TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Lingerie and Livelihood--Family & Finance
Date: 04/25/25 Length: 01:27:18
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, Happy Warriors and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, Reveal how the world really works as you well. Know a little different this show. What I've done is I've revisited an eight year old podcast, and yeah, it was taped in the middle of 2016 so it was in the closing months of the time when President Barack Obama was president of the United States, and it was close to the November election of that year, which saw Donald Trump win his first term in the US presidency. And it was a period of considerable turmoil. Nonetheless, the topics discussed didn't directly pertain to that and here's what I thought would be interesting. First of all, I was interested to see how this show has aged over the last eight years. And also, as you know, I prepare a bonus podcast where I share a more confidential outlook on things for those of you who are already happy warrior members of our community, and I thank you for being there. And one of the ways I thank you is by means of the bonus podcast. And on the bonus podcast, I'm going to be taking a look at some of the things that have changed and some of the things about which I may have changed. And I'll be exploring that in some detail, as in a sense, I visit myself. I look in on myself eight years ago and wonder, what would I say today upon listening to myself back then? Well, I wonder no longer, because that's exactly what I've done. Those of you not yet members of the happy warrior community, please waste no time. Head over to Rabbi Daniel lapin.com Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and there you will find an easy way to join the happy warrior community, where you will be very welcome, and I will be very grateful, and I will be most eager to engage in conversation with you as you respond to some of the things we're discussing. Also, we have a special price right now on the wonderful book by Ruchi Koval. She is a Mussar master. She's really a terrific person to take your hand and walk you through the process that she describes as Soul Construction. And it's a pretty darn good title, I got to tell you, it's a terrific title for a terrific book, Soul construction, and again, take a look at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com head over to the store. Look at soul construction, and you will find that to be something uplifting, something very different, either for you or somebody you care about. And be sure that you do subscribe to the show. If you haven't already done that, please do that and let us go ahead now and jump in to the summer of 2016 which is when I put together the podcast you're about to listen to I hope you do enjoy it. Welcome everybody, and thank you so much for being part of the rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi reveals how the world really works. But if that was not sufficient of a public service, you should be aware that we are working on making certain that this show provides an additional service as well. Don't let loose of the idea that there is more value for the money here than almost anywhere else in the podcast universe, because not only am I solemnly dedicated to revealing how the world really works. But in addition, we are working on a new project that will allow you to view this show as a safe place. Think of it as a refuge from all the pointless and pretentious erudition out there. Think of the rabbi Daniel Lapin show as a place you can come to for refuge, for security and safety, away from all of the convulsive mental spasms out there that masquerade as thoughts. None of that over here. All we focus on is revealing how the world really works. And so welcome to your safe place. Welcome to a ref and I thank you for being here, because without you, there wouldn't be a show now, humans, we humans, we behave with our money in ways that reveal a great deal about ourselves. We're serious, for the most part, we're serious about our money. Now this, of course, is within various frameworks that have to be recognized. In other words, when I say we're serious about our money, that doesn't mean that everybody focuses on earning more than they spend, and focuses on avoiding debt unnecessarily, and focuses on maintaining a set of financial statements that gives up to the minute information on your financial status. It would be great if we all did that, but no, when I say that, the way we behave with our money reveals so much about ourselves. Sometimes it is precisely the irresponsible way we deal with money that reveals that aspect of our lives and so how we treat our money is really very different from how we necessarily treat our clothing, or even though clothing does represent money, because it's not inexpensive. But there are many items. There are many things to which we relate in our day to day life, that it would be sheer folly to draw meaningful conclusion. But how we relate to money is very reflective, and this is true not only in the large scale, in the macro picture, on the global front, it's not only true looking at groups of people, collections of people, demographics of people, but it's also true when we look at individual and as painful as it is for me to say this, and it's painful to inflict it on you, it's painful to acknowledge it myself, but the truth, which I've told you before, as painful as it is to confront the truth is that for most of us, 99.9% of us, and this applies to 99.9%
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of our circumstances, today's financial Problems are the result of yesterday's bad decision, and it's a perfectly rational thing to draw certain conclusions about a person based on their financial status. And so, for instance, I recently was told of a an individual who I think well of, and who I've been friendly on and off for, for many years, who was accused of sexual misconduct. A 28 year old man accused this individual of having done something to him 15 years ago, when he was 13 years old and he was a school boy, and this individual, okay, fine. Look, when this was told to me, it was told to me by a mutual friend, somebody close to me, somebody close to the or at least somewhat, somewhat, let's say, an acquaintance of the person about whom this is, about whom the accusations are being made, and also somebody who knows the alleged victim making the accusation. And look, I I'll tell you what I said right away. I said, I want to ask you what the alleged victim does professionally. How does he earn his living? Now, you know, if you've studied my material in thou shalt prosper, the book or the book business secrets from the Bible or some of the audio programs, you'd know that one of the crucial terms that I replace is earning a living. In the sense that I regard the phrase earning a living as reflective of a selfish outlook, and so I almost never use the phrase, what do you do for a living? I usually say, and what do you do to improve the lives of your fellow citizens? And I usually get a bit of a double take, particularly if it's a stranger sitting next to me on the airplane with whom I've just started a conversation. But you know that in itself. Leads to, always a very interesting discussion revolving around this essential idea, which is that how well you are going to succeed in business, in making money, in increasing your revenue, actually depends significantly on whether you view your activity as selfish or altruistic? Are you really doing this because you are dedicated to serving other human beings, or are you doing this just to earn your commission, make your profit, get your salary, whatever it is, and it's well worth taking the time to go through a self modification process, a behavior modification and a concept modification so that you actually do start feeling quite differently towards those whom you serve in business. However, in this particular instance, I didn't do that. I didn't want to be distracted from the conversation, and so I decided to use phrasing that this mutual friend would understand right away, without questioning or without, as I say, distracting us into another line of conversation. So that's why I said so. Tell me the alleged victim does what for a living, and what was my thinking here in asking the question 15 years later? Okay, I'm not saying this never happens. I'm just saying I don't buy it. I don't buy it. First of all, nobody else, and this particular individual who is being accused at the time, had interaction with many, many, many young people, right in an academic environment. Nobody else stepped forward, which is usually the pattern. I mean, gosh, somebody just barely has to express an accusation, and all of a sudden, all kinds of people with repressed memory pour out of the woodwork. Bill Cosby, case in point. Look, are Is it impossible that that he violated people, it looks like he did. Is it as many? Is it all of those people? I just don't believe it. I don't believe that all of a sudden, all of these all right, fine. I understand that that this will upset many women, but I do not accept the notion that a woman automatically is believed. I don't accept the notion that women never lie. I just don't sorry. It