Welcome to Cloudlandia Ep118: Weathering Politics and the Evolution of American Homes
In today's episode of "Welcome to Cloudlandia", Dan and I discuss the unexpected cold weather that recently swept through Florida and Ontario. We talk about how the weather can affect our moods and the emotional connection between climate and architecture. We share personal stories about winters and pay tribute to oak trees that stand steadfast throughout the seasons.
We also consider community planning and how neighborhoods can either embrace nature or ignore natural elements. Additionally, we explore innovative housing, such as modular and 3D-printed designs, while considering ideas on population growth. The future of shelter looks promising.
Finally, we wrap up by examining the impact of advertising on media polarization and the changing news landscape.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Links:
WelcomeToCloudlandia.com
StrategicCoach.com
DeanJackson.com
ListingAgentLifestyle.com
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dean: Mr Sullivan.
Dan: Mr Jackson Well well, well. Is it hot or cold? Didn't forward that to me.
Dean: Well, it is middling. I would say it's a little bit of a cast, but I think it's on its way. We had yesterday like the first day in several weeks that I felt a warmth in the air. There's been. We've had a bit of a cold overtone to everything.
Dan: Yeah, I think cold in Florida in January is worse than cold in. Ontario. Yes In your brain yeah.
Dean: And especially disappointing for people who come from Canada expecting.
Dan: I was contemplating this on the plane flight we flew it to Chicago yesterday afternoon and I was complaining at how oblivious I am generally to weather. Like I know, there are people who I don't know what the exact term is, but they have seasonal, seasonal mood disorder or something like that.
Dean: Seasonal affective effective disorder. Yeah, Sad.
Dan: Seasonal affective disorder. Right, yeah, and you know I don't exactly know what goes on there, but the only thing I can say I don't have it, yeah, exactly.
Dean: I don't mind overcast either. That's funny, but you know I am 24 years now into a snow free millennium with only two asterisks, and those asterisks are both because of you. The only time I've seen snow in this whole millennium is on the occasions when I've been in Toronto in the winter because of the cold In the winter, because of going to 10 times when you started the 10 times program, and then I believe there was one time in Chicago that there was some snow, usually three out of the four dates you get away with no snow, but there's always that December till, you know, april time when it somewhere in there you might end up with some snow.
Dan: Yeah, well, we have snow on the ground, I mean fresh to overnight, but the sidewalks are already dry, naturally, and I already arranged.
Dean: I already arranged, with the powers that be, to put the asterisks beside my thing, because although I've seen snow and been in the presence of snow, I've not had snow touch me, so the purity of it is intact, although the technicality of it is.
Dan: I've been in snow, so yeah, I remember our very first client from Australia mid 90s, from Sydney, and he came to his workshop in Toronto one winter and his wife came with him and he got a call from her while he was at the workshop that she had gone outside in a snow head fell on her.
Dean: In Australia or in no. In in Toronto, all right, a snow head falling on her.
Dan: It's the first time in her life that a snow she was talking about a flake.
Dean: She was talking about a flake yeah yeah, I got it A snow. Yeah, usually you can have as many as you want.
Dan: Front all you want, yeah. But I have very memorable childhood winters of hiking through fields and woods in the snowy season, and you know, and of course when you're six years old, the snow is deeper than it is when you're 80.
Yeah, but I, so my I have a real warm spot in my heart about snowy treks, you know, and imagining that you're a member of, you know, an arctic exploration, everything things that you do, you make up, you know, you make up, you know romantic images based on your reading regarding snow. But I like the forest seasons. I'm a real fan of the change from one season to the other. And then, you know, we have these massive oak trees in our lawn.
We have seven that are you know well over 100 feet and and they're real friends because we've had them now for you know, for at this particular spot, we've had them for 20,. This is our 22nd year. And you know and I just you know they're kind of friends, you know they're kind of dependable friends. Oaks tend not to disappoint, you know they're not they're never late, they always show up, you know that's exactly right.
Yeah, and but, it's just interesting to watch the change of the scenery and our lawn based on what happens to the oak trees over the course of an entire year.
Dean: Well, you, you have not yet been to the four seasons, Valhalla but we are surrounded by 150 year old oak trees. It's like a park. Right out in front of my house. I have a big one that spans over the driveway. It's beautiful.
