4/16/26: Hegseth Says US Reloading For Iran, Saudi LIV Golf Collapse, Corporate Price Gouging

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. Good morning everybody, happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. So the US is saying that talks will continue with Iran as we learn more about China's important role in this conflict. Saudi Arabia is looking ready to pull the plug on live golf potentially partly over the economic fallout from the Iran war. That's very interesting. Of course, I got a full briefing from Kyle before presenting the segment. So don't worry, I'll have all of the details for you there. Fox News fighting with Scott Besant over gas prices. Professor Muhammad Morandi is gonna join us from Tehran for a view from within Iran about these negotiations. Trump is setting his sights on Cuba next. We'll talk about the implications there. Allbirds, this is the craziest story. So Allbirds, which is I guess still a shoe company and was like a big favorite of tech guys out in Silicon Valley, they have decided to switch from being a shoe company to an AI company just like out of the blue. And now their stock price is soaring. So a lot that's interesting there. We also have some other updates for you about just how wildly unpopular AI data centers are at this point. And a segment I'm really looking forward to, Noam Shiver is gonna join us to talk about his new book on how college grads are becoming the new proletariat are increasingly radicalized. And obviously that dovetails very closely with the AI segment as well. So should be a very interesting show this morning. That's right, can't wait for it. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing, breakingpoints.com, become a premium subscriber. You get access to our AMN, and of course Friday show, be dropping for everybody tomorrow. And please go ahead and hit subscribe to our YouTube channel if you're watching this. We need a nice good number, 2.5, that's what Crystal has decided. Did you hear Emily yesterday? I did, yeah. She wants 50 million. I like her audacity. I was like, you know what, let's take it. 50 million. 10 million, forget about it. Let's just hit 50. Why not a hundred million? I think they get you, I think you get a new plaque at 10 million. You do. It's like a diamond one. But I mean, not that I've paid any attention. And then of course, if you're listening to this as a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But as Crystal said, let's go ahead and start with the latest, what's happening with the blockade in Iran. Just a heads up to everybody. There's a live briefing happening from the Pentagon right now. So we're gonna be monitoring that and adding some of this stuff in there. Let's go ahead and start though with some of this very consequential news from the Financial Times. Put it up here on the screen. Iran has used Chinese spy satellites to target US bases. They say leaked documents show IRGC secretly acquired systems and used it to guide strikes during the war in March. Iran secretly acquired this Chinese spy satellite, gave the Islamic Republic a powerful new capability to target US military bases. The leaked Iranian military documents show the satellite known as the TE-01B was acquired by the IRGC's Aerospace Force in late 2024 after it was launched into space from China. The timestamp coordinate list satellite imagery and orbital analysis show that the Iranian military commanders tasked the satellite to monitor key US military sites and the images were taken in March before and after drone missile strikes on those locations. And actually you could see some of the battle damage assessment and stuff that being used by the Iranians. They say that this satellite was built and launched by Earth Eye Company, that's Chinese company, that says it offers in orbit delivery, AKA it's like a SpaceX style competitor and a little known export model under which spacecraft launched in China are then transferred to overseas customers after reaching orbit. I do think that this is an incredibly significant and important piece of news. Obviously it was long speculated of there was some sharing. This effectively amounts to sharing, maybe they paid for it, maybe they didn't, it was some sort of deal, but it does demonstrate the real asymmetry of the problem for US adversaries. Because if we're looking here at Iran, this is Iran which just has ballistic missiles, another nuclear armed power rogue state which threatens the United States is called North Korea which happens to be a very close ally of China. And so you have to ask then, it's like, well does North Korea have this same targeting capacity? And I think it does demonstrates the level playing field that any adversary in the future will have in the same way that the United States would arm the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to try and take down the Soviet Union or we would use a considerable force of our empire. It doesn't take much to actually reveal the vulnerabilities that we have. So massively significant piece of news. Yeah, and it's also just significant as we try to claim like how close is this to being a proxy war between the US and China at a time where already obviously engaged in a proxy war, the US versus Russia via Ukraine. And so this is another indicator. It also demonstrates the way in which or some of the capacity Iran has why they were able to do so much damage to 13 of our bases in the region, significant enough that they were rendered uninhabitable allegedly and so our service members were being put up in hotels throughout the region. And then the other piece of this is obviously with our decision now to blockade the blockade or whatever is going on there. That is clearly also an attempt not only to put pressure on Iran, but I think it's actually more of an attempt to put pressure on China, hoping that China will put pressure on Iran to come to the table. So we already have a lot of these elements of this conflict that are being driven by relationships between the US and China, between China and Iran and how all these pieces fit together. Yeah, that's right. Let's go to the next one, shall we? A2, let's put it up here on the screen. Actually, our friend Brandon Weicker was one of the first to actually report this, but it has now basically been confirmed a US Navy MQ-4C Triton surveillance drone disappeared abruptly and unexpectedly from online fright tracking after declaring an in-flight emergency while flying over the Persian Gulf. This was a dateline from a couple of days ago on April 9th. Now, the reason why that this is really important is I was personally unaware of this, but this surveillance drone is one of the most advanced drones actually that is in the US military arsenal. The estimated price tag appears to be some several hundred million dollars and was broadcasting at one point an in-flight emergency. So very likely to have been shot down and we know that it's been disappeared over their airspace, but it just added to the list of all of these strategic assets which took hits. You had refueling base and they actually talked specifically in that Financial Times article about how that attack on the Prince Sultan airbase probably the most significant strategic strike that the Iranians. So obviously they had those strikes which killed US service members, but this strike took out that critical US Navy