Good morning and welcome
to the girl Ingram show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.
That's 855-752-4842.
You can text us at that same number.
Good morning to you, Cardi.
What's going on?
It's Friday.
I was, you know, it's Friday.
I'm going to stop even asking that question because I, you know, I could predict, you know, what was going to come out of his mouth.
Uh, but yeah, uh, yeah, it is Friday and, uh, but you
No.
Uh, so by now, if you don't know, that's my, my co-host, Sandy Williams.
Good morning to Sandy.
How you doing, man?
You know, you know, Sandy, it's it is it's it's like, you know, a baby exploring the new world, right?
Yeah, it's why we have a sports section because before you get into gestion looking at the news You can open the you can open the sports section and and there your emotional problems are you know You have them but they're all sort of in control and the reason you go there is to have the fun of figuring out Wins and losses and things that really don't matter, you know, but they seem to matter
So say me before we get into all the things that you and I are gonna talk about this morning
I have to ask you.
They're talking about a hundred million dollars for state Supreme Court seat.
Fifty nine million last year.
That's a tenth of a billion.
Sandy.
Fifty nine.
A hundred bill.
A hundred million dollars for state Supreme Court seat.
While they're cutting, we can't afford food stamps.
We can't afford all these other things.
But by heaven's sakes, there's another Supreme Court race at the state level next year.
What are we talking about?
Fifty million dollar increments every time a state we're trying to get.
I mean, that turns out
These aren't just, you know, these are.
very expensive justices.
No, I mean, it's crazy.
The fact that this kind of money gets spent by private interests suggests that private interests have a great deal at stake with respect to who these justices are.
And, you know, particularly the Republican Party realized 15, 20 years ago that controlling the courts was very important because their intent was
to test the edge of the envelope with respect to the law, particularly constitutional law, because it's supreme courts that specialize in constitutional law.
So that's what's at stake here.
I mean, that's why someone like Elon Musk would want to spend a whole lot of money in Wisconsin.
It's not to benefit Tesla.
It's to try and make sure that when constitutional questions are heard in Wisconsin with respect to the Wisconsin Constitution,
relates to political matters they'll get the answer they want.
So at the root of it is to convince the voters that their guy or their person who they're supporting is when the time comes is going to carry their free.
I mean that clearly has to be the reason that that kind of money is being spent.
Well, I mean, you know, I don't think the people out there are as interested in that issue as the people who are providing the money and therefore sponsoring the ads.
The ads are designed to inflame people about issues that might relate to whatever it is that the polls have suggested that people are particularly keyed up about.
And that's what they're playing with.
But, you know, the Supreme Court
Decisions aren't going to relate to those matters that are the subject to these ads almost ever.
That's not that's not what's at stake as far as this big money is concerned.
No, you know, Sandy, I certainly know and kind of understand that the Supreme Court, the people who are putting all this money in this race don't give a rip about, you know, somebody's right to abortions that, you know,
They that's clearly not what they're concerned about.
But I guess what I would say to you then, Sandy, is if they're doing that with the state Supreme Court levels and it's not going to go backwards, right?
I mean, they're going to continue to pour this kind of money at some point in time.
Doesn't it get to a point where they they can't continue to do this and the damage that it does to the American people who lose faith in a system?
that they can see is is being handled like this.
as
Yeah.
I mean, with money, money is rigging politics.
It's not the kind of rigging that Donald Trump talks about, because he's behind this notion of using money in this manner.
I don't mean behind it, the guy that's causing it.
He's someone who obviously believes in it.
But I don't know.
I think that this, it could become the way in which the American public wakes up and realizes that money in politics is a big problem because spending that kind of money on a Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin shows us that from the political standpoint,
How this court decides matters like gerrymandering court, you know, the map rigging that's gone on to try and put the thumb on the scale of who controls, which party controls the state house is, it's clearly a matter of great financial concern to somebody out there.
So Sandy, and Brendan says, would you be referring to the current US version of oligarchy?