Dan: I think these are called they're in the south there's this variety. They're called pin oaks. I don't know what the actual name Live oak. Well, live oaks are the best.
Dean: That's what I think we have, because they're they spread. You know, they've got quite a nice canopy.
Dan: When an oak tree is alive, that's the best.
Dean: Oh, I see, oh, yes, that is.
Dan: You know, You're always a bit worried about the dead ones, the dead oaks are the best yeah, oh my goodness you crack me up.
Dean: I'm constantly amazed that they come and so that tree in front of my house. We've got them all throughout the whole neighborhood here and they come and they'll like lop off entire branches, like entire, not just the little things but big things, and they'll just keep going and grow right back and shape the way, because often it'll they have to trim around because the limbs will come over my house right and if it were to fall it would be a problem. So they always keep it outside the perimeter of the roof.
Dan: Well, it must have been interesting because, to you know, the zoning in your place must have taken into account that you can't cut down the oak trees.
Dean: Yeah, that's true, that's everything is built around them and our H away takes care of all of the landscaping. So everything it's all uniform. It looks like a park so you don't have, you know, different levels of care being taken. Everybody's at the whole, the whole place looks great.
Dan: So no opportunity for status right.
Dean: That's exactly right and they owe that tightly deed restricted. Like you're, absolutely right, Like it's. You know, every house is the same brick. There's approved tile, they're all tile roof. You have to have a tile roof, you have to have copper flashings, you have to have this Valhalla brown as any exterior paint the windows, everything. It's all you know. They started in the late 80s building in here and they've, you know, as recently as two years ago. The last, the last home was, was built in here, but there's only 50 homes in here but you wouldn't be able to tell. You couldn't tell which ones are new and which ones are from, you know, 1980s, and that's. It's kind of nice, it's cool, but we've had you know I say it's funny.
You say it's an interesting thought that no opportunity for status in here. Because so when I moved in here 22 years ago now 2002, I was by far the youngest person in here and thought I was would joke that 20 years from now I'll be old enough to live in here. And this is a my neighborhood like. Right beside me, three of the four houses to my right were referred to at the time as Citrus Barron Row, where these guys were, all you know, in their 70s and 80s and had built the Citrus. You know they were all sort of competitors in the Citrus business in Polk County. At one time Polk County produced more Citrus than the entire state of California and so so these guys were all there.
My neighbor across the street was the guy who started Steak and Shake, the restaurant chain, and when he died he he left $20 million to Indiana University for the Kelly School of Business Wing there, and the my neighbor who moved in there is now the own company called Colorado Boxed Beef and they are like an Omaha Steaks type of thing. So anyway, fascinating people but very like low key. You never know about any of them that they're who they are, and I think that was part of the intention of the community, you know when they built the community. But it's very interesting.
Dan: Yeah, it's really interesting the reason I brought up the status thing, relationship to a, you know, a design community, you know just use the word design community and the first one actually was in. I think it was in New Jersey. And it was called Levittown and it was designed by a man by the name of Levitt, and that was the first design community that was where individuals could buy homes. I mean there were sort of during the industrial age, growing you know in the 1800s there was, there were company towns.
you know where the corporation, the company, would design all the homes and you know, they would do it on the cheap. They would do it on the cheap, and they're actually. There's a town outside of Chicago called Pullman.
Dean: And.
Dan: Pullman was the cars. Oh yeah, pullman cars right. Pullman.
Dean: Pullman cars, Rail rail cars, right yeah.
Dan: And the railways. Yeah, and that was a design company town and all the businesses were owned by the company and the only people who could live there were people who worked for the Pullman. So you've had that type of thing. You've had that type of thing, you know. You know it's probably from the beginning of industrialization, hershey, Pennsylvania, kind of that way too.
Dean: Yeah, Kohler, Wisconsin yeah.
Dan: Kohler, wisconsin. Yeah, and so the. But I think Levittown was actually. It's worth it for people to look it up. It's a very interesting thing.
Dean: Yeah, I remember seeing some documentary about it.
Dan: And it was huge. I mean it was huge, it was in the thousands of homes.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: And yeah, and then you know, the idea caught on.
Dean: Yeah, well, that was what, as the evolution of you know, as cars became the big thing in the highway system, you know you could have. That was where the suburbs really began. That was one of the first suburbs of Firecall. Yeah, yeah, very interesting that actually started that really started in.