surveillance aircraft which cost $700 million. It took out and disabled multiple different tankers. We actually saw that picture, remember that tanker coming back to the UK with shrapnel all over. I mean, you haven't seen imagery like that since like World War II in black and white. And then you have this surveillance drone which is added to the list of all of the other MQ-9 Reaper drones which we actually lost over Iran. So the total price tag just in lost military equipment is gonna be well into the billions, the operating cost of the war. I mean, it's always difficult to ballpark. The conservative estimate is something like 35 to 40 billion. And if you add in all of the soft costs, it's very likely to be 80 billion. I mean, we just vaporized almost $100 billion in a month which everyone should be like, combine it with the China piece. How is that preparedness? This is a low level, tertiary conflict which didn't even involve US ground troops. So what is a real conflict going to look, it's a nightmare. Obviously look, money is not everything, but what it does expose is inefficiency problems within the system and the inability to actually accomplish the task that you set out to. We didn't destroy the ballistic missile program. We didn't change the regime. We ultimately really didn't accomplish any of the major goal, like we didn't wipe out all the drone factories. Ballistic missile capacity retained somewhere around 30 to 40% US intelligence leaked estimates say they still have these Chinese assets. And right now, I mean, like I said, we're monitoring this press conference which is happening right now. And one of the first things that Secretary Hegzath has said is we're taking this opportunity to reload all of our aircraft. So, you know, and something I had even heard from a very, very knowledgeable source was at the end of the day, if the war hadn't stopped, we would have had to cycle out a significant number of those air assets, because they all have to go through maintenance. Like here, again, I'm not an expert. There's something about X amount of flight hours that they can operate in combat before they have to go through a cycle of serious, think about it like a Formula One or NASCAR. You know, like the tires and stuff give out so they all have to be changed. But instead of changing in two seconds, it takes a while, it takes like a week or something. And so this is the problem that we're already facing. It's one reason that the ceasefire has been probably more advantageous, I would say, to the United States is we're not in a fight for our lives. Like this was a retooling, get some more troops to the region, more ammunition being moved from across the globe. So that's where things seem to be right now. Yeah, they're also pushing automakers to, you know, basically ramp up like, hey, can we maybe use you to make some weapons, very World War II-esque, which obviously none of that is gonna happen tomorrow. But it shows you the way that this administration is recognizing number one, how much our supplies are depleted. And number two, how committed they are to just continual war. We're gonna talk later in the show about how they're already like, hey, we're on to Cuba next. Meanwhile, you've got Israel out here like, you know, who else is really bad after Iran? Turkey, gotta take a look at that. And when you combine that news with the fact that Trump is asking for this $1.5 trillion war budget, you can see the way that they're thinking that, you know, doesn't even count in the domestic police force that through ICE, through the one big, beautiful bill that has been escalated significantly as well. And on the China piece too, we had Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who joined the briefing yesterday, and he is threatening Chinese banks with sanctions if they continue to allow Iranian money to flow through them. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. I don't have an update on the terrorist, but I do have an update on sanctions. Iran used to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism. China was purchasing more than 90% of their oil, which is about 8% of China's energy needs. We believe this blockade in the streets, there will be a pause of Chinese buying, but I will tell you that two Chinese banks received letters from the US Treasury, I'm not gonna identify the banks, but we told them that if we can prove that there is Iranian money flowing through your accounts, then we are willing to put on secondary sanctions. Are you considering any more sanctions relief Mr. Secretary of your countries that are suffering right now in order to give more oil to your allies? We will not be renewing the general license on Russian oil, and we will not be renewing the general license on Iranian oil. That was oil that was on the water prior to March 11th. So all that has been used. And that last part is significant to Sagar and just shows how confused the strategy has been because originally what he's referring to is the fact that we basically like lifted the sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil, because we were so worried about the oil markets and the impact on our own economy and on any sort of, I mean, there barely is any support for the war here and how much of a political blow that would be, I don't care about like the economic blow to your pocketbook. They're worried about their own political landscape here. Now the strategy has flipped to, all right, we're gonna blockade the blockade, we're gonna keep, that means that fewer barrels of oil will be getting into the market. And then they're playing a dangerous game here with regard to these actions towards China, because we already know we went head to head with China on economic warfare and China won. That's the bottom line. When we had the terror fight with China, they came back and said, okay, well, here's all the rare earth and all the other critical supply lines that you do not have any access to without our help. Let's go ahead and make a deal with terms that are favorable to us. And Trump said, okay, yeah, you're right, you know what? We really can't, we really can't bear the pressure that that would entail. Yeah, it's real. I mean, this whole war in some ways is like a, it's like the final boss of everything that we've been warning about for many years. Like if you were on the critic side, so first of all, what was the big warning? We're not nearly as good at fighting war than a lot of these people want you to believe. And at this point, I don't really know how you could think otherwise. Even the people who wanted regime change and other, they're saying that this was a fail. Listen to the Israelis, the people who set this off and they're like, hey, we still have Iranian missiles, they still have the regime in power. The straight of Hormuz was effectively blockaded. Like we had to blockade the blockade. All these troops were ended up dying. You know, we weren't able to actually protect them properly. We lost all these strategic assets. So like, let's put that. But the second thing is what did we warn about four years ago, almost to the day. Why would these Russian sanctions ultimately be a disaster? And while they did significantly hurt Russia in the interim, Russia and China worked together to create an entire shadow banking system absent the United States, which is unsanctionable effectively because they do not