RADIOOctober 28, 2022

Glenn: Vietnam RAT FARMS prove the free market ALWAYS WORKS

In this clip, Glenn takes you to Vietnam in the early 20th century with a story that shows exactly why central planning NEVER works but the free market ALWAYS does. Glenn begins with colonial authorities in Hanoi, a plan that spun WAY out of control, and rodents that began to terrorize the city. This is a story about unintended consequences, and why government today FEEDS off of rat farms…

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I want to show you why central planning never works. And why the free market always does. Because the free market doesn't have to anticipate to things. It reacts to things quickly. Let me give you an example. I -- I looked into rat farming over the weekend. Don't ask me how. Don't ask me why. But it started with an article written by Charles Hugh Smith of Two Minds blog. And it is fascinating.

And it takes you back to around the turn of the century. 1900.

And it is the story of how colonial authorities, in Hanoi, came to establish would it kinds of rat farms. And one was intentional.

The first rat farm was unintentional. The French colonial authorities decided to modernize the French quarter of Hanoi, where the Westerners lived by constructing a modern sewer system. The goal was establish a little Paris in the east.

Now, their understanding of sewers was limited to the First Order Effect. First order, second order effect, important to understand.

First order effect, this is where it ended.

Sewers collect and dispose of human waste. That's first order. What are you trying to do?

Build a sewer. Well, what's the effect of that?

Oh, it will take all the flushy parts, and flush them out into the ocean, or wherever. Okay?

That's all they understood. They didn't -- they didn't anticipate the second order effect.

Which was, sewers are paradises for rats.

Now, there was a whole new rat's nest ready to crawl through. All of these pipes. And it was full of food, that rats just loved.

So the second order, is unintended consequences.

First order is, that's what we're going to do. Second is, oh, crap. We just did this. And it was a good thing. Now we've created this problem. Okay?

So second order effects, consequences. Have their own consequences.

And so on, and so on. So the rats started in the sewers. And they began roaming the streets of Hanoi, not exactly the Paris of the East.

So the Bubonic Plague hits Hanoi 2000 -- or, sorry, 1902.

And now, you've got a -- a real health crisis going on. What caused the health crisis?

Oh, the rats, which were caused by the sewers, which was caused by the idea, I really want to have a nice Paris type town. So what did they do?

Well, they hired crews to go down into the sewer and kill the rats. It was not fun. Crappy work, and hazardous.

Now, they killed thousands of rats every single day. But rat fertility is more than a match for the extermination crews.

So then the city said, you know what, everybody, you catch a rat. You catch a rat. We'll give you a bounty for every dead rat.

Well, everybody got involved. And then it was we have a pile of dead rats. Just bring us the tail. Because the pile of rats, waiting to be disposed of, was too expensive. So what did they want to do? Make sure they didn't have a pile of dead rats. Unintended consequence by saying, okay. Just bring us the tail.

Rat farms began to sprout up, because you could cut the tail of a rat off, and hand it in.

And I'm not sure if the rat would degree another tail, but it would at least be there to breed.

STU: That's incredible. I love this scam.

GLENN: Is this not great? Great?

So they discovered that they had -- they had started to have perverse incentives.

Rat farms were built all around Hanoi by private sector entrepreneurs to maximize the harvesting of profitable rat tails.

So in effect, the government created two rat farms. Both unintended, really. The sewers and the private sector rat farm.

In 1998, the Vietnamese authorities, closed restaurants selling cat meat, which was marketed as little tiger meat.

Because they thought of it, if the cat population increased, rats would invade the Rice fields, showcasing the same mentality, that had happened before.

Happened -- happened again. Happened again. Rats. And what do we do with the rats?

Here's the thing: If you look at our society now, everything we are trying to fix. Let's fix education. Let's fix -- let's fix health care.

Let's fix homelessness. We're going to fix our intelligence gathering, our national defense. What do we do?

We pour all kinds of money into this sewer system, people who are now administrators, support staff, consultants, con artists. Some good people in there. But the system wants the money to keep flowing.

So they're not incentivized to actually solve a problem. They actually become people to protect the paradise of more and more funding.

This is why -- this is why the free market works. And why the government must get out of the market. Because once they start protecting their boys, it becomes a rat hole.

It's another rat farm.

You've got to get the government out of the farming business.

Out of the rat problem.

Because they're the biggest source of them.

Oh.