Well, so Sandy, again.
as a citizen, it makes me lose total faith in anything that the government stands for.
How can I, as an American citizen, see what's happening here?
And then my vote, which they tell us is sacred, and yet my vote is, you know?
Right.
We ought to turn our back on the ads.
We ought to roll up our sleeves and do the research we need to figure out who it is we ought to vote for for our own reasons instead of
for the reasons presented to us by sound bites and advertisements that have been bought for the tune of, to the tune of a hundred million dollars.
You know, Sandy, I just, you know, needed to get your thoughts on that because, you know, then what does a United States Supreme Court seat go for?
you
Yeah, but anyway, I just wanted to get that out of the way and and get it off my chest.
So Let's let's Sandy.
Let's talk a little bit about what is transpiring the
You wanted to talk about what's really transpiring.
What's happening?
He's got a daily show that he puts on, and this one involved Jillian Trent, who's a PhD in anthropology, a trained economist, and she's an economic reporter.
And so she was asked by him whether the Trump administration has any strategy or is it just confusion, reigning.
And she pointed out that no, there is a strategy.
And she did a very cogent job, I think, of explaining it.
And there has been talk.
I think we've all heard about something called a Mar-a-Lago Accord.
No one's ever put any flesh behind it, but there's talk about at some point in the not too distant future, a whole bunch of countries representatives being summoned to Mar-a-Lago to hammer out a deal that would essentially put America in a different position in the world than it's in today.
And that's the underlying strategy.
Scott Bassent, the Treasury Secretary.
And Moran, the guy who's the head of the Council of Economic Advisers, have both put out extensive writings, and Basant has gone out and done speaking, about the strategies.
And this was up, you know, approximately a year ago.
So these are strategies that have been hatched for some while.
But the notion is, unlike Teddy Roosevelt, who talked about walking softly and carrying a big stick and walking softly, meaning, you know, be strong.
demonstrate your power, but don't use it.
You know, walk softly and be diplomatic.
And unfortunately, Donald Trump and this whole Mar-a-Lago strategy is just the opposite.
Walk loudly and whack people with the stick.
And the notion is that America has a wide range of powers.
We have economic power based on the scale and value to the rest of the world of having access to our marketplace.
We have military power.
And so the notion is that we would use the power of America in every way possible to cause other countries to do the things we want them to do.
And I think after the break, we can talk more about this, but I think that we need to analyze, and I think the problem with this theory is that
using this power will amount to shooting America's wad.
Once you use the stick, the stick is much less valuable.
The stick is much better carried in a scabbard as a threat than it is actually utilized and put into play.
Because once it's put into play, the rest of the world has to figure out how to avoid the pain of the stick and they will get together with one another, they'll find ways to make the United States
Irrelevant to them rather than vital to them which is the notion that Donald Trump believes that the United States is vital to the rest of the world and therefore we can demand from the rest of the world compensation so that they can benefit from the this vitality that we have and We can discuss it.
I'll try to explain after the break, but my fear about this is that
What Donald Trump's going to do is shoot America's wad ineffectively and we will lose this power without getting the advantages we need rendering us standing here alone only with our military power and the use of military power is dear and
expensive.
We passed up on the stairs We spoke up wasn't when Although I wasn't there He said I was his friend
which gave us some surprise.
I spoke into his eyes, I thought you died a long, a long, long time ago.
All right, welcome back to The Earl Ingram Show.
As always, you can join us at 855-752-4842.
855-752-4842.
uh in person absentee voting has begun uh check your voter registration status find your polling place and make a plan to be a spring voter learn about all the ways to register to vote ahead of uh wisconsin's april first spring election and what you need to register in person on election day at myvote.wi.gov my vote
So Sandy is my co-host and Sandy the music.
And basically I tried to find music that related to the question of.
whether nations should flex or whether people should flex their muscles and use them or whether they ought to simply have them and operate on a peaceful basis and not a coercive one.