even expose themselves to a level of secondary sanctions. They've created this entire banking system to make it untouchable from the US. That's why Iran at the height of the war was demanding these payments in Iran because they know the currency, those payments, their eventual like contracts and et cetera is untouched not just by US sanctions, but even by US secondary sanctions. And to explain a bit, it's kind of complicated, but there's a difference between a US sanction as in like everyone at this bank is sanctioned and then secondary sanctions, secondary sanctions. Again, there's many types. One of the types I assume which he is threatening is the type where if you do bit like, like I a bank account at Chase, right, Chase Bank. Well, let's say I was sanctioned and secondary sanctioned by the Treasury, then anybody who did business with Chase would also be subject to a sanction because they did business with me. So it's like a way to try and get the ultimate punishment. Well, we did that with Russia. And again, it survived, not only survived, they made more money than ever before. Their economy basically became the garrison war state that Trump wants to turn us into. And their GDP went up dramatically. Also, they've lost at a minimum couple, a hundred thousand men in Ukraine. Their population just doesn't care. Like it's kind of crazy. They probably lost more than double the amount of people that have been killed in Vietnam and everything there, like largely after several years, they mostly support the war. I don't get it, I'm not Russian. But it's like every strategy of like emissary the population, try and use the power of US economic empire, hasn't really happened, you know? And the Iranians are one of the major beneficiaries of this, largely because they do a lot of business with the Chinese, Chinese willing to give them spy satellites. And at this point, as long as Iran can survive, it can be a symbol of how brittle the US empire actually is. At the same time, there's all these talks about talks and potentially new talks. Here's Caroline Levitt laying out what these future talks may look like, where they might take place, apparently, in Islamabad. Let's take a listen. What's the status of extending the Iran ceasefire to Caroline? Yes, so I saw some reporting, again, bad reporting this morning, that we had formally requested an extension of the ceasefire. That is not true at this moment. We remain very much engaged in these negotiations, in these talks. You heard from the vice president directly and the president this week that these conversations are productive and ongoing. And that's where we are right now. I've also seen some reporting about the potentiality for in-person discussions. Those discussions are being had, but nothing is official until you hear it from us here at the White House. But we feel good about the prospects of a deal. The president mentioned that in his interview yesterday. And it's obviously in the best interest of Iran to meet the president's demands. I think he's made his red lines in these negotiations very clear to the other side. And so we are continuing to see how these conversations go. Would those talks be in Islamabad, or where would they be the next round? They would very likely be in the same place as they were last time, yes. With the same, I just want to make one point that's important to the president. The Pakistanis have been incredible mediators throughout this process. And we really appreciate their friendship and their efforts to bring this deal to a close. So they are the only mediator in this negotiation while there have been many countries around the world who want to offer their help. The president feels it's important to continue to streamline this communication through the Pakistanis. And so that's what continues to take place. So that is an important point. The Pakistanis are actually in Tehran today. I'm going to ask Mr. Marandi about that specifically about anything that may have come out of that meeting. What we do know apparently as of this morning is that there has been some movement. Apparently the way the Iranians are playing it is they're willing to talk on Hormuz. Largely, it's kind of difficult to blockade the Strait of Hormuz forever because Oman also has a say in that they said, well, maybe ships can go on the Omani side, not on the Iranian side. But at the end of the day, one thing that won't compromise on is the nukes, is that they will not agree to this 20 year, zero enrichment and or giving away all of their highly enriched uranium. That's where things stand as of right now. So it's April 16th. So the deadline is, what is it? April 22nd, I believe, is when the two week ceasefire officially expires. There is some talk of an extension of the ceasefire. There is also some talk potentially of a new round of talks. But remember, as you guys watch the news, it's a 21 hour transit time to Pakistan. With refueling, I think it's something like a full day just to get over there. So you have to have an agreement on the talks, a resumption of the talks, and then the vice president and Wic Coffin and all these other people just get on Air Force Two and then go to Pakistan. So it takes a long time before any of this works out. Of course it's Trump. He can move the deadline at any time. He can just treat, I've decided to extend it by 48 hours. And so, I don't know. I really don't know where things are going to go from here. But as we said, we're monitoring all of this press conference. Here's a quote from the chairman, Joint Chiefs. I'd like to emphasize during this pause, pause, not ceasefire, that the United States Joint Force remains postured and ready to resume major combat operations at literally a moment's notice. Let me be clear from General Kain. This blockade applies to all ships, regardless of nationality, heading into or from Iranian ports. Maybe useful to have laid that out at the start of the blockade, but okay. The US action is a blockade of Iran's ports and coastline, not a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Enforcement will occur inside Iranian territorial sea and in international waters. So there has been some speculation in fact. There's been a new notice from the United States Navy as of this morning, I was just looking, where it could be applied. Remember when that Iranian, what was the submarine, was sunk off the coast of Sri Lanka, I think, in the early days of the war. There was some discussion actually that Iranian ships in all international waters, any maritime vessel, would be subject to boarding, very possible. There's actually an Iranian tanker, which was, I think either in port at India or very close, it was about to offload, but then these new sanctions actually went snap backed. And so remember we gave that waiver and India was like, okay, I'll buy them. Now it's like, well, maybe we won't buy them. So it's very weird. Look, it's confused. If you were to try to read the tea leaves generally, I look at the military force, thousands more troops, aircraft carrier, just needs a week or two more to get there. You've got the chairman and Hegze- You're taking the scenic route. Beating their, yeah, scenic route, aka away from the Houthis. I don't know. I mean, I guess I could see it otherwise. Some potential deal. I just, I don't see why the Iranians would agree to it, but they might. I was talking to you about