Dan: I read the history of the Victorian age and Great Britain which, last you know, is basically from the beginning of Queen Victoria, which was, I think, 1820s, 1830s, right up until she died and she was in for more than 60 years. And but the big thing was the expansion of the London rail system. You know it kept going further and further out and you know London Americans who have no idea of what you know a city train system looks like, because London has seven that I visited. They may have more, but they had seven major railroad stations and these are huge. These are as big as you know. They're like Grand Central Station but there's seven of them.
And then the lines go out like the, you know like the, like a clock face that go out, you know and, but they kept pushing them further and further out, and one of the big things was that you could live right on the rail system and they started building these suburban towns, not with the uniformity that you're talking about with you know, with your, your community, but but that whole idea of the suburbs became a big thing, you know, and and that it changed things economically, it changed things politically, changed things culturally.
Dean: And that's.
Dan: That's very interesting thing. And you know and contrast that with where we have our home in Chicago, that right after the war it was sort of a factory or it's right near the airport and they built all these boxes you know, and they were just streets and streets. Yeah, yeah, and they were the same. They were, you know, not big but completely uniform, and I think around that happened probably for a period of 10, 15 years, straight up till the 60s, and then the. Park Ridge, the town that I live in, passed a law that if you build the house, it couldn't be.
It had to be different from the two houses on each side of you.
Dean: Oh, wow, that's interesting. I wonder about that, Like the. This evolution would be an interesting, like you know, seeing the architectural journey because, if you go back to, have you ever been to Newport in in Rhode Island? Yeah, newport, rhode Island, have you ever been to see the? Vanderbilt mansions and all those things.
Dan: Well, they were called cottages.
Dean: They were called Newport cottages, exactly. I love that yeah.
Dan: Yeah, they had 40 rooms, you know yeah.
Dean: So when you look at it in a world pre-income tax and pre-antitrust all of those things- I think income tax probably made a difference. Probably.
But, you look at that, that gilded age of where opulence was the thing, that's where you get all those, you know, huge mansions, in New York City even, and the whole thing. People were, they were big and there's nowhere. You know, across the street from me there is a new development. So one of the Valhalla was kind of out, you know, surrounded by 350 acres that one Citrus family owned for years, right there's almost a mile on Lake Eloise of Lakefront, and there was no houses on it, it was all just orange groves. And so recently, you know, a few years ago, they sold the land and now they're starting to develop this neighborhood, this new, you know, giant subdivision called Harmony, and the houses they start the first phase, like in the last, in the last year, they've, you know, made quite amazing Headway on it.
But damn, the houses that they're building have as much character as the houses in the board game monopoly. They're just little Boxes that they're putting right beside each other on all of these things. And the two-story houses look like the hotels In monopoly, you know, and there's no, they're just boxes with windows and a two-car garage and a driveway and Zero Character. You look at the homes that were being built in the, you know, in the 20th year. They 1800s, 19, 120s. The homes were all Craftsman style homes, you know, like there was some artistry to them. Now, in every way, it's really come full circle to pure Utilitarian. You know, utility, just what's the?
yeah right angles with very little, you know very little.
Dan: Yeah, it's really, really interesting because you know there's kind of a Van vanity that goes along with the times. You know another yeah well, we do things better than people did a hundred years ago. Well it was very interesting that a hundred years ago you could go to the Sears and Roba catalog. Yeah and you could go, where you could buy a house of the and, and they would have pages and pages of different styles, and, and what you would do is you would order it you know, yeah, and you had to pay.
You had to pay for it. You know you had to send a money order. You had to Western Union that you know you had to send a telegram and then the money would be secured at the other end and about five days later, by train and truck, your house kit would arrive, and then you had to engage with a local builder and the local builder would just follow the manual and would put up a house, and some of these houses were 10, 12 Room houses, you know yeah yeah, they had big porches and everything else.
And then you could modify them. I mean, you could modify them, you could paint them whatever color you wanted it. There's actually a town in Michigan, frankenmuth, which is sort of a German theme. It's sort of one of those theme towns. You know where. It's a German town, so they have a big October fest there every year and you know they have German restaurants and I suspected happened because there were a lot of German immigrants to that area of Michigan. But they have more intact lived in Sears and Roboc houses than any other community.
Dean: Oh, wow and and.
