1960s.
But the scientists that were studying it were actually getting ridiculed from their peers.
So it kind of died down and went away. And probably in the. In the. In the mid. Like in the 2000 teens, you know, in the last decade, scientists started bringing it back because of the other scientific discoveries and natural science stuff that. That has evolved in the last few decades.
And what they were talking about is.
It's almost reminded me of. Remember the movie Avatar.
[00:46:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: And how the planet had this awa. This like.
[00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: Consciousness, the being. And they would plug into it with that little thing from their hair.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: It reminded me kind of of that where I was saying how tree. There's such a complex network of just organisms under the trees. And they were equating the tree roots to, like, the axons and the neurons that connect with each other in our brains.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: And so they're saying in a forest, all these roots, like, we don't see it because you got the ground there. But if you were to just take that top layer of dirt off, you would have all these roots, like, talking to each other and connecting and then all the. And like trees knowing the other trees are sick. And they were talking about, like, studying over decades how, like, a certain group of trees will kind of move away from another group. They talked about how certain trees will come and invade other species and kind of take their food and all that. But they were saying this is happening over. So it's such a long period of time.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Such a slow period of time. Yeah.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: That they said like. Like a mosquito might live for, like, four days. And the natural Life and then lay eggs and die. And they were saying that's like the way we are to a tree in the terms of our, our lifespan versus theirs. Like a tree might live for 800 years. We're sitting here for 50, 60, 80 years.
So that tree has gone through a lot and, and looks at us like, we look at the fly.
Like, man, you guys think you got all this stuff going on, man. Just, I just woke up. You know what I mean?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: And so I found that interesting. And the inanimate object part made me feel like the, the Eastern philosophies of the. I don't want to say Chinese specifically, I'm not sure. So I'd say the Eastern way of kind of dealing with energy. So that concept of qi and like feng shui, like the fact that there's, there's a kind of, there's an energy and a certain spirit and anything. And I think native, some Native American tribes had this too.
So what I'm saying is it, you know, who knows, honestly? But it could be another example where some of these ancient societies actually has some real knowledge. No, that's. We're just relearning that there are like
[00:48:54] Speaker A: religions on the earth today that consider consciousness and everything as well. And so that's what the first thing I thought of with that. And then also they talked about this, this concept, this value of phi that they're talking about mathematically. That seemed a lot like chi to me in terms of how they were talking about it. So it was just that to me was the, the thing I took away the most was just that it's really science going in a direction that is similar to a lot of the religion, a lot of the religions that were integrated with the natural world, like in the west, we're used to religions that more impose on the natural world, that are about dominating the natural world, not necessarily of living. Well, at least in modern Western religion that wasn't always the case. But in a lot of religions that you learn about in different parts of the world where it's more in harmony with nature, they are in tune with or interact with things in their environment, living or non living.
And you know, like, there's, there's more going in their view, there's more going on. And this seems to be a study of that basically. And again, they're looking at, in terms of complexity and how much interaction needs to happen and then measuring that, that type of interaction with phi and it's like man, like this is. And that it wouldn't be a Surprise. I mean, if us, you know, everything is about perspective. You know, like if, if you want to go back, you know, in time, or if you want to stand in the modern day, if you just stand outside, you can't tell that the Earth is round because your perspective is so narrow. And this is kind of geospatial. The point that you were making with temporal, shortly, a little bit ago with time, when you were saying how our perspective for 50, 60 or 80 years or whatever is very narrow compared to a tree. Well, that's even more narrow compared to other objects that might be out there. Or, you know, if you're looking at the universe or whatever and this constantly expanding thing that we can't explain most of what's going on and what we can see and then we can't. We see that we understand there are things that we can't see, but we have no idea what's going on other than we can, we can measure things about them, but we don't even know what it is. Like, we call it dark matter or dark energy. And it's like, it's not dark because that's like something that describes it. It's dark because we don't know in the world it is. And so there's so much going on all the time. But our matter of perspective, and some of this is just for our sanity, is just that, all right, we're just going to focus on the things that we kind of know or kind of understand or at least think we understand, and we're just ignore everything else. And this kind of gets into like that, that next level type stuff where you're like, all right, we're just going to start asking a bunch of questions and looking at a bunch of things that we don't know and seeing if we come up with stuff. And then the whole quantum thing, which is very, very, very. That's at a very small level. You know, quantum is smaller than, you know, like we can really, we can imagine, you know, and you get into that stuff and the big thing in physics is that the quantum stuff does not obey the regular. All the stuff we think we know about physics, quantum doesn't do the same. That doesn't obey that stuff. So it's a completely different thing and we don't understand yet. So, yeah, I mean, I think you can, you can come up with a case that everything or that other things beyond what we currently think of have consciousness, have it. And yeah, I'm here for it. If they're asking the question, I don't Know if I believe it, I don't know if I buy it. But you know, I want to read it and I want to see what they're thinking and then, you know, see how they progress over the years.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to say this because I definitely got something to add and continue the fun, but I'm going to have more fun right now. You know, when you were talking, you reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld. Remember when he was like, remember the knowns and unknowns and the knowns. And then remember when he was giving that press conference and everyone's like, hold on, did I just go in a tornado? What did this guy just.