this before. I think they've been quite cautious actually. We're told that they're so irrational. They horizontally escalated during the war. They agreed to a ceasefire. Probably was to their detriment at this point as treat is laid out because Trump could just walk away at any time, whereas they've only got about 60 days till they run out of oil storage. And then it's genuinely existential for them. If they do agree to some deal, could they really have confidence that Israel and the United States wouldn't violate that? I mean, how could you possibly at this point? It doesn't seem to structurally align, but the Iranians have a lot to lose too. Israel and the US would wipe out their entire power plant, set them back 40, 50 years. It really would be a disaster. And we shouldn't pretend these Iranian's who are in power, they've got a lot of money on the line as well. They're all phenomenally rich, and they own a lot of property and other assets. Same with the IRGC who controls the smuggling economy. So maybe that's what's in it for them. I don't know. I don't know which way it's gonna go. You know, it's easy to sit here and not be the ones like under bombardment, seeing your girls' schools and your hospitals and your top university destroyed and infrastructure and all of that and say, here's the rational, strategic, hard line position you should strike. It's a very different thing when you're living that and you know people who have been killed and you've got a lot personally and on a human level, very much on the line. But to your point, Heg Seth in this briefing, he says he warned Iran to choose wisely or face US forces maximally posture to resume their attacks. American blockade Iran will continue as long as necessary. He said, so very belligerent language. Now that can also be negotiating tactic, right? To put pressure on them. Could also be that the whole negotiation is yet another ruse for the US to get ourselves together and get more forces into the region and regroup. Israel we know was down to double digits in terms of interceptors. So they were in a, they were hurting, they were in a bad way. And so this may all just be delaying tactics from the US. It could be that we have no intention of making a deal. It could be that the Iranians really have no intention of making a deal and just want to sort of performatively show to the world that look, we're willing to come to the table, we're not unreasonable. These are demands, if they're able to meet them fine, if not, then we've got other cards to play. I just wanna emphasize that, we talk about these blockades in this kind of antiseptic language. This is warfare, right? It is an act of war. And the announcement this morning means that it is the most maximalist version of the US blockade that could have been imagined. That could potentially trigger a retaliation from the Iranians. Now, what would that look like? That would look like getting the Houthis engaged and closing off the Babel-Mandab Strait. Their calculation is that we will be the ones to squeal first, because for us, this is not existential, the political landscape obviously tenuous to say, the least American consumers already getting hurt, energy crisis globally on the way, if not already here. So that is their calculation. They have significant amounts still of storage capacity domestically. They also have, the Iranians have some, significant number of barrels of oil that are already sort of stored on the waterways. So they do have some wiggle room. Do we really have two months more where the American people are gonna tolerate gas prices going up and up and up indefinitely and some sort of very likely stock market crash and whatever that looks like ultimately. So I don't know, there's a Dr. Parsey, who of course I take his analysis very seriously, because I think he's such an intelligent and thoughtful person about all of this. He thinks the most likely outcome is that there isn't an actual deal but everybody just sort of walks away. I do have to say though, I'm not sure that that is sustainable. So does that mean the US drops the blockade? That seems like kind of a, you know. Could be a blockaded name only, it could be, yeah, I don't know. Because as long as you're, like, we may not be the most hurt by still having limited capacity and barrels taken off the market through the straight-of-form moves, but we will be hurt by that. Oh yeah. The situation doesn't necessarily feel sustainable. So it's very difficult to see what happens. I could see the Iranians just giving in on things that frankly they probably shouldn't because they're war weary and the leaders have a lot at stake. I could see the US using this as a ruse. I could see the treat to parsey scenario of, there's some sort of low-grade conflict that just sort of continues and there's a new, worse status quo that is achieved. Any of these things are possible, but that's without even starting to talk about Israel, which of course is gonna do everything possible to drag us back into war and is another wild card. Yeah, I don't know. And then here's the breaking news from tanker trackers who is, I forget the guy's name, but I really recommend everybody go follow him. He does not only the visual, he does satellite visual analysis, but also looks at those radio signals. Here's what he says. He says, breaking visual confirmation, Iran has shipped out nine million barrels of crude oil from floating storage in the Gulf of Oman since the US blockade went into effect. Another two million barrels departed on 412, 2026. What do we make of that? I don't know, right? So I had nine million barrels. So according to him, there have been some nine million barrels that were able to depart. Again, he uses satellite imagery, radio signals and others before he is able to confirm it. And he is cited very often by the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and taken as a very serious source. So it's one of those where the US Navy at the very same time right now is, General Kane is in front of the podium saying that the blockade has turned back 13 different ships and that a message to all ships that they will be turning away from Iranian ports. So I really don't know how much of this, that's another thing. The Navy says all kinds of things. Well, they said all kinds of things during the war. Half of it wasn't even true. The Iranians say a lot of shit too. A lot of it's also not true. So we don't even know what the status of said blockade is. Remember I said about the Straits of Hormuz, how the countries involved like Oman and others, they won't even let the journalists go to Hormuz and to take pictures. So we really don't know what's actually moving through the strait and then those satellite companies, they're not showing us anything. So we don't even know what's there at the request of the US government. Just take it all with a serious grain of salt. Yeah. All right, so let's turn to this live golf news, which is definitely could be related to the Iran war. It appears it's related to the Iran war. So let's put this up on the screen. For background, live golf is this startup golf league meant to compete with the PGA tour. And I think their tagline is like golf but louder and they like play music and they have these team events and they hired away or they lured away from the PGA tour. Some major stars like Bryson DeChampeau, they offered gobs, like