Podbit · The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump told Fox News that Iranian officials — spoken to just an hour before the interview — want to make a deal, claiming 'they don't wanna die.' Iran's government simultaneously and flatly denied any interest in negotiations, creating a stark public contradiction.
Where this was said
At 10:29 · chapter starts 9:20
Ben Meiselas pivots to the economic consequences, explaining a concept he says he has been warning about for weeks: crack spreads. The crack spread — the difference between the price of crude oil and refined petroleum products — has hit $68 per barrel, described as near the highest ever recorded [1] — Ben Meiselas "The oil crack spread has hit $68 per barrel — near a historic high — while crude oil is approaching $90 per barrel. When both the raw crude…" 09:13 . Crude oil itself has already passed $80 and Meiselas predicts it will reach approximately $90 per barrel within 48 hours. Critically, both figures are rising at the same time, compounding the signal of incoming supply shortages. Meiselas emphasizes that this is particularly dangerous for diesel supplies, which underpin freight, agriculture, and industrial activity. The takeaway: the Strait of Hormuz shutdown is already translating into economic damage inside the United States.
Ben Meiselas predicted crude oil prices would hit approximately $90 per barrel within 48 hours, having already passed $80, driven by the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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