would be a big mistake if you bought into that too. It's just simply a an imposition of a cultural distortion that is sweeping our society at the present time, and it's wrong to buy into it, you are going to be and similarly here. But I would say this, that if this person, if the accuser that I'm talking about in this case, is somebody who has a successful life, fantastic job, fantastic business, married with a family, and everything is going well, and now he steps forward, I would say to myself, you know, I'm going to have to take this seriously, because he has more to lose than to gain from making the accusing so it is possible, it's it is possible that he has been seething in indignation and pain and anger for 15 years, and he just feels he can't, you know, it's possible at this point, I'd say, well, it needs an investigation. And you know, there are ways, I know it's 15 years gone by, but you know, there are places that he can, he can be questioned as to where things, alleged, events took place. What were the what times of the day, and people, you know, calendars can an investigation can be achieved, can be undertaken, which at least will, will shed some light on the likelihood circumstances as they are. But bottom line is that as soon as our mutual friends said, Well, no, you know, as a matter of fact, he's divorced, you know, and it wasn't, it wasn't a good divorce, and also he has financial problem. I'm sorry. It's not definitive. I'm not the judge in the case, and I would never, based on what I'm telling you, I would never make a judgment in that could have an impact on people's lives. But it's an opinion, my opinion, don't buy it. Sorry, don't buy it. I understand that when a 28 year old guy's life is in failed marriage, failed finances, I understand that it is an almost irresistible urge to cast around and find a villain, find a cause, find something to blame for your calamitous and painful and sad failure and it may even be possible that in the depths and complexities of the human psyche, it's possible that he even was able to somewhat persuade himself that these things happened and they are the result of why he couldn't sustain his marriage and why can't keep a job. Look,
Daniel Lapin 15:01
you know, it's sorry, I don't buy it. Somebody who's at his has at the sort of end of his rope. And, and, look, I, look, many people have been there. I've counseled many people in the situation. It is unendurable. The pain is almost unsustainable and at that point, at that point, there is much to gain from finding somebody that not only can you lay the blame for your failures at their feet, but that there is a fair chance of financial payout. I I've always said that in my mind, and I have not done an investigation, but just my understanding of how the world really works, I do believe that a good number of those who joined in the lawsuits against the Catholic Church and claimed abuse at the hands of priests, and yes, look, I do think that a number of homosexual priests were introduced into the Church during and in the aftermath of Vatican two going back a number of years, and now these men are in their 50s and 60s and experiencing certain levels of frustration. I'm quite sure that's that something happened, but nowhere near the volume of people who actually came out of the woodwork to join the lawsuit. Don't believe it, and I do, I do say that again, had the most elementary investigation been undertaken to verify what their life circumstances were, at least, suspicions could have been raised. However, the current mood, of course, is such that anybody who comes forward with this kind of accusation, essentially, the accused has his life ruined. It is almost impossible to recover your reputation. Even if a court established that nothing happened and you're completely exonerated, it still leaves a lingering stench, which is almost impossible to rid yourself of. So it's a terrible, terrible thing. It's massive injustice taking place. But bottom line is, finances do matter, and so we'll see what happens. This case is still, is still underway, but my, my guess, my guess is this guy's going to be shown to be a liar. And what's more, I hope, for what it's worth, he probably doesn't have anything to sue but, but he certainly deserves punishment, if I am correct, for having set out to ruin an honorable man's life in order to solve his own pain and possibly to add somewhat to his to his bank account. Bad, bad, bad stuff. But again, not an unreasonable analysis. Somebody makes the accusation, who, you know, happily married and with a solid financial situation, you got to say to yourself, why is he doing it? You know, motive, motive, motive. I mean, that's police work. You know, one a motive. What's the motive? And you, you know, imagine a guy happily married doing what? Why would he want to do this? It's very hard to understand. Other than that, it really happened, and it's tormented him for 15 years. But on the other hand, a guy who's the aftermath of a failed marriage, and he's part of a community where a failed marriage is embarrassing. There are many, many parts of American society where it's almost a badge of pride, but in his case, no, it was not a good thing. And so to be able to come forward and say, See, this is why I failed. Don't think badly of me. There's nothing wrong with me. This wasn't my failure. I was a victim, a really, really good motive, which, in my view, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the truth. Okay, so is, is that all? No, not at all. Let me. Let me tell you. Those of you with daughters, take a page out of my book. You've got a single daughters and young men knock on the door in order to court. I would hope it's to court your daughters, not to date them. My daughters are not play things. My not. Daughters are not there for your leisure activity. They're there to be seriously courted, and that's all and how do I apply this principle in order to evaluate the suitor? Let me tell you in just a moment, coming right back on with the rabbi Daniel Lapin show. Thank you for being there and remembering that we are now very soon allowing you to use the show as a refuge from all those out there, the baffling bureaucrats, aristocrats, politicians and others who would run your life and who would try and persuade you that reality consists of nothing more than mundane material processing, no when I speak about how the world really works, I reveal to you a reality that is true and accurate. And a reliable model of what is really happening, those who believe that all of reality is materialistic, and anything that cannot be seen, touched or driven or worn or made love to is not real. Well, they would be baffled by
Daniel Lapin 20:23
why it is that there's something called money, which is, after all, something quite abstract, and something for which absolutely no analog exists in the animal world, it's only human beings. And what's more, it's not even all human beings. It's human beings who were exposed during the lengthy story of their histories, to the Judeo Christian worldview, to a biblically based perspective on reality. And you know, I know this is awkward for many people to confront, but it's a reality. It is only in that international demographic that that money emerged elsewhere. It was barter, it was primitivism. It was essentially, you know, an economy based on fruit that gets eaten before it gets rotten. I mean, that's, that's all there is to it. And so we're talking about something real. We're talking about a vision of reality which is an accurate and in the accurate vision of reality, one of the things that is true is that how human beings relate to money reveals a great deal, tells a whole lot. And I said that those of you who have daughters of marriageable age are probably already accustomed to doorbell ringing and you open the doorbell and meanwhile, your daughter is in a flurry upstairs, or whoever it is in last minute preparations, Getting ready for her meeting with the young suitor, and you open the door, and you take him into the living room and, and of course, needless to say, there on the coffee table is a 357 Magnum stainless steel revolver that you obviously have just been busy Cleaning and while your eye alights on it, you allow him 10 long, silent seconds to gaze upon your firearm and then you sit down and say, Well, tell me a little bit about yourself. And you know, it's an awkward question always, but you'll certainly get a flavor of how now he communicates, how effectively he can speak about himself and say what, what's going on, I mean. And again, look, it's not everyone who can do that. And, you know, do one? Does one naturally expect a 25 year old young man to be able to do? Look, no, are you? I don't think you can expect it, but it sure is a bonus. And if nothing else, it shows some forethought and preparation on the part of a guy who thinks, you know, you know what, I might run into her dad, and at the best of times that's awkward and uncomfortable, I'd better just prepare things so as that I can focus on delivery rather than content. If I prepare the content, then I can make sure I'm smiling and looking him in the eye. But if I'm desperately trying to figure out what to say at the same time as I'm trying to figure out how to say it disaster, calamity, it's