ungodly amounts of money to him and John Robb and Brooks Kepke has actually gone back now to the PGA tour and others to sign up with them. And so a lot of people looked at that and were like, I'm gonna get the bag. So there's been this ongoing war between live golf and PGA and it's really created this huge divide in golf. Trump is affiliated with the live tour because he has hosted several events at his properties. We don't know how much money he's making with that and yet another connection between him and his family and the Saudis, et cetera. Well, now it looks like the Saudis may be cutting their support for live golf, which would be a death now. This thing is not profitable. It really hasn't picked up a huge market share. They've had a lot of different issues, including the guys that chose to go to live golf have not performed particularly well in major events like the Masters. This past weekend, Kyle told me I should let everybody know just how poorly, like Bryson performed really poorly, didn't even make the cut. There was a point in time where the live golf guys at the Masters were actually underperforming the champions tour guys who are the seniors. They were doing- Explain that again, like senior citizens? Yes, they're on the senior tour. I don't know anything about girls. They're on the senior tour and they were doing better than the live golf guys. So it is not- On the same course? Yeah, the same event, playing against each other. So it has not been good for them in terms of their golf performances. It's been very good for their bank accounts and it's created all this enmity. It's kind of created like a villain hero, all these architects, whatever. Interesting. So anyway, let me go ahead and dig in a little bit to this article with that as background. An announcement on the future of the kingdom's involvement in live, which has racked up huge losses since being set up five years ago, could come as soon as Thursday, Livestemise would represent a significant blow to the kingdom's near $1 trillion public investment fund, which has invested about $5 billion in the tour and to its governor, Keen Gulfer, who was the crucial figure in its rise. And indeed, there was, they say, well, the plan was drawn up before the US-Israel war against Iran, but they're saying that, quote, of course the war would add more pressure to reposition some priorities. So this is not only significant for the golf war, but obviously, look, the Iran war has been really devastating to these Gulf economies, Saudi Arabia among them. And those economies, what was this sovereign wealth fund, what were they investing in? Well, all sorts of sports things and celebrity thing, but also all sorts of tech things, tons of money flowing from the Gulf region into American businesses, American media companies. And so this is the first very clear sign that they are pulling back and reassessing. Let's go ahead and put that second element up on the screen here, A7. So this is the broader picture, not just about live golf. Saudi wealth fund resets priorities after a decade of heavy spending. Saudi Arabia's nearly $1 trillion public investment fund has launched a new five-year investment strategy that will narrow its focus to six areas that include tourism and manufacturing as it reprioritizes its spending. So, Sagara, you've probably seen some of these very high-profile, flashy development projects they have, like the line, which was supposed to be the city that's all in a row. They're reducing their investment in that. There were some other major, like very splashy developments that they're pulling back on as well as they've reset their priorities. And as I said before, a lot of this predates the Iran War, but clearly the hit to their economy and the damage to the notion that that region is going to be some tourism magnet forever for the world's global elite, that has probably taken more of a hit in this war than anything else. And in some ways, it's really foolish to say that the war is over. There's still not a drop of oil that's moving through the Straits of Hormuz compared to where it used to be. Like you need millions and millions of barrels. I mentioned this in our last show, I think I read the new OPEC announcement for the month of March, 27% cut in production. That is, so do the math. I mean, that's a huge haircut on the amount that these countries were able to make. Saudi actually did better than everybody else because they can export through Yanbu and through the Red Sea. But a lot of these other countries, they didn't export a drop of oil or very little oil since the conflict began. So think about it. I mean, could any business or country survive an entire month of no sales or two, five percent sales? No, it would be an existential threat to anybody. Now let's put this A7 up on the screen because this gets to your bigger point. The Saudi big, the public investment fund, the PIF, has now launched this five year investment strategy. They say that it's going to narrow its focus. But the thing is about it is, as they know, the decade of heavy spending, and this comes back to LiveGolf, is they have spent oceans of money on all kinds of crazy soft power things here in the US. So for example, LiveGolf, EA Sports, remember that? They acquired for like $55 billion, something crazy. They do all this Formula One, they're all with. They invest in the women's tennis tour or all kinds of stuff like that. Exactly, you know, a flag football, I think at one point. You know, I mean, boxing, like all of these different soft power things that they were throwing money into. Well, when you take a huge haircut on your production and you see geopolitical risk, you're like, hmm, well, maybe we're going to squelch a lot of that in. Well, that's not just the cultural stuff. Remember, it is also venture capital. The PIF, the QIA, the Qatari investment, where like all of these other funds, they are huge, huge shareholders and actually, you know, investors in data center outbuild. You also have this in some of the more speculative companies and then even at the higher level, Uber, remember, a massive chunk of Uber is owned by Saudi Arabia, a massive chunk of like some of the biggest venture capital at backed firms, even listed on the stock exchange, are massive outsize positions with Saudi Arabia. So what if they have to sell off? What are we going to do? We don't know. And you could actually see this cascading effect happen. I mean, you know, I'm from Texas. We were famous at the time for our malls, like the Galleria, you know, it's all owned by the Kuwaiti Rural family. Like it's one of those where you could actually, I mean, just think about it like, okay, so they got no money, they got domestic problems. What are they going to do? They're going to sell it off. It's a nice mall. I never thought it was that great, but people seem to love it a lot, but maybe they sell it and people, it's not like malls are thriving here. So maybe they sell it off. These are Toddry, like small things, but obviously they, you know, it all stacks up. Like if you start selling off stuff, you start pulling money out of the US, it's not like consumers are doing all that well. Are people really going to want to invest that in there? This ocean of money has been the lifeblood of any, you know, would be a company which needs like cheap and accessible large capital. Same with, I think we