UAE Quits OPEC + Trump & King Charles | PBD #787

“Look, first of all, the UAE goes to Washington for the IMF meetings a couple of weeks ago. A couple of days later, we hear, UAE asked for a dollar swap line with the Treasury Department. Then suddenly, a couple of days after that, UAE says, hey, guess what? We're out of OPEC. So there has to be financial guarantees. They had to have top level discussions with the Trump administration saying, look, this Iran conflict, we're on your side here because we're getting hit more than Israel.”

“It's called the Section 1250A, National Defense Authorization Act Fiscal for 2024 Law, designed to prevent a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO. And by the way, you know who signed on it? Kane and Rubio, which is very interesting. Two-thirds, on the bottom, to withdraw from NATO. One of the following must happen. Two-thirds of Senate has to prove it or Congress passes a law authorizing withdrawal.”

“There's something you just said is really important, that you're not negotiating with the United Kingdom. One of the reasons why is that for the Iranians, at least the Iranian regime or what's left of it, this is a war of survival. There is no tomorrow. If they lose this, I mean, it's very likely they're going to be hauled up into the streets.”

“She came to America at 19, met my incredible father. We loved him so much. We all loved him. We loved her. We loved him, Fred. And they were married for 63 years. And excuse me, if you don't mind. That's a record we won't be able to match, darling. Just not going to work out that way. We'll do well, but we're not going to do that well.”

“Franklin Roosevelt started giving money to farmers. We've been doing it ever since. The fraction of the US who works on farms is way under 2% right now, most of which are illegal immigrants. So this is a tiny slice of the US economy. We would get cheaper food and more productive and cheaper food. So you end up subsidizing all the unproductive farms. Because they can't make enough food to make it profitable to sell it to the market.”

“Well, one side recommendation I have is, don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years, it won't matter. You won't need to save for retirement. If any of the things that we've said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant. Yes, that was one of the more economically incoherent things I've ever heard. These guys are brilliant about starting companies and AI, but not about adding together.”

“He had a great debate with Emmanuel Saez, an economist who was one of the big brains behind this thing. Saez was quite honest. It wasn't about raising revenue. It's about getting rid of billionaires. He thinks that if you can get rid of the billionaires' wealth, you'll lose their political power. That's an interesting theory.”

“This is the way third world countries work, that when you lose an election, the entire, you go to jail, you're lucky if you keep your life, you lose your business, your family loses your business, your supporters lose your business. And what do you do? You make darn sure not to lose an election. The key to democracy is the ability to lose an election and just lick your wounds, go back and try again the next time.”