hopeless. So that's it's a nice bonus to see that and you know, I'm not saying that the first time you meet the guys, the right time for this question. I'm not saying that at all, but if you know, a few dates go by and, and at this point already, you've got a little bit of a relationship going and, and he might even come to you and say, you know, I just want to make sure you are okay with me dating your daughter, because I think it's moving along in a very positive way. And what he's doing is laying the groundwork for some moment in the future where he would ask you for her hand in marriage and at that point, you know when, when, when there's really something of relationship, it's a perfectly acceptable as uncomfortable and as awkward as this might feel, it is perfectly acceptable for you to say to him, Listen, you know Tom or Joe or Harry, or whatever his name is, I I need to have a little bit of a conversation with you. It's, it's, it's, it's one in which I will do my best to make you feel comfortable. It's not my purpose in any way to cause you unpleasantness or anything, but you and I both love the same girl and I think I can say that we both care very much about her future for you, understandably, because I was there once her future is wrapped up in yours. For me, that is not necessarily the case here, and so at this point, I have to ask you certain questions that I just feel it's my right to ask, and the answers are things that it's my right to know, even though I'm uncomfortable asking you, and I know I'm making you uncomfortable, but please know it's from a place that, at least in theory, you can agree with, which is concern for my daughter. Now, as an aside, I have to tell you that the affection and the closeness and the yearning that any young man may feel for a girl is enormously increased when he discovers that she has a dad who feels equally passionate about her welfare. I've discussed this a little bit in an earlier podcast a few weeks back, and you can review that. Go back to that one for details, but that principle you'll remember I gave you a reference towards the end of the Genesis that explains this. But for now, just to be aware that on one level, the young man is uncomfortable. On another, he just feels all the more desperate to make himself worthy of your daughter, because for her to have a protector that cares that deeply about her sets off some kind of neural process in here, in inside of him, that just makes him realize the increased value of this young woman. So you're only doing your daughter a favor and you're doing you're doing everyone a favor here. Anyway, what's one of the first questions you say to him, Look, I have to ask you what your financial situation. I will keep it absolutely confidential. I will never mention details of it to anybody else, regardless of what happens. But first of all, I have to know your debt suit. I need to know what money you owe. And please, I need you to lay it out for me. If you need time to think about it or pull your numbers together, just tell me. But I do want a definitive answer that I can absolutely 100% rely on student debt. Tell me about that. If you've, you know, bought a an apartment or a condominium or a house or whatever it is, and you have a loan to the to the bank. Tell me about that. Tell me about your mortgage. Tell me about your car loan. You have any gambling debts from your dissolute youth. You got to tell me about that as well. I got to know exactly how much money you owe. And that really, really is important. If you really do care about your daughter, that's something you do need to know, right? Absolutely, you got it. Tell me about your earning history. You know your first job second. What number job are you on now? When did you start working? What are you making now? And what is your net worth at the present time? And that last one is as important as the first one. The first one is your debt situation, and the last one is net worth. Now look, I don't expect a 25 year old to have an enormous net worth. I'll tell you the truth. If he has a net worth of between 50 and $100,000 He's good. He's very, very good, you know, barring, barring him being one of the, the tiny number of, you know, high tech billionaires or a sports prodigy, or, you know, anything, anything like that, but an ordinary 25 year old man you know, who may or may not have been to college, but he's, you know, he's obviously early in his work history and career, 50 200,000 not very, very good. Indeed, very good. If, on the other hand, his net worth is in the zero to two to, you know, $10,000 level. And he's 25 years old. It's a little on the low side. It's a little on the low side. And And for you, that should represent alarm bells ringing not necessarily very loudly, not necessarily fatally, but they're ringing on the negative net worth. Run for the hills. Run for the hills. The answer to him is, look, I think you're a nice guy. We've enjoyed having you around, but you're not ready to marry my daughter. You need to get your finances in shape. That's if it's a negative network unless, by the way, unless there's a very good reason, perhaps, perhaps it's student debt, and that can very easily pull you into negative net worth. But again, it depends. I'll be honest with you, as I always am. Why do I? I shouldn't ever use that phrase. I take it back. I'm always honest with you, but the the negative net worth might be attributable to student debt. Okay, fine. Depends for what if it is for a degree? Degree in Social Studies, or a degree in climatology, or a degree in gender and racial stereotyping in 19th century, Russian literature, in anything like that. It's very bad news. But if the student debt is for a degree in accounting or, look, you understand what I'm saying, right? Nursing,
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anything that immediately puts you on an inside track for a an earning job, I can understand somebody getting a qualification in nursing, and he's just come out of it, and his, his two years into his, his earning. But don't forget, you know, you become a nurse, a qualified RN, you step out into a fairly decent earning you're already making, depending on where in the country. You know, 50, 6070, or $80,000 that's serious money. And so in that situation, student debt is more understandable anyway. All I'm telling you is that a serious analysis, a serious analysis of
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of what is, of what his financial
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situation is, reveals to you the things you need to know as a responsible as a responsible father. Thanks so much for tuning in being part of the rabbi Daniel Lapin show, because, as I always say, without you, there would be no show. And the purpose of the show is to reveal how the world really works, and there is absolutely no way of discerning reality, if you don't also know that the human being is made up of both a spiritual and a physical part. We live in a world of both a spiritual reality and a material or physical reality, and that the soul is part of what we are, and that the soul, our spirit, is capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance and creativity. These are all vital things that we can't possibly get a grip on. We can't possibly comprehend in the fullness of of their existence, without understanding and without knowing the reality of the spiritual side of life. And that is why studies on net worth are so fascinating to me. Okay, so economists would love it if every human being, if you took a three male human being, all of whom are 52 years old, all of whom have been working for 30 years, and all of whom have got exactly the same career trajectory with the same salaries and the same the same pattern of raises, and all of whom live in exactly the same kind of housing and spend exactly the same amount on their rent or on their mortgage, economists would love it if all these three men had identical net worth that they'd love because it would make sense, but you see, that's not going to be the truth, because one of those guys is going to be somebody who absolutely loves eating in gourmet restaurants, and a good deal of his disposable income goes for that A second man is very frugal, and just takes great delight in driving old cars and in spending a minimum on consumer items. And he's just a really enthusiastic investor, and he watches his investments, and he's careful, and he grows them, and he moves his money from lower performing instruments to higher performing ones. And then, you know, the third guy might be a gambler, somebody with different priorities in his life. Bottom line is being that they are all each one of them is going to have a different net worth from the others. There's no way they're going to have the same net worth. That bothers economists very much and that is why in the in the 19th century, there was a guy called Thomas Carlyle, and in the term he used, it's used extensively today, but I think he was the first one to you. He was a British political scientist, a British historian and somewhat an economist, and he used the phrase about economics, the dismal science. Now, a lot of people thought that what he meant by that was that economics reveals that the fate of mankind