work, remember, it was backed by the Japanese guy, forget his name, Masai Ushisan, and his large amounts of his money came from Saudi Arabia. So their money is everywhere and everything. It actually funds a lot of the more speculative stuff here in the United States. If it dries up, huge problem, huge problem for America. Well, on the golf piece, you know, for these guys who are still there with LiveGolf and like this part of their brand and identity, Phil Mickelson being the chief among them, Bryson D. Shambow, John Rom. It's, I don't know what the PGA tour is gonna do because apparently Brooks Kepka just left relatively recently and they made him like pay a fine and there was some, you know, accommodations in terms of these events. You can't participate in. You can come back. This is the only time to come back. It's never gonna happen again. You pay the fine or whatever, and we accept you back with open arms. I'm not sure, maybe. Is that the deal? It's possible, but so I'm not sure how they will approach these guys, but it's certainly not just gonna be like, come on back in. They may have to, you know, they may have to go to the corn fairy tour, which is sort of like the minor leagues of golf and like work their way up. They may have to pay big fines. They may be completely banned. I mean, I think the PGA tour apparently, Corn and Kyle, they just like completely hate Phil Mickelson at this point. They may just not take him back at all. So for the- Action should have consequences. Yeah, so for the golf fans out there, that will, this will all be very, very interesting to watch and fold, but with that being said, why don't we get ahead and get to some of the economic consequences we are already seeing? Let's do it. All right, shall we? So interesting fight between Scott Besant and Fox News yesterday over the administration's promises to Americans with regard to gas prices. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Secretary Besant, it doesn't sound like we're gonna have $3 a gallon gas by summertime, which we had initially been told by the energy secretary. He now says that it would be very aggressive. If we're gonna get to the $3 a gallon gas by the summer. So when are we really gonna get $3 a gallon gas? Well, I think that's gonna be up to how the negotiations go. President Trump said this morning that he thinks we're nearing the end. The US kept their side on the ceasefire. We've stopped firing. The straits of our move have not been completely reopened. So we will see, and I'm optimistic, that during the summer we will see gas with a three in front of it sooner rather than later. Gas with a three in front of it sooner rather than later. We shall see on the same week, obviously, it's pointing to the fact that Trump said, ah, midterms, gas prices might build up. They're also moving the goalposts. Gas had two in front of it before the war. That was better. Two is better than the three. Come on. That's the good point too. It was two ninety a gallon whenever they launched the war. Yeah. The average, that's good. That's very good. Well, and meanwhile, you know, this is all entirely predictable. Let's put this up from the New York Times. Talman Smith, who's a great reporter over there, focused on economics. He has this piece about how corporate America is aiming to preserve their profit streak during the war in Iran. Higher inflation is leading companies to raise prices so that they don't have to sacrifice their margins. How nice for them that they're able to do that. Let me read you a little bit of this article from the start of the 2020s. American businesses have been formidable in maintaining and growing their profits despite a gauntlet of challenges, a pandemic, tariffs, high inflation, wars, and key commodity hubs. Profits have leaped ahead. Corporate profits have reached a record share of the U.S. economy, data show, and a measure of margins that tracks the difference between input costs for businesses and the final selling price of goods and services to customers is also near a record high. It's completely shocking, said Josh Brown, the chief executive of Ritholt's wealth management companies, have become really, really good at managing risk. I like the way he frames that. They are practically ninjas at this point. Ninjas at what? At price gouging you, at making sure that even if their inputs go up at all, they're going to increase the prices, perhaps not just to reflect the new reality of the cost of goods, but to even increase their profit margins further. This is exactly what we saw during COVID. Once you had inflation and you had inflation expectations set in, what actually drove a lot of the increases in prices was greed inflation. There's been studies on this at this point. We were considered kooks at the time for even talking about it, but now there have been studies that showed some 60% of the actual increased prices to consumers was from companies saying, oh, well I can get away with lifting prices because people have an expectation of inflation. You don't think they're going to do that same thing again? They're already doing it. And we're already starting to see, Amazon surcharges and other companies saying, sorry, we've got to increase costs. I don't doubt that there already are increased costs in a lot of regards, but they will also go beyond what is necessary. And they certainly are not going to be the ones bearing any of those costs, even though their profit margins are higher than they've ever been. The profit margin is a percent of the economy is the highest that it's ever been. So they could afford to shoulder some of that burden to help try to mitigate the increases in prices they're going to choose and they're already choosing to do the polar opposite. Yeah, I just, I'm going to call for this. Let's go ahead and add it in after, but my wife made me aware the US next week will launch a tariff refund system on April 20th. It will refund approximately $166 billion that companies had to pay in tariffs. Do you think at any point that you or I will get a refund for any of that? For any of the increased price that would, now remember the company will get it. They will receive not just cash, cash with interest, which was held by the United States government. Thus we would reason those consumers of us who paid higher prices whenever, if and when it was passed on to us, will any of us just wake up to on a beautiful April 24, my birth to actually April 21st, we're going to wake up and I'm just going to see all of these credit card refunds from, no, okay, they're going to take the cash and what are they going to do? We're going to buy back their own stock, give out bonuses and maybe some bigger customers and credits will actually money will change hand. But where is that money going to go? It's definitely not to any of us. And that's what's bullshit. I mean, when you think about it, and I was looking to at car seat, remember I was very concerned because at that time it was April, it was right before, liberation day was like right before, about to have a baby. And I remember because we already bought all of our stuff, but the price increase was like several hundred dollars for a lot of these car seats. Car seat hasn't gone down, I just checked. Liberation day is over, guess what? Still high, still up there. So shout out to UPPAbaby and whatever, Nuna and all these other companies, they're