Dan: But if you go to, you know, if you go to Google and you just put in Sears and Roboc houses images, you'll see the bit, you'll see all the pictures of these houses in there. It would be considered sort of lavish today, these houses, you know. But it was just you know it just arrived by train. You know it was big curtain after curtain. Everything Funny that we've kind of come.
Dean: We've kind of come full circle on that. Now. The biggest trends are, you know, pre modular manufactured manufactured homes yeah, that they deliver, and even now 3d printed homes and I think it's probably gonna be a combination of that of 3d printed and Modular yeah, interior things that's gonna be. But you know, you look at it, it's like we're still have you seen in any? I don't haven't followed it, but population projections for the United States over the next 50 years. Have you seen what's the projection?
Dan: So they're three, you know, they're mid is probably, you know, and that's a lot of illegal people who became legal you know, so there's a ton of illegal People in the country right now right and everything. But they estimate. You know that the US is going to grow pretty much at. You know, if you look back 30 or 40 years probably, you know probably the same rate of growth to you know, one or two percent per year that population grows and but they're the Peter Zion in his books and I thought about him a lot on the pre bird podcast.
Yeah, but he said that the United States still has so much land. Oh yeah not, that's not settled. I mean it's. You know, it's geographically established. And everyone but he said the US could. This was. He was using three 330 million as the base number there and he said if you doubled the population 660 million the country wouldn't feel any more crowded than it does now.
Dean: Yeah, that's very interesting and I can attest to that for Florida in itself, yeah, but we was Hard.
Dan: As for it is like 30 million now, I think it is.
Dean: No, it's on its way to 30 million in by 30. By 2030 it should be 30 million. Yeah, it's 20, 24 million or something right now, but we're the fastest growing. They are alternating between Texas and, but we grew last year at 1200 people a day, you know. So we're growing a city the size of Orlando every year. Yeah, and there's plenty of part of the reason.
Dan: Part of the reason, I think, is the retiring baby boomers.
Dean: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Dan: And in other words, that I may be an anomaly, that I'm 80 and I'll be 80 in May and I don't feel the cold doesn't bother me. You know, right, cold weather, but there's a lot of people, you know, I mean if you have arthritis. You know the cold bothers you, you know and other things. But you know, I know I have no thought of ever and Babs would be with me here. No thought of ever living as our permanent home anywhere but Toronto right and.
But we visited, our favorite is Arizona, so we go to. Arizona a lot during the year, yeah, and. But I have no, you know, I mean there wouldn't be anything under. Well, one day We'll be able to go and you know they'll spend.
Dean: You know, spend you know, six months, yeah, some warm, and that doesn't really. That's playing into Florida's hand in that it's still part of the dream for many people.
Oh yeah, it's you know you when we were talking about guessing and betting, that you know I think that's a pretty certain guess that from you know what's not going to change in the next 20 years, that you know right now still we're in the middle of the, the baby boom, baby boomers turning 65, there's going to be 10,000 people a day turning 65 right now, which will be 2028.
Dan: 2028 is the year when all people born during the baby boom era are now older than 65. Yeah, 2028.
Dean: Yeah, so you look at that and it's like in the Northeast that is almost like you know. It's almost like mandatory military requirement. Back it up. This is where you get shipped to.
Dan: This is where you get shipped to yeah, yeah, yeah and, of course, the Northeast is by far the most expensive from a government standpoint is the most expensive part of the country. Yeah regulation and taxes.
Dean: Yeah, you know.
Dan: I would say from New Jersey right up to the Canadian border. You know that there's a movement south. I mean, obviously Florida has great attractions. You know, other than, but even economically, that your tax and regulations are way more tolerable than in the. Northeast. Yeah, you know I kid people who are from California, you know I. You know who are in the plant base. New York not so much New York, but California.
It's easier to pick on New York than it is, or pick on California than it is. New York, california was the dream place. You know, you went to. California. That was the great dream, and I said so at some point. Are you thinking about moving to the United States?
Dean: That's funny. Yes, exactly.
Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got a client who's from Montana Bozeman, and he's. I said why is Bozeman so popular? And they said it's, it's. It's the closest place in Montana that you can be near the United States.
Dean: Okay, it's so funny, those places, there are lots of those like. We've got a client in Miami, in South Beach, and they said that's the refrain, that's their clients. What they like about South Beach is that it's so close to America. You know, you can certainly be in it, but not of it there.