And so that's what we're talking about today because obviously the theory in the Trump administration is flex your muscles, use your power, get what you can in every transaction you have in the world and use your power.
And I think an interesting question American people ought to figure out is, everyone talks about America being the most powerful country in the world.
But what is that power?
From what is it derived?
I mean, you, I'm sure, believe that, Earl, that it's the most powerful country in the world.
What do you perceive to be the power of the United States that makes it the most powerful?
Well, so I always, the first go to its military might
when you look at the military might of our country, which again is very small population, only 4% of the overall global population, but our military might is more fearful and frightful than any other nation on the planet.
And I think Sandy that, and this is just my opinion, that everything else is derived from our military might.
So when you have the kind of power,
that America has put together and possessed and continues to keep, you know, up in the end.
You
Well, it turns out that our capacity to have that military power is derived from the fact that we have a huge, prosperous economy.
We have the capacity to tax our citizens to the tune of $865 billion a year in order to support the cost of it.
And so it's our financial might that stands behind the capacity to have that kind of military power.
And financial might and military power sort of go hand in hand and hand.
But we also are a financially mighty country.
We are the biggest marketplace in the world.
And the Donald Trump theory is that these tariffs are a big club that can be used with other countries because tariffs are essentially the way that you close the door to the American economy with respect to the sale of whatever good is being tariffed.
And so you can open that door by reducing the tariffs.
And what is clear is that Donald Trump has
Plans on using both those levers.
He's talking about withdrawing our military support from countries if they don't pay adequately for it and he's also talking about tariff putting tariffs on countries to make it harder for them to sell their goods in our country to share in the benefits of our economy and so that's another price that he wants to be able to hold over the heads of foreign countries in order to secure leverage and then the question is leverage
for what, and that's what we need to talk about some more.
But the fact is that our leverage with respect to both these matters relate as well to goodwill.
We have promised to extend our military support to people, and that has made them our allies.
And their being our allies is important to us.
So we extend our military support to other countries and it benefits us.
So I'm not sure how big a price they should pay for it.
We're doing it for our own benefit.
And if we charge them a price for it, they will try to figure out the economic options for paying that price.
They can find another ally.
They can build up their own military.
They can do a variety of things, but they can try and make our military less revelant.
relevant to them.
The same is true with respect to trade.
When we put tariffs on countries and close our door or try to close our economic door to them, they will find other doors and they will find other places to go.
And what the world will try to do in the face of this kind of strategy is to make America as irrelevant to them as they can make us.
And so that's the error of this strategy.
But the Trump administration and the advisors, Peter Navarro, the Scott Besant, this Moran, the head of the Council of Economic Advisors, the people behind him have a cogent strategy.
And that strategy is use this stick, exact a price from everyone so that we can get our way.
And our way is to try and make our dollar.
weaker while at the same time having the dollar continue to be the reserve currency for the world.
These two things are mutually exclusive in terms of outcomes and so the only way to get the other countries to help us keep our dollar at a low value so that our so that our exports are cheap is to force them to do things.
that will cause that outcome.
And the way we intend to force them to do that is to withdraw our military support from them, or threaten to, and to otherwise put tariffs on them.
And both these things are going to lose our friends, lose our allies, and shoot our wad.
And shooting our wad will be the last...
bad thing that the baby boomers do to the next generations to leave them with a big debt and and to have lost our place in the world
8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42 my guest co-host Sandy Williams and you can join us 8-5-5-7-5-2-48-42 you tune into a Friday Distant of the Earl England Show
chill us to the soul will you feed the fast in the straw to go
Back to the Ehrlich Room Show.
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All right.
Uh, so it's Friday.
That means Friday's my co-host Sandy Williams.
So send me your music.
It was when the money's gone, when you spend your money, it's gone.
When you expend your powers and shoot your wad, maybe it's gone too.
And that's my concern, and that's the concern of a number of people watching to get wonky for a minute.