is. Now, because, after all, Thomas Malthus had had said, look, the fate of mankind is to run out of food and to run out of clothing. It's all absolutely hopeless and doomed. And whereas Carlyle, in England, it was certainly was not of that belief, I think he clearly saw past the fallacies of Malthus. At the same time, people think, well, he was still saying that economics shows that people's incomes are going to be dropping and the cost of goods will be going up. I don't think that's true at all and the reason I say that is because the writings of David Ricardo, who's not who's a very well thought of a very, very good British economist of the late 1700s early 1800s certainly seems to suggest that that's that. That's not the way things look. Nonetheless, I will say this, that whether it's Thomas Carlyle or David Ricardo, not to mention Thomas Malthus. If any of them were to see how people live on the planet today, they would be astounded. They literally wouldn't be able to believe their eyes, because they all did. Pretty much tend to think that, you know, there was just no way to really lift the economic status of large numbers of human beings. That is just, it just can't work, and that there were a number of fallacies they all labored under. Don't want to spend too much time going into that. But my point is, though, that in reality, the term the dismal science really applies to something else, not the dismal fate of mankind. No, the term the dismal science applies to the fact that it doesn't behave like ordinary sciences, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering. When you look at these sciences, there are formulas, there are formula y, there are rules, there are principle you apply them every time, you're going to get exactly the same results. Right with economics, it doesn't work that way. Just as I explained to you, we could apply the formula for net worth and apply it to three different people, and we'd get three different results, whereas if you applied the formula for gravitational attraction to three men of different weights, you'd still get exactly the same principles. The formulas would hold up. It's very different. Economics doesn't work that way and for this reason, economics always used to be studied in the divinity or religious section of universities. It was only fairly recently, relatively recently, that they had tried to move economics into the sort of scientific department of universities, which, I have to say, has not been successful. Yes, there's, there's been the attempt to create a sort of another aspect of economics, econometrics, you know, where, where things do measure and things do play out, except you can't get them to do it, because why? It's very simple. Economics is all about human beings and their interaction with money. Human beings are not scientific. We're not we have souls. We have inexpressible and unexplainable urges and desires. We can act self destructively. As a matter of fact, animals are much more scientific than people are, because, by and large, the behavior of an animal can be predicted. You don't find animals going obese. You don't find animals over reading, for the most part, if you don't interfere with their life patterns, and animals behave somewhat predictably, much more than people do. But economics, it's not really a science at all. You see, it actually does belong in the area of religion, because it's in the area of religion that we explore and understand human character, and we understand good decisions and bad decision. And the fact is that net worth is very impacted by external factors. Well, I should say, very internal factors, such as your character, the way you make decisions, and even a bit beyond that, something which I will tell you about in just a moment. But first of all, we need to take a look at, at really one of the very depressing results of the government's obsession with skin color. It's been so destructive, it's been so damaged, that the government sensor is obsessively preoccupied with how much percentage you have of which races in your makeup, and I think the last center the last census, and don't quote me, I'm not 100% sure, but I think it involved a minimum of eight different races, and you had to choose, and you had a pause,
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and yet the census now has no interest on whether you marry. It, they say, you know people you're living with. I ask you, what is a more important predictor of your life circumstances, your race or your marital status, for heaven's sake, is that hard to figure it out? And if you think it is, well, let's spend a moment looking at that. The tragedy is that the government distorts reality by its frantic focus on race, its focus on skin color. And so it comes out with statistics that say, on average, the net worth of blacks is 1/7 the net worth of whites. And their variations on the statistic, but one thing is certain, they all come out with the same average net worth of blacks is only a fraction of that of which they then take to be a prima facia, evidence of racism. Because what else could possibly account for a difference in net worth. Now grant them that they do try and measure similar to similar so in other words, and there are statistics that are horrible. They're statistics that just take net worth among blacks, net worth among white sample divided by the number of people in the sample. And I mean completely nonsensical figures, because the agenda is to come up with something that shows that racism is endemic. Okay, let's not talk about that. Let's talk about taking every single black person in the country. Let's while we're at it, let's do what some of these statistics do. Let's take Chinese people, Japanese people. You want to throw Jews in there, you want to throw in Mexicans or Hispanics in there. Look, this whole thing is distasteful. It's horrible, it's miserable. But what they do is they then go ahead and and do a they do a study. And you know, again, as I said before, equaling out people of the same age, approximately with the same work experience, they do their best to come and at the end of that, Chinese people, Japanese people, Jewish people, and general population, much, much higher than African American population. Now they meticulously exclude from this black immigrants to America. They are not counted as blacks for the for the purpose of these kinds of analysis. You know why? Because their net worth is much more similar to the net worth of immigrants from Europe, from South America, immigrants from Asia. So they are trying to say, look, it's a black thing. There's just so much bigotry and racism against people with black skins that that is what accounts for the poor net worth comparatives. Now remember what I said earlier in today's show about how desperately comforting it is, if your life is not going well, to find a external cause to blame for it. It's enormously appealing. There is absolutely no question about it, and so I don't in any way disparage the desire to find racist evidence to account for the net worth study. However, it is my unfortunate task to have to tell you that that is simply not the case. As far as this particular topic is concerned, bigotry or racism or hostility to people with black skins, completely irrelevant. So if that's the case, how do you account for the weird dis inequality between, you know, in broad brushstrokes, black and white, net worth in the United States of America? How do you explain it? Thanks for being part of the rabbi Daniel Lapin shows we continue here, realizing that not only do I have a solemn mission of revealing for you how the world really works, but added to that is the additional burden I carry upon my substantial shoulders to provide for you a refuge, a safe place, a place for you to escape the relentless noise and babble out there, the fatuous drivel masquerading as wisdom, the appalling ignorance flaunted by People shameless of their inadequacies. Here is a refuge. Here you may feel safe, that's right, absolutely. But anyways, I appreciate you being there, and I appreciate you downloading the show and adding to the numbers. I especially appreciate it. When you reach out to others and try and interest a few other people in the show, try that for me. Would you do that? I'd really appreciate that and I know when you're doing it, because I can see the numbers, and I am very much a numbers guy, but you know that already. Okay, so I said I was going to reveal for you now the true secret of net worth. In other words, what really is responsible for the so called net worth racial disparity, which just obsesses government bean counters and again, you know, life would be so much simpler for everybody had had the President not increased racial resentment had the, you know what it's not even, it's not even worth frustrating myself with, with what the what, with the what might have been. But I do know that that back in 2008 a large number of white people who voted for the president, and they did, voted for him, not just because he was a liberal and they were liberals, but they did it because they said, Here is the man who can really have end America's obsession with race and just let each person be a success or not, on his own abilities, on his own merits, on his own eagerness to