That's the truth, you know, yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of what you know every, that's what's kind of buoying. You know Ron DeSantis, his, you know his polling is. You know, the only reason he's even in the running is because of you know people looking at what he's done for Florida. His whole campaign was make America Florida.
Dan: But that would be, you know, that would be candidate who just has had no United, no experience outside of Florida.
Dean: Absolutely Right, I think that's it.
Dan: Each of the states is a country and people. You know people have their. You know the whole notion that everything should be like one place.
Dean: Yeah Right, that's not it.
Dan: I mean, there were a lot of rookie mistakes that he made. You know you, yeah. The other thing is that he's running up against somebody who's done two complete national campaigns before this one. He's a great organizer I mean President Trump is.
Dean: I think everybody is. I think everybody is baffled by his. I mean, it's not even close the lead that Trump has over everybody else in the polling and in the you know the things. It's just what a year this is going to be, you know, to see how this all plays out. Yeah, and I think some cases.
Dan: some cases are going to, especially at the level of the Supreme Court, and one of them is, of course, the appeal to the Colorado move.
Dean: Oh yeah.
Dan: Trump can't be on the ballot and I think if the justice the justices, I mean it'll the Supreme Court will overturn it, but I think the justices would be smart to make it 9 to 0. Yeah, because this is and it's just an interpretation of one of the amendments the 14th Amendment, and that's you know, and, and they're going to establish that, and then that becomes the precedent. So all the other states, like Maine or anybody else is thinking about it can't do it you know, and that's the role of the Supreme Court are to interpret the Constitution.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: But that'll be seen as a big win. And then there's another one that he has where there's a special prosecutor who's after him and there's he appealed the special prosecutor that he needed to ruling and they said, no, this is your issue, you have to go through the court system. And that was a win for Trump. And and the whole point is everybody's desperately trying to get the actual trials because he's been indicted in before the election. But there's all sorts of ways that you can delay it into the future. You know, and anyway, so I was reading that the whole notion of January 6 and the insurrection, you know that's the key issue here, that January 6. And insurrection, but none of the charges against him are mentioned. The word insurrection, you know they mentioned. You know it's tax things that he hit documents with him, you know you know when he left the White House and everything like that.
But I don't think they're going to stand up to scrutiny and but everyone that he wins now is like his poll numbers go up when he's indicted. His polls numbers go up when the retirement is overturned his poll, numbers go up.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: But he's 24 seven. The thing that the media know is that when they have anything about Trump, they get higher viewership and there's more advertising dollars and so they're caught because they'd like to take him down. But everything they do to take him down increases his poll numbers. Crazy, yeah, but it's interesting. But it's interesting like the. You know, my Jeff Maddoff and I did a podcast last Sunday and we were comparing the phenomenon of Taylor Swift, the phenomenon of Trump. Oh, wow.
Completely different. You know completely different world and everything but but each of them has created a movement that people feel that they can participate in. Yeah this is. Nobody in the music industry has what she has as a movement and nobody in the political realm has what he has in the. You know it's a nationwide movement. Yes that you feel you can participate in, and but it's amazing to me how heavy the field is.
Dean: You know, in terms of like, it's really only Biden and Trump. There's no real viable, no candidate. I mean even as much of a. You know we saw Robert Kennedy in Genius Genius network and you know they as running as an independent, which is, you know, that's a non-starter and there's no, that's not a difficult. That's not a difficult bet to guess. Even if he is a reasonable, you know it has some things and you start to see now even know there's nobody coming Behind, is not even any alternatives.
You know like you look at Vivek Ramaswamy and yeah, you know, although he kind of has Obama Undertones to reminds me, like as a speaker and articulator, communicator, but I don't know, for me he it's just the tone, that it's more important to him to be right, that he was a win. The argument you know through, yeah, clever Elecution yeah.
Dan: I don't know how that win the battle, but lose the war.
Dean: That's what it feels like to me. Right like that is just kind of that. It just has.
Dan: It's more important to him the real motivation is to prove that he's smart enough, or whatever you know yeah, and you know, I mean first of all the times we're in dictates whether people think that somebody's viable or not. And I mean this is a time of tremendous change. I mean, it's probably the Most change since the second world war. I would yeah that, the overall changes that we're going, and and everything gets Shaky and unhinged just when you have a big, when you have I just looked at like last night.