STU: This reminds me of -- of a story I freaking love from a couple of weeks ago.

In New York, they had a gun buyback.

GLENN: Oh, exactly right.

STU: And first order effects. We'll get guns off the streets. We'll make everyone safer. Of course, they don't think of the second order, which means that law-abiding citizens can no longer protect themselves. But I'm not even talking about that one.

One guy saw how stupid it was. And got his 3-D printer out, and started 3-D printing a small device that can convert firearms into fully automated weapons under the rules of the buyback. And this is by Leticia James, by the way, in New York.

And city police, that entitled him to $350 for each printed part, including a 100-dollar premium, since they redeemed ghost guns, lacking serial numbers. So these are just little 3-D printed parts.

He kept doing it and doing it and doing it. And eventually made himself $21,000 for just printing them. He's never going to use as automatic weapons.

GLENN: And he shouldn't go to jail.

STU: No, I don't think he is. He played by the rules. Did exactly what they asked him to do. Made $21,000.

He said, he didn't do it for the money, however. He said he called the idea of buybacks, ridiculously stupid.

Adding that, quote, the people running this event, are horribly uneducated about guns, gun crime, and the laws surrounding the regulation of guns.

Did Arizona register 98,000 ILLEGALS to vote? AZ Justice sets the record STRAIGHT

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick joins Glenn Beck to set the record straight about a claim that Arizona registered 98,000 illegal immigrants to vote. Justice Bolick tells Glenn that this is NOT TRUE and there is NO indication that any of the voters in question were here illegally. So, what actually happened? Justice Bolick explains and also comments on what you should do if you’re concerned about the fairness of the 2024 election.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.

You know, our job is getting harder and harder.

I just gave permission to hire, you know, another researcher. This morning.

Because we are just overwhelmed in stories, that we don't know what the truth is.

You should see my -- my email, my -- my private messages.

And even my text messages from friends that I trust. That are like, Glenn, I don't know if this is true. I don't know either!

I don't know either.

And I know you're in that situation. And we are going to go off the cliff, if we can't verify some things.

That's one reason why I'm going to Asheville North Carolina today.

I need to know. Is this stuff happening?

Are there bodies in Chimney Rock, that are still there?

You know, what is happening on the ground?

And we're bringing, you know, a plane full of supplies for them. Through Mercury One.

But we have to -- this is what I said in the meeting today.

We have got to come. And even if we don't talk about them. We have to find out. Are these things true, so you know if they're true or not?

And we'll do our best. But it takes so much time. We have so much going on. I think it was like a week ago, or so.

Do you remember the story that Arizona added 98,000 illegals?

STU: I remember that being, yeah.

GLENN: And I think we talked about it, right?

STU: Yeah. I think we did at the time. And tried to give perspective.

So much stuff for people to sort through right now.

GLENN: Firm the story right, it was hard decipher.

I think that's why we didn't follow up on it, at all. Because I don't know what is right on this story.

STU: Let's lock it down.

GLENN: Well, good news, the head guy of the Arizona Supreme Court wrote to us. He's Justice Bolick. He, who joined the court in 2016. He previously cofounded the Institute for Justice and served as litigation director for the Goldwater Institute. So he's one of us.

He litigated constitutional cases from coast-to-coast, including the US Supreme Court.

He's not the Supreme Court. He's a Supreme Court I couldn't wait. But he's not the chief justice now, in Arizona.

But he says, that story is wrong.

And he would be the guy that knows. Clint, welcome to the program.

CLINT: Oh, thank you so much for having me, Glenn. And thanks for making the correction. My boss, the chief justice would have drawn and quartered me.
(laughter)

GLENN: You know, this story was everywhere. And I don't remember what we said. We might have said that yep. That's crazy.

And the Supreme Court is out of control.

I don't know what we said. But if we got it wrong, A, I apologize.

So let's correct it. And correct all of the stories that were out there. What happened?

CLINT: So, Glenn, thank you so much for that.

And, you know, usually, when a court issues controversial decisions, they know it.

And so for a couple of days after, we did not consider this to be a controversial decision at all.

But all of a sudden, we were hearing from people, and I was encountering people, who were saying, we were letting illegal immigrants vote.

And I looked at the headlines, that had come out, and just I've got one I'm reading in front of me, from Newsweek, that said Arizona court, says nearly 100,000 people with unconfirmed citizenship can vote.