But first of all, I did notice one of the...
Listeners texted in and talked about the moral power of the government, the United States, and that is sort of the third leg on the stool of our power.
We have economic power, we have financial power, largely derived from the fact that our dollar is the reserve currency used throughout the world, which really makes us the financial center of the world.
And that is probably our largest economic power.
Then we have economic power as a marketplace.
We have the moral power of being the leading nation in the free world.
And we seem to be dispensing with that one.
You know, Donald Trump has made it clear that...
being part of the free world isn't necessarily an ingredient that is important to him with respect to who we wrap our arms around.
And the rest of the free world has announced basically that maybe they need to find a new leader of the free world because we seem to have abandoned it.
So that's the kind of ways in which the United States can
lose the power that we have because our power isn't all tangible.
Some of it is just based on principle and moral.
Well, you know, Sandy, some would say and challenge the moral fiber of our nation.
When you look at the fact that many of the mineral resources for third world nations and others, you know, you know, we kind of take advantage of those nations.
Not as
Donald
Trump is out there trying to cut new deals for mineral resources with Greenland and we want to wrap our arms around Greenland.
We'd like to take over Canada.
Canada is obviously a very resource rich piece of geography.
And so we have a president who's not behaving necessarily in the manner that the rest of the free world would view as being.
part of the membership in the free world.
So Sandy, let's, let's, let's then, you know, because you're the guy who read project 2025 and, and Donald Trump is not the orchestrator of these things.
Is he?
I
So how much of the conversation that we just had or the things that you just got through talking about aren't really Donald Trump's ideas and plans.
He didn't conjure them up.
He's he's he's he's he's the face of it.
Well, I think he's the tool that's being utilized by a bunch of people who have very specific objectives in each of their areas of interest.
in particular, and also including these economists or financial people, Scott Besant, it's clear that what's being implemented here is a strategy that's extremely revolutionary, different, and being different doesn't make it bad, but my concern about it that makes it bad is that I think the strategy is very faulty, and it's faulted by the fact that
using our muscle and putting a price on everything that we do for the rest of the world will cause the rest of the world to operate like any prudent business person.
And that is that they'll try to find someone who doesn't try to exact such a high price and try to make us as irrelevant as possible.
And that's something that can be a
capital.
So Cindy, let me tell you why it makes it bad.
Because not only for other peoples of the earth, but for the American people.
for the average American, this poses insurmountable, you know, things for people to be able to overcome.
The income of the American, average American is not rising.
All of the things that we're talking about are gonna benefit the wealthy people of America, not the average person.
Well, the problem here is that Scott Beside has persuaded himself that the people who this will ultimately...
help will be the people who get the manufacturing jobs that will be recreated in America by partitioning the world, by getting the rest of the world to bow in abby essence to the United States and to do the things necessary to allow us to maintain the dollar as the world's reserve currency, which is something that will be much less important in a world partitioned by tariffs.
to allow us to keep the dollar as the world reserve currency.
And at the same time, to start purchasing our products because they will take the steps necessary to allow the dollar to become much weaker.
One of the reasons the dollar becomes very strong in the system in which we are the world's reserve currency, which has been the case ever since the Bretton Woods Agreement right after World War II.
is that everyone has to buy dollars in order to do their dealings in dollars.
And so that constant stream of purchasing of dollars keeps the price of dollars high, which makes it harder for people to buy our products out there in the world when we try to export them because a rich dollar makes it hard for
them to buy.
So you're saying at the end of all of this, they really are looking
for bringing these manufacturing jobs back to America and making life better for the American citizens.
Is that what we're to believe?
Well, their perspective, they're going to bring the business back to America and the profits that will be derived from that business for the business people who will be.
uh rewarded by having businesses return to America for manufacturing and to and to change the then therefore the the nature of our economy something so that it looks much more like post-world war two america which incidentally was only uh
something that could be achieved because the rest of the world was on its knees.
America was the only economy.