Dean: It was so funny. I looked at the you know the odds Makers, the. I found a cumulative thing and it's it's all trump. Trump is the the Betty market.
Dan: the bedding, yeah, the bedding market is all on trump, and that's yeah.
Dean: Yeah, and the betting markets.
Dan: They were wrong with trump the first time. They you know they were they. I mean they had Hillary, like Day before the election they had heard like at 85, 90 percent, you know, yeah. So so people say yeah, yeah, but that was a fluke, that was a look and I said, yeah, but what if the candidate candidate himself, is the fluke?
Dean: Right, exactly.
Dan: No, but I did.
Dean: Of all of the field. It wasn't. It's not like an 80 percent thing there, I think it was like 40 percent Likely, which is the top of all of the.
Dan: That was against the field, including everybody including, but what you go head on head, they all have trump Biden and it's like 60 versus 60 40, you know oh, wow, okay that's interesting and yeah, and that's what people are betting on, but that those, the betting markets, can be gained and and I'll give you an example was brexit, which happened, you know, in the may, in may or june, I think of 16 before the presidential election, and the interesting thing is that debates are a big thing in Great Britain and they're televised and there were 10 of them in the six months leading up to the actual vote on brexit Britain leaving the European Union and
and I watched them and with every debate the Leave side had all the emotional issues. The Stay side had a lot of intellectual, intellectual arguments and they were you know, they're British, they're very articulate. It was, you know, it was well said on both sides. But the the thing that really cracked the back against the stay side Was the european union decided, about three months before the campaign started, that they were going to regulate the electrical, electrical charge of teapots in Great Britain and everybody had to get rid of their teapot because they were using not too much. And this was coming from Brussels, you know, from the European union. You just lost it. You screw around with her because every If you have to change your tea cup, then every every day at three, three to five o'clock. You're talking right, get out of the european. You're not talking about.
Dean: You're talking about the football players.
Dan: You're saying let's leave Britain those suckers. They can't tell us, you know. So it's always like the bud light. One thing in the united states I said that was a crack, that was like an earthquake you know, that you're fooling around with our beer, can't you know you can't yeah you know, you can't fool around with our beer, can't I so funny you know and I think it's always comes down to a gut issue very emotional that everybody gets like everybody gets they're pulling around.
It's like you know, when they closed down all the schools, all the states that closed down the schools for it, they didn't close down the schools, they, they closed, I mean the individual schools for one reason or another. Can you know? Could you know have special reasons or anything? Else yes there wasn't coming from the top. There was no really on the schools and they did enormous damage.
We now know that there was enormous damage Done to those people right at the early stage, when they're starting to learn how to socialize or, you know, and I think we're going to see a damaged generation, maybe two damaged generations in the future, who, you know, had too much time on their hands alone. Yeah, my, my feeling is, and it strikes me right now, that trump just has a monopoly on all the gut, emotional issues.
Dean: I agree, like you look at, it's pretty amazing how Cloudlandia has really shaped the way we think about these elections, like I think, as cloudlandia has really become the primary place that the elections have. Probably you know, it seems they've become more contentious or more divide, dividing, and I don't know how to clear enough Remember you know what that happened.
Dan: Yeah, no way that happened. Yeah, and there I had a really good article on this and I had to do with how the media gets its advertising dollars. Right, okay and, first of all, the media got their advertising dollars taken away. Okay, because facebook and google have 70 percent of the ad money. Now just those two companies. Yeah, okay, so a lot of the media had to turn to a Subscription model so for example, let's take the new york times.
Yes and you know not my, you know it's not a paper that represents my political interest, but I always found it an informative paper. There were always good articles up until I would say, probably 10 years ago, okay, and and the reason was they made their money from newspapers that went to the street every day. Know that and whoever wanted to buy the new york times would buy the new york times. Yes but they were very thick papers.
The daily new york times was a paper and you know a lot of the pages. I mean 40 percent of the space was. Advertisers you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what happened then? When the, the advertising dollars went away, they had to go to a subscription model and therefore they just moved to the part Of the population whose politics agreed with the new york times, and they lost everybody. His politics didn't agree with the new york times.
And the same thing happened on on the other side of the political spectrum. So, for example, great bark, which is now a powerhouse On the, you know, on the internet that a strictly an internet. That's strictly an internet media company.
Dean: Yes, town hall.