You were going like, hold on, I've heard this before.
Unknowns, Unknowns, unknowns. No, but it's, it's, it's one thing and you get into the quantum. And that's where I wanted to pick up is because we had a show earlier this year about the mind and being like a computer, remember? And it was talking about like, like how we just project on whatever we think is the best technology at the time. So now it's a computer. Before it was hydraulic or whatever, Whatever. So what was cool is this. This gentleman wrote a book, Roger Penrose called in 1989 called the Emperor's New Mind. And he claimed that, quote, human consciousness is non algorithmic and a product of quantum effects. And so what he means, because an algorithm is simply a series of predictable steps to reach an outcome. So bottom line is it was nice to see that because it made me think of our prior discussion that not only did he put voice to what we already felt, that we felt that the mind wasn't like a computer, but then he went further and gave me something else to chew on because when he talked about the quantum effects, you know, for those that nerd out to this kind of stuff and understand, like at the quantum level, a lot of physic physical science begins to break down.
So like particles, for example, can react to each other on other sides of the universe and they don't know why or how. And particles at the, at the quantum level can just appear and disappear randomly. They don't know why. So there's something that folks can look up on YouTube called the Double split experiment of quantum physics, which is fascinating. So that'll, you know, kind of get your mind going. But the point, you know, what made me think of James, where this guy might be onto something about the neural connections. Because remember, our brains, the neural connections are all electrical impulses.
So there's a Lot of room for quantum stuff to go on from an electrical and all that kind of. That kind of energy flow.
And you're gonna laugh. Maybe just think of human irrationality. I was like, this proves we're not like a computer. Because if it was algorithmic, everything would have some sort of rational kind of behavior. And probably human beings wouldn't have survived because you probably need to be somewhat irrational to survive natural disasters and predators and other things that just come at you when you're alive. So it was an interesting. Like, I've never heard any of this. And it was for the first time when I thought about the way the quantum world works. And it's actually irrational as relate. It's irrational as relates to the natural laws and physical laws of science that we tend to understand. At the macro level, when you go to quantum, they break down just like a black hole. That's what I thought. Maybe this guy's onto something that actually what creates consciousness is a series of these, you know, a lot of series of these kind of random quantum events. But that can create, you know, the Mona Lisa or it can create Jeffrey Dahmer, you know, like, it can create all these different outcomes of the same human or human brain that.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: That leads. And I do want to close this up, but I'll tell you this, that leads to a pretty scary place because, you know, like, they're working on quantum computing right now.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: I know, right? It's.
[00:56:03] Speaker A: No, what that takes you to basically, is that the standard type of computing, which is algorithmic and that operates in our normal construct, would not generally be able to effectively replicate AI, but once you start putting it in a quantum type of situation, it may.
And what would come with that conceivably may be some level of irrationality that could end up like some scary side matrix, literally.
[00:56:31] Speaker B: Or Terminator. Right? No, but I'm saying that that's. Or maybe that's rational to them, but it's irrational to us to get rid of all the humans.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Who knows? But, I mean, I think we can close it up there, man. But it definitely raises more questions than answers. And that's kind of the point is just to get out there and just stretch your brain a little bit and all these things.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: You know, What I want to say before you wrap up is because I realized that the article is about the universe being conscious. And the one thing just to end it on this is we always hear about the. The universe expanding faster than the speed of light, and it's just constantly expanding. And that's one thing I was thinking maybe it is alive and that's why it's kind of growing. Who knows? But that's.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, that could be a reason, or there'll be a lot of reasons.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: I'll stick to taxes and finance.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: Well, now, we appreciate everybody for joining us, you know, and until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:57:23] Speaker B: I'm Tundere Milana.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: All right, subscribe, rate, review, and we'll talk to you next time.