Now we want to try to accomplish this in a world in which there are many other economies.
And one of the big prices that Scott Bassant thinks that we can cause other countries to accomplish this is our military power.
We will withhold our military support.
And the fact is that
We give our military support for the reason that it's beneficial to us.
And it also gives us all these client countries who are purchasing military goods from us.
What this strategy is going to do is to make us much more irrelevant from the standpoint of military force.
We will no longer have a bunch of allies who we can organize to accomplish things in the world as we have over the past 75 years.
And we will become, from a financial standpoint, much weaker the day that the dollar is no longer the reason.
So Sandy, the average American who struggles, those things don't impact their lives.
When they talk about bringing the corporations back, they're going to be automated.
They're not going to offer the opportunities for the average American to buy into and have that middle class.
lifestyle that we're talking about that occurred 30, 40 years ago.
today.
That would be
But the problem is the price the American people are paying for this experiment, which is faulted and based on faulty logic, is that we're going to have recession.
The pain that now Donald Trump is talking about, that Scott Bassatt is obviously whispering in his ear about, is that
We all need to pay the price of a recession, at least a recession, in order to get to this promised land, which is this revised world order.
So Sandy.
to.
The economy of the 1950s employed Tom Dick and Mary in manufacturing jobs that allowed them to live middle class lifestyles.
That's not going to be what's happening now.
And so all of this that they're talking about does not include Tom Dick and Mary and them being able to lift their selves up.
And so all of this conversation and talk is impacting the wealthiest amongst us and not the average person.
What about the average American?
Where do they fit in this?
It would help, Tom Dick and Mary.
That has to be conceded by any economist who looks at the plan and thinks about it.
But the problem is that the way they intend to accomplish it isn't going to work.
And the rest of the world is demonstrating that the rest of the world has motivations that involve their own national pride and their own national interests that will cause them not to
a genuflect in the manner that Scott Besant thinks they will when they are all summoned to Mar-a-Lago for the purpose of hammering out an accord that accomplishes something like this.
You know, Canada is already demonstrating
it.
And so Tom Dick and Mary are sheep in this.
And so what happens to Tom Dick and Mary?
Okay, I mean, I know you say that, you know, you know,
The economists think that, yeah, things will get a little better for Tom Dickens.
No,
Economists don't believe that this is going to happen.
I'm simply saying that the strategy that they describe, if they accomplish it, would accomplish the objective of improving the economy for Tom Dickens' marriage.
The problem is that I think almost every economist who will look at this plan will say that in the long run, it's not going to work.
Tom Dick and Mary are going to pay the price in the meantime, and they're not going to get the gain of the objective, because the objective won't be accomplished.
It's got too many internal inconsistencies in these strategies.
You know, Sandy, by the time, if it does work, by the time it works, they're cutting off all the social programs that would help Tom Dick and Mary bridge the gap until it happens.
What is Tom Dick and Mary supposed to do in the interim?
Well,
but
all these programs.
They do want to come as close as possible to eliminating the income tax.
You know, Donald Trump fallaciously and disingenuously yesterday or day before yesterday said that his intent in the long run when this program is successful is to eliminate income taxes for families
with
think it
I think this includes them.
be a good idea.
But they do want to, and they're in the process of carving up the American government.
And the only thing that they can carve up that will cut out big expenditures are programs that expend money on behalf of Tom, Dick, and Mary.
Medicine for the poor.
How do they expect the poor to get medical
assistance?
without that they don't they don't care they don't care about the poor and the average american eight five five seven five two forty eight forty two uh you know it's friday that means friday's my coach sandy weems and you
Come on and take a walk with me through this green and growing land.
Walk through the meadows and the mountains and the sand.
Walk through the valleys and the rivers and the plains.
Walk through the sun and walk through the rain.
Here is a land full of power and glory.
Beauty that words cannot recall.
Power, power shall rest on the strength of our freedom.
Glory shall rest on us all.