Dan: Yeah, news news max town hall. These didn't exist. They really didn't exist. You know, 10, 15 years ago but, what people going to drift from the you know the media sources that they used to go go to because it just favored one side of the political spectrum. Look for new opportunities and these other, these other real, clear politics is another one real court pox has as emerged, and so that's what polarized things was the disappearance of advertising dollars.
Dean: Or the. You know, it's really interesting that you just brought something up that I thought about, that. You know the New York Times print edition, you were any. You had to get the whole newspaper and so you're getting all of the things, but when you're online, it's all parsed out to the individual articles the clickbait and who they're attracting, and then it made more sense to lean into the audience that you are attracting, right, that's.
So the bias became more pronounced, I think right or evident. You couldn't, on balance, balance it out in the entirety of a print edition of the newspaper, because it's only individual articles and pages that are getting attracting the traffic, you know.
Dan: Yeah.
Dean: That's something.
Dan: Yeah, so I mean there's many other reasons besides that particular one. But from an economic standpoint that was the main economic reasons why polarization has happened, and you know, and it's become much more subjective to the reporting has become much more. You know, they're not reporting on the facts, they're interpreting the facts and commentating on the facts. So you don't have reporters anymore, you have commentators. You know. You know the reporters are building them the political message into the reporting of the facts.
You know, and I mean, for example, you can't get any reporting on global, on weather you know weather, you know extreme weather without somebody interpreting as just another sign of global warming, which is, global warming is not a scientific issue, it's a political issue, right, right, right, yeah, yeah, the science doesn't support it. I mean, yeah, it's going up, but we're coming out of an ice age.
Dean: You know, we've been coming out of an ice age for 10,000 years, and that's what I meant, that's what I always fall back on that, dan, that somehow we lifted ourselves, the planet somehow lifted itself out of an ice age without the aid of combustible engines and fossil fuels. Yeah, so somehow that was the it was possible. You know it was happening before.
Dan: Yeah where I live in Toronto. I was under about 500 feet of ice Right.
Dean: Right, right. So, the big thaw.
Dan: Yeah, it takes a while, you know, for glaciers to actually, you know, and it's just a gradual warming up and then there's periods when it, you know it dips down. You know that you got ups and downs and you know the temperatures. You know the temperatures, you know, and there's fluctuations. You know the the heat. Climate doesn't actually exist. Climate is a statistical average. All the weather, like, yeah, where Valhalla, where you are, the climate in Valhalla is totally determined by 365 days of temperate. You know of weather and they're just measuring it and they call that the climate. But, nobody experiences. Nobody experiences climate.
Dean: We experience weather.
Dan: Yes, climate is just, it's just an abstract term to measure. You know, all the weather in one place and climate change Even, yeah, even, in Valhalla, probably, where you, where you are, are you shaded by the oak trees?
Dean: We not particularly. I mean it's, they're there. No, it's not. The whole house is not shaded by oak trees, but there is shade in the neighborhood, yeah.
Dan: Yeah, but it's really interesting that if you where you go for coffee. It might be an annual average. It might be one degree warmer where you're getting your coffee than where people live.
Dean: Oh, global warming.
Dan: Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of like I was thinking about all these yeah.
Dean: It's like you know Deming I was sort of in rereading Deming lately and you know one of his, his, the funnel experiments, where they would, you know, move and adjust the funnel based on the last result. So it's kind of, and that created the greatest variation by you know adjusting with each data point, as opposed to you know adjusting the system.
Dan: Yeah, well, here's the thing, that one of the you know you had the polar bears as one of the symbols of global warming. Remember the polar bearer thing? This was Al Gore. He got on the. You know the polar bears, the actual, actually the population of polar bears, and there aren't a lot of them, but you know, they're in a particular latitude, above a certain latitude line, going or going around the world, and their populations actually increased since he started making a prediction that they would be gone right now. So they've actually increased.
But the other thing, that the other thing is really interesting are the Maldives. The Maldives about a thousand islands in a cluster in the Indian Ocean and the Maldives have been petitioning the UN that they need to get a lot of money because you know they're sinking in the sea.
The average height of the islands. You know, and there's, you know, there's a thousand, I think there's a thousand in the what's called the Maldive Islands, and you know, it's about two feet above sea level. So they said well, you know, in 30 years we'll disappear. So we have to have massive money to redirect our population. And but actually the the geography of the Maldive Islands, maldives, has actually increased over the last 30 years. They've got now more land than you know, than they had. You know. And all of a sudden you say, well, why'd that happen?