serve. That's, that's how we all do it anyways. It's, it's hopeless, and it's water under the bridge. Just absolutely no reason to bring ourselves down by relentless moaning about what might have been it isn't, and what is we have. But it still would be a fantastic improvement in America, even if, even at this point, if we actually got rid of obsession with race and we focused instead on individuals. And look, I'm not the first person to say this, by any means. You all feel this way. And I think most of you, Martin Luther King felt this way for heaven's sake, but, but the truth is that it misleads in so many areas. It utterly misleads, really. And the what choice do they have? They come up with a great jurist like Clarence Thomas on the United States Supreme Court. And what happens? They say, Well, he's not really black. I mean, the NAACP, which, when I last checked, was for the advancement of, quote, colored people. They opposed Clarence Thomas's nomination back when he was being vetted for the Supreme Court. Why? You know, because he's not, it's not that he wasn't black. He is black. He's an uncomfortable Black. He's a black that is disturbing, right? So what do they do with him? It's a big problem. National Organization of Women has regularly and routinely opposed conservative women. When conservative women have been under attack for one thing or another. People like there was a one time radio host, Laura Schlesinger. There have been other instances Sarah Palin, where the National Organization of Women isn't honest. They're not really all about women. They're about liberal women, and they don't say that. And so because of their deep determination to depict all women as victim when women are not it's very uncomfortable. The insistence on the left is to depict all people with black skins as victims. Why? Well, because it's very simple. The more they can do that, the more they can enlarge the client. Tell of government and the Democratic Party, right? And so it's, it's just terrible. And so what do they do with clans? Well, he's not really black. What do they do with Thomas Sowell at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University, surely, one of the greatest economists, really, when, when one will look back at the history of economics, people like Thomas Sowell will be right up there, Walter Williams, another black economist. These are extraordinary people, and what's the answer is they're not really black. When you talk to liberals, that's what you get. I was attacked by
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the Jewish organization, and I've been attacked managed by Jewish organizations, but I was attacked by a Jewish organization in Los Angeles, and to the great amusement of Mrs. Lapin and our children, they publicly told a reporter who then proceeded to quote them, Rabbi Lapin is not really Jewish. Why? Well, because I don't subscribe to the idea that Jews are held back by anti semitism, and that liberalism is equivalent to Judaism, which, by the way, makes conservatives by definition, anti semitic, right? You get the mathematics there. If Judaism equals liberal liberalism, which they believe, then if you're hostile to liberalism, then you must be hostile. To Judaism. There you are. Anti Semite. So this is how it all goes. It's destructive, it's dishonest, it's horrible. What is the real reason for the disparity, not of black people? There is a disparity in America and a very noticeable disparity. Do you know what it is of net worth that is to say, what group of people tend to have high net worth and what group of people have low net worth? The left with its sick obsession on skin color assumes naturally and right away. Oh, well, this is obviously a question of black skin and white skin. That accounts for it. What do you do about folks with yellow skin? What do you do about folks with brown skin? Well, it's awkward. It's they don't have an answer, however I do, and the answer is that net worth disparity has nothing to do with skin, and it has absolutely nothing of negligible to do with racism or bigotry of any form. You know, again, I'm you know, I'm sorry to tell you that if you are listening and you are somebody who's rested comfortably in the illusion that whatever failure you are suffering from is due to the fact that white people hate you, I'm sorry, but it's good to be disillusioned, isn't it, at the end of the day, if there's any hope of moving forward and any hope of repair, then it's healthy and positive to be disillusioned. So what is it all about? How do you explain that there is a group of people in America who have a higher net worth than another group of people in America, and it isn't whites and blacks? Do you know what it is? It's people with a solid family structure and people without a family, that is it. It's as simple as that. You want to know why Jews have a high net worth. You want to know why Japanese and Chinese people have a high net worth. You want to it's very simple. Family struck. Now, I know, at the outset, I know some of you are going to be indignant and upset with me blaming the victim. You're, you're, you're, you're buying into a disproven and primitive explanation that it's somehow got to do with the victim's behavior and lifestyle issue. Well, guess what it does, and it is, and I'll explain exactly what it is, people with with low net worth, several generations of family dysfunction, and it makes no difference if you're white or black. That's the beauty of it. That's what proves that I am right, and what you're hearing me tell you is truth, because it today tragically, and I wish it weren't. So it's not hard to find many, many, many people with white skin who have multi generational family dysfunction. Their net worth is way down, right there, exactly with the lowest of the low. And you have today happily many, many people with black skin, with multi generational family strength. I stayed at a hotel in Dallas recently when I was there for a lecture to give a speech, and Susan and I were the only white people in in this very large, upscale hotel. And yes, when I'm traveling and working, I do like staying at nice hotels. It helps a lot. I work at a very high pace anyway, no, no, no apology for that, but it's only relevant to what I want to tell you, which is, we were the only white people in the hotel. You know why there was a family reunion. There were about 200 people there, along with the elderly matriarch of the family, who was honored to have a chance to meet and speak to and they come every second year. They come to different locations. It's so beautiful. They all get together. And I must tell you, I got a lamp in my throat as I saw these families. So it's up to four generations. The elderly matriarch and her great grandchildren were in the hotel lobby and their parents and their parents and her children. And these are all beautiful, beautiful families. These are families with integrity and structure and family commitment and loyalty and fidelity and and guess what? They looked pretty affluent. It all goes together. And what is the the racial disparity at the low end, low end people with white skin, with low net worth and low end people with black skin with low net worth, no different, same figures. And what else is similar, family dysfunction. But how does that work? Is this? Is this just some sort of magic decree God waves his wand and says, Well, since you violate my commandments about marriage, I'll zap you with poverty. That's what I'm going to do. Or did God set up a very simple, straightforward system that works reliably all the time? These rules? Well, they do work as reliably as the rules of physics and chemistry and mathematics. They do because. The same creator created both sets of rules. These spiritual rules work perfectly. And when we come back, how would you like me to explain just why it is that family so vitally and significantly influences net worth and that the real determinant of network is not skin color, that is stupid and primitive thinking. The reality is very simple. It's family structure. If you are part of a family and your parents were part of a family, and your grandparents were part of a family, and your great grandparents were part of a family, and you are headed towards creating your own stable family, your net worth is going to be terrific, and if not, if you're not, then you must watch out if you yourself, if it's on your shoulders to change the destructive pattern, if you come from non functioning family background, and your parents came from non and and you want to change, it's totally doable, but you have your work cut out for you. The good news is, not only will it bring happiness on a marital and family level, but it'll actually bring improved net worth. I'll explain all of that just soon as we get back. Thank you so much for sticking with the show as we move along. Your rabbi, Daniel Lapin and we are focused, as you know, on developing for you a safe place, a safe space, a place of refuge, somewhere for you to escape the grotesque, absurd, fascicle unadulterated lunacy of what you're subjected to on television or news a refuge, a safe space, so is that you can escape the fawning sycophants craving the establishment's favor, get away from all of them and join us Here on the only show that focuses only on revealing how the world really works. And one way the world really works is that families promote the very qualities that create wealth. What am I talking about? Well, visit with me again. Will you the various riots that have roiled American cities during 2015 and many of them pushed and promoted and assisted by the Black Lives Matter movement for better or for worse. And remember some of the comments we heard, including from the President, and that is that what we need is for those who are blessed with a little more to give more so as that these youth are able to get the skills that will enable them To get jobs, the job training, my friends, do you really believe for one moment that the people out rioting on Saturday night are just waiting to get up early Monday morning to go to work if they but had a job? You don't really buy into that? Do you The fact is that what they lack is much more than the job skill, right? You're we're not talking about people who haven't yet learned how to be computer operators or nuclear power station technicians or welders or deep sea divers. No,