From Colorado Kansas and the Carolinas to Virginia and Alaska from the old to the new Texas and Ohio and the California shore Tell me who can ask for more?
All right welcome back to the early room show as always you can join us at 855-752-4842 as 855-752-4842 text us at that same number join the growing team at Civic Media
While many other broadcast companies in Wisconsin are shrinking their staff and Stripping away services like weather news and sports civic media is doing the opposite team is growing and we're hiring qualified candidates To join the radio network check out all the open positions at civic media dot us slash careers as a civic media family continues to grow Sandy the music
All right Tony says I've become more receptive to the idea of a universal basic income with the automation of so many jobs of Fund it from taxes on billionaires.
Let's go to Tim
Uh, from Eau Claire.
Good morning to you, Tim.
You say what?
Tim, are you there?
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
I want to touch on.
I'm
sorry.
Turn that right off.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
And you know, for years and years, you've had.
Oh, the religious rate and a lot of these people talking about, oh, it's bad socialism.
They don't like to build their burgers in Davos.
Well, that's what these people are leading us to.
That's all I got to say.
Well, I think what he's saying is that the Mar-a-Lago and this.
Convocation at Mar-a-Lago would be another version of Davos, where all the wealthy people in the world get together and decide what ought to happen in the world.
And yeah, I mean, the whole principle of this notion of the Mar-a-Lago Accord is that Donald Trump's going to call all these countries together and say, OK, who's
who's in with us.
If you're in with us, you know, we'll lower our tariffs with respect to you and we'll consider giving you military support.
But the price for that is that you're going to have to do a bunch of things that are not necessarily in your national interest.
in order to do it.
So, for instance, the American debt that you hold, you'll turn that in and you'll take back American debt that pays no interest for 30 years.
And so we can try and
cut back on the cost to the American budget of the carrying cost of our debt because all of you people, Japan and China and you people who hold a great deal of our debt will be cuddled into agreeing to take no interest on that debt for the life of the debt.
And those zero coupon kind of bonds sell at a big discount.
So that's actually also kind of a fallacious theory because
You know the debt unless it's taken at a great loss by each country And and the fact is that the more we put a price on Holding our debt the more likely it is that those people will want to make sure that the US dollar isn't the reserve currency Because the only reason they hold that debt is because they do they need to do so in order to preserve their dollars to carry out transactions with the dollar as the reserve currency so this
particular ploy is in the long run going to destroy the dollar as the reserve currency because it's going to increase the price to all of the countries for that proposition.
All right, let's go to CJ.
CJ, you say what?
Good morning, Ireland Sandy.
What you're seeing is leadership in just a matter of a couple of months, our borders secure, and now countries
are respecting our president.
Let me ask you something.
Is this is this about is this about countries respecting our president, the president?
What about the American people?
I don't
mean,
about I don't give a rip about the country.
I mean, the country's respecting Donald Trump.
And so I'm just interested, CJ's called in.
I'm interested in whether he thinks this Mar-a-Lago Accord makes sense, whether exercising and using the American military muscle and tariff muscle to cudgel countries into doing things for us in the long run won't essentially shoot the American powerwad and put us in a totally different position.
Well, just the way you did it for NATO.
and I hear people misrepresent that he wanted to get out of NATO.
He didn't want to get out of NATO.
He wanted countries and he got countries to pay their fair share.
Hey CJ, you're not
talking about anything that we're talking about, okay?
he's saying, but go
Well, the strategy has worked for NATO, but that's not actually so very clear either because what's happening is that these countries are setting up their own defense systems.
just today or this morning, actually today, announced they were going to spend 1.1 trillion in the pursuit of expanding their military.
They're going to make us irrelevant militarily.
And one of our biggest powers, as Earl mentioned earlier in the world, has been the military power.
Not that we're going to cause countries to coward because we'll attack them, but because we'll defend them.
855-752-4842.
It's Friday.
Friday's my call.
Sandy Williams and you hang
on.