Well, they said, we're trying to figure out why it happened, you know, and what about the problem we're? Trying to. We're trying to figure out why it happened. You know which? One is that everything that we were saying before was based on ignorance.
Dean: That's a good explanation. Exactly.
Dan: Yeah, but what I was going to say? I was just thinking about this the other day. When you look at every cause, you know political cause, you know whatever cause you have, it's about money. Okay.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: And every movement is a money making machine.
Dean: Yeah, that's. It's pretty cake or wrong really following the money.
Dan: It all comes down to Jerry McGuire. Show me the money. I'm going to explain any movement on the planet. Where's the money moving? Is the money coming in or is the money going out?
Dean: Yes.
Dan: Yeah, it was so funny because the Israelis, I think, 10 days ago, killed, I think, the number three Hamas guy who was living in Beirut. Wow, he was worth four billion a year. You know he made like four billion a year. And they've got the top six and they said you know we're going to find you and we're going to. You know we're going to kill you, but the top guys who don't live in Gaza, they live in Qatar.
Dean: Yeah.
Dan: Qatar. The pronunciation is Qatar. They're living in Istanbul, they're living in Beirut and I bet these are nervous people.
Dean: I bet yeah, yeah, could you imagine? I mean, that's kind of. It's an interesting. I had dinner with Leigh, or Weinstein, the other night, two nights ago, and you know we were talking. I didn't realize this, but you know he said there's only 15 million Jews in the world, the world, yeah, I would have thought it was way more. I mean, that seems such.
Dan: Well, it tells you the impact of the Holocaust or the Second World.
Dean: War yeah.
Dan: Without the Holocaust, there'd be now 35 to 40 million 40 million Jews. I saw a projection once. That's how devastating.
Dean: It was, yeah, at one point. Yeah, the Holocaust was probably 40% of the Jews. Which, yeah, if you implicate, I mean track that out. It's just like you were saying, yeah, probably 30 or 40 million, that would have. That would have been. I mean it's pretty, it's crazy, and the eight of them are in Israel or whatever, right, so that's.
Dan: No, it's not that high.
Dean: No, it wasn't it.
Dan: Actually Israel, just to surpass the United States, had six for the, you know it's not a fast growing a population.
Dean: Israel matters.
Dan: And I think they're at. The Jewish population now is could be maybe seven. It's on the way to seven, yeah.
Dean: Okay, so I wasn't that far off, yeah.
Dan: I think New York City itself has, New York City itself has two million.
Dean: Wow.
Dan: Two million. Yeah, yeah, that's wild. Yeah, you know they have a lot of history, you know. I mean, you want to know about what's happened to them over 3,000 years. Yeah, they've got a lot of history to talk about, you know, and what a self-granted is, and so so, anyway, yeah, it's really interesting, but they're not confused about who their enemies are.
Dean: Right, yes.
Dan: Anyway, I think it's meal time for you.
Dean: Yes, that is exactly right. I have wonderful.
Dan: What are today arriving?
Dean: Well, today Dan today, Dan, I have the Tuscan grilled pork chops arriving today with some broccoli, it's so good, it's very good and so yeah, I'm excited this so far this has been a really good. You know, removing of discretion in the pricing.
Dan: Row number one do not give Dan Dean Jackson discretion.
Dean: Right, exactly so. It allows, it allows rational Dean to make decisions for future team.
Dan: Yeah, and I get to enjoy them and it's projected into the future.
Dean: Yes.
Dan: We're into the future.
Dean: Yes, which is great, and so that, just for people listening, have discovered with in collaboration with Jay Virgin, we discovered we've chosen 10 power meals for me that are available on Grun Uber eats, and, using the pre order feature, I'm able to establish these deliveries at 12 o'clock and six o'clock and so bookend my days with these pre healthy meals. So so far, so good. Personal wisdom, yes, fantastic. So stay tuned.
Dan: Yeah, anyway, this was really good and this is about weather and location and dwellings.
Dean: And very interesting discussion. I love it. Well, have a great day, dan. A week, great week in Chicago, and then are we on for next week. Yeah, yeah.
Dan: I'm back in Toronto next week. Okay great, I can try. Yeah, all right. Okay good Thanks, bye, bye, okay.