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these are people who have not yet got the basic soft skills. What do I mean by that, the discipline to show up for a job every single day, including Monday morning, when you went to bed with a hangover on Sunday night, taking instructions from your boss, even if you don't like him or respect him or her, providing service with a smile, making customers feel that you enjoy taking care of them, it's hopeless. It's absolutely hopeless. And again, I just want you to know I'm talking about people not raised in families of any skin color, that's irrelevant, but I will tell you this. And I heard this from an executive of one of the best known and most delightful department stores in the country, who told me that there are certain parts of the country, and he was exactly right. He said, where family life has been decimated where we cannot open a store for the very simple reason, not that there are no customers, but we cannot find people to employ. And so the nice thing about a family is that a family is a place where people learn to serve others the actual. Word in the Lord's language, the word in Hebrew for a family, mishpacha actually means service, because a family is where everybody serves the other members of the family, and miraculously, every person gets what he or she needs, but a family is a place where the idea of service is nurtured. How wonderful is that? And and so when you look at people who've not male or female, who've not been raised in a family, they simply don't have the ability to serve, which means they're unemployable. It's not a case of learning the skills. It's not a case of learning job skill. They're nowhere near that. They're nowhere near learning job skills. They don't yet have the soft skills that even make it possible. Here's something else that a family engenders, and that is self discipline, because when a father and mother are married to one another, they are deeply invested in the children that they are raising, whether adopted or naturally born, they're invested in them, and so they want them to succeed, and therefore they are going to work very hard on teaching them self discipline. And so sure enough, and there's been quite a lot of interesting studies on this, and some of which I have showing that one of the the most reliable correlation with criminals, or for criminals, is a complete inability of self control, self restraint and self discipline. And guess what? They didn't grow up in functioning families with parents married to one another, shock, surprise, bafflement. No, not at all. Makes perfect sense. We understand how that works. Here's something else that happens with family financial help. Here's something else that happens with family inheritance. And little by little, I'm telling you, show me three generations of stable, intact families where the third generation is not substantially well off, economically well off and financially successful. I'll call you a liar. I don't think it exists. I really don't, unless there was some major disruption ill health or or maybe, you know, a change of a change of location, in other words, an immigrant. But even so, there's a reason that intact family, immigrants who arrive here with nothing quickly outperform native born Americans who did not grow up with family. I cannot overestimate the significance of a family and a sequence of family, multi generational families, in the creation of wealth and net worth, it is not allowed, I'm sure, as everything else these days is being prohibited. But if I am hiring somebody, I find a way to discover whether they the employee, the potential employee grew up in an intact, happy family, because I know it raises my chances of a successful employee. Is that legal? I have absolutely no idea, but I won't break any laws, but I will find out one way or the other. I will find out because I want to hiring is very expensive. It's very time consuming. I want to make sure that that person stands a very good chance of succeeding. If they are part of a sequence of happy families, the chances are dramatically improved. And so there it is. I mean, self discipline comes from family. A connections come from families. First chance, first time. Jobs very often, very often, come from families. It's It's amazing and and so obviously people who did not have a family background, and ideally a family background that itself came from a family background, that came from a family background. In other words, you are third generation, intact, stable, harmonious family. You're doing well. You're doing a guaranteed you are doing just fine, regardless of your skin color use, because the disparity in net worth in America is not men and women, it's not blacks and whites. It's not Jews and Christians. It's one very simple determinant family, family, that's all it is. Now the the large scale impact that money has, and that how we behave towards money reflects so much is is having spoken about the the the on the individual level, take a look at it on the large scale level, when people spend a lot of money on organic food and they want food that is wrapped in a green kind of package. Ching, that tells me something. And so when there's a rise of a company that and there are many of them, I don't have to name them, but when a company rises and does well and opens up new branches all over the place, and wherever they open a branch helps to gentrify the neighborhood, that's already a dynamic, which we've seen for the last nearly 20 years already, when people are spending that amount of money organic food and locally so and all this sort of thing, that tells you something. In other words, how a company does tells you what people are doing and what people are doing when a company does well is they're spending their money there. So that tells us something that's going on in the minds, hearts and soul of those people. People are willing to pay more for their energy, as most Americans are, in order to subsidize wind and solar powered energy. Yes, the $400 million that Solyndra lost when they went under after they had been pushed and promoted by the President. Where do you think that money came from? Yeah, it was your money. What do you think? And so when large numbers of people are willing to pay extra for it tells me something. It tells me ways in which they have been hoodwinked, ways in which their spiritual inclinations have been hijacked, and a way in which their entire moral compass has been reframed. And so the things that people consider to be moral and virtuous has changed, and they're willing to pay for it, just like people are willing to put money in the collection plate in church, so they are willing to to pay and sacrifice in order to worship at the at the altar of climatology or shortage or loss of energy and so on and so forth. So that that is helpful when,