printin', right? And it's not like people are going to stop. Regulation says you got to keep buying a new one. So what do you do? A couple hundred dollars, three, 400, oh, what's that to them? They're making plenty of money. And so yeah, they might be paying some tariff. I actually, I ordered a jacket from Japan. I had to pay a tariff. So I'm going to see if I can go and apply for my refund. As technically I think I was the importer on that one, but multiply that by like, again, 166 billion, but I think that the greed inflation point and the price gouging one there is really important because the price remains permanent even when the tariff goes away. And when they're literally going to get a refund. Where is the money going to go? I mean, it's going to be a bonanza. And I told you that there was this insane loan system on Wall Street where Wall Street was reasonably certain that the tariffs were going to get overruled. So they were loaning money on the dollar to companies and they're saying, hey, here's 80 cents on the dollar of what you're going to get back. But when you get it back in the future, you have to pay it back. So the banks are going to make a ton of money off of all this. The only people who lost anything is any small business who import, export, the consumer economy, which definitely took a hit, consumer confidence. And yeah, but the big guys, they're printing. That's why everyone's always like, oh, the markets, they're so disconnected from reality. Not really, it's just that we're disconnected from the overall input. We expect that when we don't do well, that the market don't well. They just don't care. It doesn't work. That's why the S&P hit an all-time high yesterday. Yeah, in a lot of ways, it's a reverse indicator because one of the things companies get most reported for is when they do mass layoffs and implement AI instead of human beings. Is that good for you? No. Is it good for their profit margins? Is it good for their stock price? Absolutely. So that is one of the clearest ways in which there is a mass disconnect. Let's put B5 up on the screen because one of the things that the Trump administration has really been hanging their hat on is, and Emily's been telling us about this. She's like, guys, here's what they think. They think, yeah, sure, Trump's approval rating is down and they're not happy with his economic handling, but wait till tax season. Wait till Americans get to marvel at the glory of all of the new benefits that they got from the one big, beautiful bill. That's when things will turn around. I'm not saying that Emily believed that. I'm just saying that she's the one who told us that's the way that the White House was thinking about this. Well, now the numbers are in. The White House expected the average increase in refund to be $700 to $1,000. The reality is closer to $375. Bottom line, yes, refunds are higher in 2026, but it's less of a spending boost than many expected. $375. I mean, how quickly has that already been eaten up, saga by the increase in gas prices? Like it's already less than a wash in terms of the economic policies of this administration. And that's before you count in tariffs and any of these other things. So if they were thinking that this extra 300 bucks in your pocket was gonna really turn things around, I don't know what to tell you about that. It's just these guys just never get it. You know, I remember this tax cuts and jobs act. Remember I told you I was in that meeting with Paul Ryan, this was like 10 years ago. And he was like, oh, that's enough to remodel your kitchen sink or something. Or maybe get a new sink, I think that was the line from Ikea. And I was like, dude, you're talking about 500 bucks and more ties over an entire year? Like that's just not how people think. Like when there, gas is a perfect example of something that's very like in your face, there's a sign everywhere you go. Most people you have to fill up, you know, at the very once or twice a week, or sorry, once or twice a month at the very least, frequent drivers are filling up all the time. So it really like hits you in the face. The other one is food inflation. And if you do the math, like it's just not enough to keep up with basic food inflation, definitely with gas inflation. I also think that the dollars, you know, it becomes a real nickel and dime conversation because an extra 500 a month, I'll take it. I talked about this yesterday with the baby check when they're, which never happened, but they were floating at $5,000 for every family. I'm like, look, thank you, but my deductible was $7,500 on the day that my child was born. So great, but there's a bigger problem here. That thing didn't even actually happen. No, we never got that five. They talked about it like it was a done deal. Well, I think you're thinking of the Trump account. We did, by the way, we did elect. We got our Trump. Oh, you got your, okay, that happened. Got my Trump. I got you, I got you. Well, that's a thousand bucks. That's a thousand dollars. Which, you know, if we invest entirely in the S&P will be worth like $3,000 when my daughter is 18. So thank you, I guess. But you know, if healthcare inflation and education inflation is what? It's like 15, 18% a year. The college I went to, do you know about this? The college I went to, Georgia, GW, is now charging 100,000 a year. I'm telling you as an alumnus, don't fucking do it, okay? Don't do it. Don't give them. And if you're an alumni like me, when you fuckers call me, fuck you, all right? I'm not gonna give you a dollar when you're charging people $100,000 a year. First of all, don't pay it. That's the only way to actually get around it. But how many of these other private universities and all these other places? So this is where the, right? Your daughter's much better college. This is where, talking about three, 400 bucks, sure. Look, it's good. But when we've got runaway healthcare inflation, runaway education inflation, and what's the mortgage rate today? 6.8, the difference between 6.8 and where things were five years ago, that's not all up to the president. That's still double. That is thousands of dollars more per month. What is that? Potentially if you actually do the whole 30 year, I mean, several hundred K, depending on the price of house that you're buying here. Here's the other thing is that a lot of the direct economic problems we're having right now are directly because of Trump's decisions. It wasn't COVID, it wasn't a natural disaster, it wasn't some business cycle that's sort of out of the hands of the president or whatever. No, this was because of tariffs, it's because of the Iran War. I mean, you can directly see, oh, he made this choice. And now I am suffering for it, I am suffering for it. That is honestly extremely unique to see such a direct line between Trump has taken control of this economy and made it measurably worse for me. I am so glad you guys covered the DoorDash grandma because I found that to be so disgusting and so revealing, but it's so perfectly emblematic of the situation. Like, okay, she's benefiting, right? We're half there. Absolutely, she's benefiting from one of the provisions that got put in here. She drives her DoorDash. There is no way that that's even gonna make up for the increased gas prices that she's now having to deal with because of the Iran War, let alone, obviously, the fact that structurally you're