And so I can well understand, why people got that impression.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

CLINT: But the headline should have read, court. Arizona court prevents disenfranchisement of 100,000 people over computer error.

And that's exactly what happened.

So Arizona is one of the few states, that requires proof of citizenship, before someone votes.

And when the law was passed, they assumed, that people who had registered by 2005, were -- were legal citizens. So they didn't require you to show proof of citizenship, unless you moved to a different county, or applied for a duplicate license. And due to a Department of Motor Vehicles glitch. And I know that's hard to believe.

GLENN: Oh, no. It's hard to believe that the government would do anything that had glitches in it.

CLINT: Yeah. So in any event, apparently, a large number of people, who were registered to -- to -- to vote, and who had driver's licenses before 1996, and who moved, or got duplicate licenses, were never asked to prove their citizenships.

Now, most of these people had been voting for decade.

And, you know, so -- so there's no indication that any of them are illegal who didn't notice. But once this problem was discovered, the county recorder of Maricopa County, went to court, and said, all of these people should be removed and required to prove their citizenship, between now and the election.

And, of course, the same people who made the mistake, would have been this charge of -- of making sure that those were shown by the election.

And just imagine, if we had gone to Election Day and thousands, possibly over 100,000 people who had been voting for decades. Were told, oh, no.

We don't know whether you're a citizen or not.

GLENN: Right.

CLINT: And how this is not -- so, in any event, it was a very easy legal issue for us.

And it was the only election case, Glenn.

That I can remember, where the Arizona Republican party, and the ACLU were on the same side.

They hoped that please don't throw these people off the ballot.

You know, we discovered.

We determined that we had no authority to take that many people off the ballot.

You can challenge individual voters, at -- if you think that they are not citizens. And after the election, though, there will be an effort to verify citizenship.

But most of these people would have had no idea what was going on.

You know, given that they voted without a problem for -- for decades. And so it just -- it was one of those stories, that the headlines. One of those cases, that the headlines turned into a controversy.

But it really wasn't a controversy at all.

GLENN: Right. So with an election coming up, and you guys -- are you guys voted on, in the Supreme Court?

CLINT: So, yes. We are subject to retention every six years.

GLENN: Oh.

CLINT: And yours truly is one of those justices up for retention this year, with a very spirited campaign against me from self-described progressive groups.

GLENN: Oh, great. Well, all you had to say -- you had me at Goldwater Institute.

So, you know, I'm -- I'm for you, Glenn.

How -- how confident are you, that we can have a fair election this time in Arizona?

CLINT: Well, you know, I'm not on the ground. I'm not involved.

GLENN: Okay.

CLINT: You know, in the day-to-day.

And, you know, one of the things that I've been doing is encouraging people to volunteer as poll workers.

You know, and other jobs that take place on Election Day. The best -- the best place to be on Election Day, if you have concerns about election integrity, is on the inside.

And I've been very heartened that both political parties. Both major and political parties have really been encouraging volunteers to do that.

And when I hear that sort of thing, it gives me. It gives me confidence that, you know -- that --

GLENN: At least that step has been taken.

CLINT: Yes.

Yeah.

GLENN: Yeah. Well, thanks for clearing this up. I appreciate it.

And, you know, if -- if there's anybody who is on the right, that has misunderstood this, which I think probably a lot of people. Because it was everywhere.

And I -- I apologize.

Again, I don't know exactly what we said. But let's just assume, we were one of those who believed the headlines.

Apology to -- to our audience. And to everybody in Arizona. I'm glad you reached out to us, so we can set the record straight.

Thank you.

CLINT: Glenn, I am so -- you know, I am so glad that you gave me the opportunity. I'm sure it's not every day, that the judge contacts you. And says, hey.

GLENN: Yeah.

CLINT: This is not correct.

GLENN: Yeah. No. I agree. I invite anyone.

If we get something wrong, I'm not afraid of correcting it and saying, we were wrong. So I appreciate that you reached out to us.

Because we will correct it. We will correct it. Thanks.

CLINT: Well, and I am so grateful for that. If everyone did that, we would be in a much better place in our society right now.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. We would. We would. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Clint Bolick, he's Arizona Supreme Court justice. And apparently, running for reaffirment.

And let me just say, Goldwater Institute.

I don't think I need to say anymore.

Israel stopped a SECOND Iranian strike. Will Netanyahu retaliate?