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when Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone in the late 1800s his father in law, his name was Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard. Hubbard went to Western Union at the time, who was making a lot of money transmitting telegraphs, telegrams, and they were being used primarily for price quotes. I mean, you know, business, not only around America, but internationally, was largely conducted by Western Union information. And along came Alexander Graham Bell's father and said, Look, you guys, you know, we'd be willing to sell you the patent for a phone. That's because Alexander Graham Bell was short on money, was willing to sell the patent for 10,000 and we, you know, which are pittance. And Western Union laughed at it and and said, Nah, not worth it. We cover all the the basic needs for communication. Nobody would pay for voice we allow the conveyance of all the vital data by means of a strip of paper, and that is all that is needed. And this is probably among the list of Greatest business mistakes of all time, while, I certainly would have made many mistakes, and have made many mistakes. I would not have made that way, because ancient Jewish wisdom tells me very simply that the human ability to communicate by voice is a God given special mark of the spiritual uniqueness of human beings. And so without anything else I would have, I would have definitely known that there is enormous value at being able to communicate the voice, although it was completely unknown, it was like magic. People couldn't believe it, it can be done. But yes, it can be done, and I certainly would have been quite enthusiastic about it. At any rate, one more example of a company that is experiencing serious difficulty. Serious difficulty. It's a company that has been doing pretty well for a number of years, certainly from 1982 but actually even a little before that, and now it's doing very badly. Therefore it means people are not spending their money there, there the way they used to. Therefore we should be able to arrive at some insight and understanding about what is going on in the culture. What is the company, Victoria's Secret That's right, women's lingerie. That is the company recently reported to be sales are way down, and and the the person running it was with left, and the owner of the company came back and and realized that they've really got to make some major changes in order to get back. But that's because something in the culture has been changed. What has been changing? Alex. Lane, all of that. Just as soon as we return, hi everybody, your rabbi, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and listen, don't waste your time watching television, or, for heaven's sake, please. You know, don't sit at your computer watching YouTube videos of funny cats or or lions, you know, killing other animal. Don't, don't do that. It's not worth your time. The more time you spend waste, I wouldn't say spend the time you waste on on television entertainment. All it does is subject you to to maddening combination of stimulation and sloppiness and erudition at some level, and ignorance and provocation and purity, it's it takes you away from the opportunity to do great things. And one of the great things you can do, of course, as I've been telling you in the show, is improve your ability to communicate, articulate, increase your fluency, or by means of a rabbi, Daniel Lapin audio program called perils of profanity, but you already know all about that. But what you don't know about, perhaps, is the story of how a middle aged guy called Roy Raymond and his wife gay realized in in 1977 that men very often like buying sexy underwear for their wives, and that they felt awkward walking into a Macy's department store, you know, women's underwear third floor, and they just they felt uncomfortable. And so they came up with this idea of, let's start a classy women's underwear store that men would feel comfortable buying at. And so this was back in 1977 in San Francisco, and they opened their very first store that year in the Stanford shopping center down in Palo Alto Silicon Valley 1977 and the they created the sort of illusion of sort of upper class British, you know, Victoria Secret to suggest the sort of demureness of the Victorian reign, and at the same time, secret, you know, meaning under things are, are or should be, somewhat secretive. And they put a fake London address on the catalog, and off they went. They started. Well, they went. Just great before, before more than a couple of years had gone by, they'd open six stores, and they were, they were grossing 7 million a year. Really interesting, right? Because gay and Roy Raymond started this thing on just a bit of a loan from relatives and an additional little loan from a bank. They saw a need. They just saw a need, you know, in they saw, hey, you know, here's, here's something that we can't or maybe that. Roy said, I surely can't be the only man who wants to buy my wife underwear and and I just can't do it. I can't walk into just, you know, people look at me as if I'm a criminal. That's what he said. So, not surprisingly, 1977 five years later, 1982 7, million a year and and really doing amazing when all of a sudden, somewhere around about there, it started, going downhill. Started just really, really, but going down a hill so quickly, poor Roy and gay, they didn't know what hit them. This was doing beautifully. The sails were climbing. Everything was great. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it started going down and went more down and went down further. Eventually,
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they had no option but to get out, and they ended up selling it to a company called the limited, based out of Omaha, Nebraska, and what am I to not Omar? Sorry, Columbus, Ohio, based out of Columbus, the limited owned by a smart Jewish businessman by the name of Leslie Wexner, charitable guy, philanthropic guy, and very, certainly, very bright businessman and and so let's sort of, let's go back and look what went wrong the first time around. So although right now, at the time, I'm recording this in June, excuse me, beginning of July 2016 the the latest financial news is that that Victoria Secret is not doing well, but I'm going back now to the early 1980s Why did it go down from something that was climbing meteorically, it went down precipitously to the point where Leslie Wexner bought. It for an absolute song, and it was particularly advantageous for him, because he thought that he had an insight into what had been going wrong and how he could add value and turn the whole thing around. But first of all, let's try and see what it was that was going wrong. Well, one of the best ways of understanding cultural changes in the country is by looking at some of the Supreme Court decisions over a period of time. And I say this because the justices are human beings. They're not machines, they're not computers, they're human beings. And that means that, in spite of the fact that they will tell you that they are immune to public thinking, they're immune to how it's simply not true, they also are very subject to the zeitgeist, the cultural virus that sweeps through a people and changes ideas and changes views. Look what happened with Chief Justice Roberts at the time of the Obamacare mess. What happened there again? I don't know the details, but I can assume, I think this is probably what happened. He's happily married. Mrs. Roberts was enjoying her new life as the wife of the Chief Justice of the United States, Supreme Court SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States. And every time she was at a party, she'd meet a whole lot of the liberal glitterati that populate the fancy Georgetown salons and cocktail parties and and she really, you know, just little by little, she would speak to her husband and say, you know, this really, everybody wants this thing, everyone, you know, I'm not saying there's a corrupt it's, it's a very natural thing. Human beings are very susceptible to the opinions of people around them, whom they respect. And it's not just his wife, but it's also the newspapers he reads and the people he taught. You know, you pick up a mood in the country. The Supreme Court never, ever wants to get out very far in front of everybody or fall very far behind. And so they reflect. It is true that to some extent, where people say nine justices in black robes are reshaping America. It's to some extent true, but it is also true to say that they are reacting to cultural changes taking place, as much as they are actually shaping them. There are some courts that do more shaping 1973 the abortion or maybe that's actually a good place to start looking at this. Roe v Wade, 1973 you know, that was the first time that that this idea of abortion. I mean, what a weird thought, a bizarre idea that there's a constitutional right to do away with the life inside of you, What woman would want to do that this is so bizarre. And all of a sudden, we're at a time where women, yes, do want to do that, and the court finds that there's a constitutional right to do so. Big change in society. Very big change. A year later, 1974 an interesting thing happens. A law is passed called the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and this is the very first time that women can open credit card accounts without their husband's signature or name. And again, it's hard to believe that it's that recent 1974 but until that point, women needed their husband's signature on the credit card application, there's not a time in today's show to go into why that was and why it did make sense at an earlier stage, and what have some of the consequences been? But one of the consequences we know right away, obviously, is that women's purchasing power changes dramatically at that point on America's timeline, right? Makes perfect sense, right? Then comes 1981 81 is a famous Supreme Court case called kirschberg versus Feenstra. And this was a case. It was a situation where, up till that at that point, this took place in Louisiana, the there was what was called a hidden ahead and master of the household supposition, the idea that the husband was the head and master of the household and was able to act unilaterally and to control unilaterally, joint property. So what that case is about? And I'll just tell you very, very briefly, it was, but it was interesting that there in Louisiana, Joan and Harold Feenstra are married, and what what happens then is that there's a divorce, and some, you know, bad things happen. Him, and