celebrating this, she can't afford the cancer treatments for her husband. Like, what kind of a society is this? This is sick. And you're asking for $1.5 trillion so we can bomb little girls in foreign countries more? It's disgusting to see that and to even celebrate the idea that a grandma would have to go and pick up this gig work to be able to afford healthcare. And you think this is a glowing example of your amazing economic policy? What an incredible disconnect. So, I mean, that's, but it is really the perfect symbol of the way this White House is thinking about economic policy and now the rubber has hit the road. In terms of how small the improvement is for most people in terms of their refunds. Let me go ahead and see if I can rage bait Sager here. I don't think it's gonna be very hard. Let's put B7 up on the screen. I was about to go off. See what you think about this one, Sager. So, we've got some new numbers here. A 25-year-old married couple that earns $150,000 a year, they're gonna pay over $3,000 more in federal income tax for 2025 than a 65-year-old married couple with the exact same income. Note assumes no social security. 65-year-old couple is waiting to age 70 to get max benefit. And this person asks, Sager, is this a fair tax policy? Yeah, this is a question for society, right? This is a great question for society. 25-year-old married couple making 150K, doing great, by the way. If you're a 25-year-old married couple, first of all, you're statistically an anomaly to even be married at that age and you're $150,000. Congratulations, you think you have made it. But no, you have not done nearly enough and are not contributing apparently than this 65-year-old married couple delaying social security, still making income, decent income, 150,000, decent money, no matter basically where you live in the US, outside of a very high cost of living area. It's madness. And this is what the latest bill has done. Can we put B4 up here on the screen? So, I went through the Treasury press release that came out yesterday and it says over 53 million filers claimed at least one of Trump's signature new tax cuts. Now, what they tout a lot is the DoorDash Grandma one, the 11,000 to these tipped workers. Okay, great, not here to steal tips from anybody. Really happy if we're being honest. Most of you weren't reporting it anyways, but okay. Now, let's go and down to the actual six single largest deduction that happened as a result of this tax bill. 30 million seniors claimed something called the enhanced deduction for senior, which has an average deduction of $7,500. That means 30 million seniors deducted 225 billion from their taxable income as a result of this tax bill, which means and contributes to that statistic which we just showed you, where the 25 year old married couple is going to pay $3,500 more in taxes explicitly because of this senior deduction. And this makes it so that 88% of all American seniors who are on social security now receive it completely tax-free. And as I said in the past, I think it is a little weird to give people social security than having to pay taxes on it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Now that said, if we're explicitly just going to carve out real enhanced deductions, some 225 billion in deductions, I'd spread it around a little bit more. I don't know about you. Maybe, I think the child tax credit max deduction is something like with two children is like 4,400 bucks. So just for the privilege of being old, you get 7,500 on your tax. And let's combine this with all the property tax stuff that you guys know I've laid out. We now have boomers in this country who get to cap their school tax, reduce their property tax. They get an enhanced deduction for the privilege of being old. They get tax-free income from the government. They get basically tax subsidized healthcare from the government, massively expensive healthcare to the 25 year old married couple who is paying all of their bills. If you net net, they will receive vastly more it from the system than they ever paid out. Just for everybody who says, oh, they earned it. No, they didn't. They earned some of it. They probably earned around two thirds of it. I'm sorry, it's maddening. And look, this is the age warfare, which I know a lot of people get uncomfortable about, but like, I'm sorry, it's true. They are waging it upon us. Now we can have a universalist type system, but it is going to take serious taxation of a large segment of the rich, which yes, includes the elderly. Sorry, it's just empirically true. And to watch, just the way that they're very comfortable with all of these, for people who say, build up your bootstraps, hand out after hand out after hand out. And then to see the government basically celebrate this as if it's some working family. Like, no, this is explicitly the largest tax cut in history for old people. That's it. That's what Trump has done. Maybe we should have expected that all along. I think it's sick. Like, I don't think any society can look at this and say this is sick. And it's very, I mean, it's in a way it's political patronage too. Yeah, it is. Because there's most committed supporters. Actually, I think Gen X supports him a little bit more than Boomers, but in any case, Gen X like sort of barely exists as a generation, the smallest one. But, you know, Boomers are the, the Fox News Boomers are the ones who are still with him, the most aggressively. And- They would watch that, they would have a brain end, which I would end up paying. Remember when he talked about like, oh, well, we can't bring home prices down. Yeah, I know, gotta help out the old people. Because, yeah, I mean, that's the way he thinks about it. And he thinks very much in terms of political patronage and, oh, this group helped me, so I'm gonna help them. And so, you know, like, listen, great for people to be able to benefit, but if you just ask yourself, okay, this is the funds that are available for a tax cut. Who's in need of that tax cut? This would be about the last group that you pick, because not only that, but what is the likelihood that that older couple owns their own home and is also receiving the benefit of the market interest deduction versus the likelihood that the 25-year-old couple, which is like, virtually certain that they don't own their own home. So they're not benefiting from that. They're having to put out rent. There's no tax advantage from that whatsoever. So it's not just on that one front. It's in a whole variety of ways that the system is more favorable for that older couple versus that 25-year-old married couple. And then, you know, obviously bigger picture, like the massive corporate tax breaks, billionaires who pay no taxes whatsoever and are able to rig the system to their benefit. The fact that we're putting out, the Trump wants a $1.5 trillion to go to these defense industrial complex, war profiteers, et cetera. I mean, the whole priority is incredibly safe. It's bullshit. And you know, boomers, I'm just really happy that you guys can go out and buy some more jet skis and second houses and I don't know, whatever the nonsense. Casinos, yeah, enjoy, all right? Put five on black from, actually, no, you can't even put five on anything anymore. Put 25 on black for me, all right? Let's go to Syed Marandi. He is standing by for us. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.