Iran has retaliated against Israel with a massive missile barrage, mostly targeting Tel Aviv. But "miraculously," no Israelis were injured and the missiles did no serious damage. But where will Israel go from here? Former IDF spokesman and Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus joins Glenn to discuss. Conricus, who was in a bomb shelter with his family during the attack, debunks some claims made by Iran and online and also explains why he believes "something special happened AGAIN yesterday." This is now the second time, he explains that Israel, with help from the United States, has neutralized a massive Iranian attack. So, will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike Iran in retaliation? And what are the odds that a larger war will break out?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: The other thing that happened yesterday, that is so important is Israel. Israel is going to respond. I believe we have lieutenant colonel retired.

Jonathan Conricus. He's been on with us before. He's the former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson, and now senior fellow of Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

And we wanted to get you on, Jonathan, first of all, assuming you're in Israel.

You're safe. And that's good. Tell us what happened yesterday, and what it means going forward.

JONATHAN: Yes. Hi, Glenn. Thank you for having me again. A pleasure. What happened yesterday was the biggest missile attack in Israeli history. About 200 ballistic missiles were fired from about 800, 900 miles away, in Iran. At Israel.

The Iranians claimed that they were aiming for military targets. But most of the impacts were actually civilian neighborhoods. And luckily, and quite ironically, some might say, the only casualty in life, was a Palestinian in Jericho. No Israeli citizens were killed.

And while there were some impacted as an Israeli Air Force base, nothing of substance, and no real damage. Neither to infrastructure, or to military capacities.

GLENN: Wait a minute. Hang on.

I heard that several F-35s were taken out. That's not true?

JONATHAN: That is absolutely categorically not true.

There wasn't a single plane hit. Not a single hangar or bunker, and not a single runway.

There were some -- one of the Air Force bases. I'm not going to say the name.

But one of the Air Force bases was hit.

It's only been -- no damage to the Israeli Air Force's capability to continue to operate.

And as our enemies know. The Israeli Air Force continues to operate, in Beirut. In other parts of the Middle East.

In southern Lebanon, over Gaza.

And so the Iranian propaganda, of having 90 percent of their targets, were hit.

Absolutely false. And not -- again, proved the enduring return on investment here.

Many years of investing. US and Israel. Doing that together.

And for the second time in the -- the moment of truth. Air defenses were almost airtight.

And they saved lots and lots and lots of lives in Israel.

GLENN: I have to tell you. I don't know if you're a religious man or not.

But I am

200 missiles being launched. Ballistic missiles.

Coming in and going into Israel.

And for no one to be killed, and you're -- and your Air Force and your military bases. Not to be destroyed.

Is an extraordinary miracle, I think.

JONATHAN: I would agree. And you don't have to be fearing in every way, to recognize that something special happened again, yesterday.

This is the second time that the Iranians unleashed massive firepower.

And it appeared to be able to understand what we're talking about. The missiles are as big as school buses. And they fired 200 of them. Each one of them with hundreds of pounds, about half a ton of explosives in the warheads.

We're talking about very serious weapons.

Large explosives.

My family, we were in the bomb shelter.

My son, he was on the bus. And then ran to a shelter.

And it was really a scene out of a movie. With explosions.

And interceptions, in Tel Aviv. And as you said, the fact that no substantial damage. And no loss of life. Yeah, many would say. And probably I would agree, that this was a miracle.

Air defenses, IDF, and a miracle.

GLENN: I have to tell you, I watched those missiles come in live. But, you know, obviously, from the other side of the planet. And I thought, what must that be like?

You know, I thought of missile launches here, going outbound, or coming in.

Something very few people in the world have seen what happened yesterday.

It must have been terrifying for the average person.

Seeing everything. The sky just lit up with fire.

JONATHAN: Yes. The sky lit up with fire.

And each of you the -- in the air. You know, that they're attached to hundreds of pounds of explosives.

They're lethal. And that they're aimed at the Israeli cities.

And there are explosions all around.

Lots of noise.

You know, we have. Just like in the US.

You have the Amber Alerts. System on your phones.

Israeli defense establishment did the same thing.

And issued like a push notification on all the phones.

Even those who didn't have an app. Download it. And millions of Israelis.

Very strong alarms on their phones.

Call them to immediately go to shelter.