Harold needs to pay his lawsuit to pay for his lawyers, so he puts a mortgage on the joint, on the family home, and then later on, Joan sues to say, how could he do that? I had, you know, half that house was half mine. And the answer was the head of the head and master doctrine, which, which? At that point, Supreme Court in 1981 changed. So just watch all of these things that are happening. Roe v Wade, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Ken kurchberg versus Feenstra. Something is changing with women's empowerment, right? Not surprisingly, if you take a look exactly this time, you know, call it 19/82 wave of feminism, right? In many cases, the daughters, the students, the disciples of the first, so called feminists of the 60s. They're now having their say on the campuses and elsewhere and so all of these things have to be looked at together in trying to understand what really is going on here. By the way, that that Feenstra kirschberg versus Feenstra case really interesting because Ruth Bader Ginsburg cited that in the homosexual marriage lawsuit. She said, See, we always, we always keep changing the meaning of marriage. And she went back to that 1981 SCOTUS case and said, See, this is why we should change the definition of marriage now. And so, you know, there, there. It was one thing after another, example after example. Oh, talking of the Supreme Court. By the way, I left out 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Ronald Reagan, right? So first woman on this. Just look at what's going on. And at exactly the same, the same. Oh, here's another thing. There was, there was also maybe I shouldn't go just women and men didn't serve on juries at the same rate. The court regarded women as having prior obligations to children, to household, to family, and that it was wrong to summon them away to serve on juries. Again, that too has changed and moved away so, so there we've got 1982
Daniel Lapin 1:22:25
the five year old, highly successful Victoria Secret company, fading, deteriorating, dropping like an elevator without cables, and at the same time you got all these things going on. Well, remember the original victoria secret was marketed to men. And anybody who's looked at a Victoria Secret catalog from that period, I don't think has any doubt that the target audience was men, obviously, and and so all what you're noticing is very significant changes in the financial abilities of women, the cultural changes of women in society, all of these things going on and and guess what? Leslie Wexner, who bought the victoria secret, said to himself, you know what? I know what's happening. The reason that it went downhill between 1977 and 1982 is because they were marketing to men at a time where women were saying, Hey, we don't need anybody to buy our underwear. We'll do it ourselves. And so I'm going to buy this company totally reconfigure it into a company selling to women, not to men. Women will do their own buying. That's what he did, and the rest is history. Victoria's Secret took off and became bigger and enormous to the point where it literally owned a significant slice of the entire underwear market in the United States, and they did sidelines, fragrances and cosmetics and so on. Anyway, they've done away with all of that. They've just gone back to their basics. And what happens, right? Well, the company is now having trouble. Why? What is going on? What's happening? Well, I'll tell you one of the things that's happening again. It makes perfect sense. Victoria's Secret lingerie, totally utilitarian, hardly right? It is seductive. Let's put it this way when and look, I'm I'm not an expert on this, but I'm basing what I'm telling you on much that I've read and studied in the area and, and, and also I've just, I find it fascinating. It's, it's a company that I have always found interesting and and not just for as obvious reasons, but because it was such a reflection. I. Of cultural trend and and so the the question I finish off with is that all of these years, Victoria's Secret right from the 80, from the early 80s, when it became reconfigured as a company selling to women, not to men, for whom were women buying this stuff right for whom, and I'm sure there must be, you know, 10 million women in the in the country, if not more, who received Victoria's Secret lingerie, as you know, Valentine's Day gifts, birthday gifts, from their husbands, right? And they either said to their husbands, or they thought silently to themselves, Does he really think this is a gift for me? It's a gift for him. He wants to see me in this. That's all this is about. In other words, everybody knew, everybody knows that was what the merchandise was aimed at. This wasn't utilitarian. This wasn't basic. This was seductive lingerie that was its purpose. Women were buying it for men, and now women have stopped buying and guess what? Victoria's Secret is, once again, reconfiguring itself to a more basic lie, no longer are women going to pay double the price for a bra, because it'll make their husband's eyes go wide with amazement. Now, well, you see, this is exactly what is being reflected. I barely have to finish, do I? Because you understand what's going on. There is a cultural decline going on right now in terms of relationship between men and women in exactly the same way that the culture has eroded relationships between black skinned and white skinned Americans. The culture, a far left liberal culture, has eroded the relationship between men and women. Increasingly, large numbers of people are raised outside of functional families. Remember, one of the things that a functional family teaches you is not just discipline and giving, also loving. The ability to love, it is very, very difficult, particularly for a man, but women as well, raised without loving parents to be able to give love, and it is love that allows you to subsume your own desires for the good of your group, namely your family initially, and your country after that. So there's a very good additional reason why net worth declines for people for whom family is not an essential part of the culture and and so as more and more men are acculturated to feel no urge to protect
Speaker 2 1:27:50
and love and and be good to a woman, where
Daniel Lapin 1:27:55
the culture increasingly is is such that men look down on women and and by the way, ladies don't feel smug. I'm coming to you in a moment where men don't want to be married, where men feel that marriage brings only penalties, no advantages. Well, guess what? Because women have now been acculturated to at worst, despise not only men in general, but even their men. And the idea of a woman lovingly and and willingly and happily giving herself to her husband, that's also going away and she's saying, What are you talking about? I come home from work just as tired as he is. Such a woman is not going out to spend double the price on underwear in order to tantalize her husband. She's at this point, looking for underwear that is just basic, utilitarian, comfortable, end of story, because it involves a degree of sacrifice of your comfort to be a good Victoria Secret customer during the years 1982 to 2015 that is a little bit of what is really going on. And what you can understand from reading a story that says, Yes, Victoria secrets value as a company is going down. The sales are dropping. What's really going on. Oh, it matches up perfectly with exactly what we see going on in the culture today. So there we are. I told you that although we started with with the whole discussion of disparate net worth, I said we'd end up with lingerie. And sure enough, we have and so that brings us to the end of the time that I am allotted to spend with you. So reluctantly, I have to draw the show to an end until next week, when God willing, we'll be together again. So until that point, all that is left is for me to pray that God. God blesses you with a week of good health. The rest that's up to you. Well, I do hope you enjoyed that and found it interesting. And if you are already a happy warrior, go ahead onto your happy warrior website where you can comment on this podcast, because I do want to hear your reaction and and what you thought about what what thoughts had stimulated in you and how you reacted. So do share, and if you're not yet a happy warrior member of the community, I'd love it for you to join. I really would. It's it enables you to not only be a taker, but a giver as well. It lets you be part of a community and participate in that community, along with other happy warriors who share very much the same goals and aspirations and dreams in life as you do, and it is always, always happier to walk through life's many journeys In Good Company. So looking forward to seeing you there, and looking forward to getting together in again, next week, at this time and in the interim between now and then, you know what I wish for you? 16, eight years ago, I was saying good health. And obviously that's part of it. It's what I now call one of the five F's, fitness, your physical health, and I hope for you to grow in your family, your finances, your faith, your friendships, and yes, of course, also your physical fitness. Until next week, I am rabbi. Daniel Lapin, God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