And that's what millions of Israelis did.
And that's also what thankfully led to the fact that even though, some of the missiles exploded in populated areas in Israel, nobody was hurt. Because Israelis were disciplined. And went into bomb shelters.

And nobody was caught out in the open.

GLENN: So is Benjamin Netanyahu, do you think going to respond to this?

Will he strike Iran? And is there any fear that they are going to cut off the oil pathways? Are you there? Go ahead.

JONATHAN: Yeah. When we look forward -- can you hear me? Can you hear me?

GLENN: Yes.

JONATHAN: All right. So when we look forward here, I think two things will determine what will happen next. One is Israel's endgame. Seek to achieve. Because there are a lot of things when it comes to the Iranian regime. And I will clarify. And the second thing that is very important, is how well will Israel coordinate with the United States of America, and what will the level of support be in a global repeat.

Now, regarding the first part. Israel can go for regime targets, leaders, and personnel. Infrastructure that is part of the Islamic regime.

Israel can go for military and economic targets. But this is the places whereby the Iranian regime, the export of oil. And whereby, they make money.

Which is used to fund their activities. All of the terror organizations, in Israel.

And the third option, which, of course, many are eyeing and thinking about is Iran's nuclear military facility.

The research facility, the storage facilities, and many others. These are three distinctly different types of -- and what Israel wants to achieve.

Does Israel want to bring down the regime? Does it only want to hurt the Iranians from attacking Israel again?

Will Israel be told not to do anything significant by the Americans?

And, of course, remind everybody, last time that Iran attacked on the 13th or 14th of April, Israel wanted to retaliate in a much stronger way.

But refrained from doing so under America first. And instead, Israel attempted in continuing in finishing the job in Gaza and Hamas.

I don't think that we're going to see that today. And I think we are going to see in the coming days, a strong Israeli response. It may be aimed at the regime. It may be aimed at their nuclear facilities.

But I think it's absolutely important, is that Israel and the United States of America are coordinated, and I hope American leaders will see this current situation, a threat to Israel. And an opportunity to really do more in a week, than what has been accomplished in ten years of failed diplomacy. When it comes to stopping Iran from going nuclear.

I really think there will be an opportunity.

GLENN: Yeah. I think that will be good. As long as there are calls from both sides, yesterday.

That America needs to send more troops over. I think we already have 40,000 that we've sent over.

We don't want to be in another war.

This one could go global.

I think Israel is showing the world, don't screw with us.

You guys are doing a great job.

And I support that.

I just -- I just don't want to see us, enflame things by including ourself, in the actual strikes.

But support --

JONATHAN: I agree with you. And I wouldn't want -- I wouldn't want the single American service men in harm's way. And I don't think that anybody needs to be fighting Israel's war.

And I think that Israel, in its history, has many times, done the heavy lifting for the rest of the Western world. Whether it's been keeling with Iraqi dictators, or with Syria, or with many others.

And Israel is -- the only thing Israel has is military support. Supplies. And, of course, political and diplomatic support. I don't think that Israel's needs or wants. Any American service members to be in harm's way. And I would just say a tremendous gratitude to American service men.

Against them. Deployed in the Red Sea. Among the -- on the US Navy ships.

And in the air.

Done tremendous work in intercepting Israeli missiles. Very professional.

And super important.

And I hope they remain safe. And I hope that they can have the diplomatic -- and military to help them to do what they need to do in order to defend itself.

GLENN: Well, we here support you on whatever you have to do to defend yourself.

I support you, I should say.

And I think there are millions of Americans that are listening, that feel the same way.

Jonathan. Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

You bet. Lieutenant colonel, Jonathan Conricus. Former Israeli defense spokesperson. The only thing that you should be really looking for is escalation.

But most importantly, as he was talking about. Red Sea. When you get into the straits over there, just off the shores of Iran.

If they start going after our Navy ships, or they try to close those straits down.

That is the world's flow of oil. And we will get involved in that.

And that will become very, very -- very, very dangerous.

Because this one will -- this one will not be a partial war.

This one will include, I believe bombings in our streets.

I believe we are close to terrorist activity. Foreign terrorist activity. In our own streets.

Orchestrated by Iran.

And a lot of others, who are here, and want to destroy us.

So we -- especially during this election season, we all need to be good Americans, together.

Not Republicans. Democrats, but good Americans.

And start paying attention to these issues. So we can start taking care of our own self first. So we survive this time period.