Episode 454: December 17, 2013

Dan and Jordan go back to 2013 to create a time capsule for a listener.

Topics covered include:

  • Alex lies about a headline regarding the repayment of money GM got in the bailout. The confusion is about the head of GM saying that the company will not pay back all $10 billion that was part of the package. This is because not all of that money was a loan, and there was no obligation for them to repay money that wasn’t a loan. A lot of the money that was used to bail out GM was in the form of government buying stock, and GM is not required to repay that. Ultimately, GM did pay back everything they owed. If you want to argue that they should have paid back more, that’s an okay position to have, but it’s a different point than Alex was trying to make.

  • Alex lies about GM plants in China creating cars for the US market. There are factories in China because there is a giant car market in China. Approximately 1% of US GM sales are cars from China.

  • Alex tries to scare his audience about Google buying robotics companies, saying they’re trying to create a robot army. Google had recently bought some robotics companies, but they’ve since sold them. They were investments and part of their developmental wing.

  • Alex exaggerates the level of scurvy that people in the US experience in the present day. There are some people who will get scurvy, but most people who are at risk are people who have other related factors in their lives, like alcoholism or drug abuse, which affect their body’s absorption of vitamin C.

  • Alex lies about salt not having iodine in it. He specifically uses a sea salt to make his point, but fails to clarify that it’s a commonly-known fact that sea salt doesn’t contain iodine. Table salt still does, and almost everyone in the US gets plenty of iodine that way.

  • Alex lies about an article in Scientific American about soil depletion. The short version of this is that scientists have studied soil depletion, and they initially believed that it was likely the result of non-organic agricultural practices. Subsequent research has shown that it is more likely that the phenomenon is related to climate change, and that vitamin/mineral depletion is connected to increased levels of CO2.

  • Alex insults Caitlin Upton, the woman who competed at the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant and had a bad answer about education. Two people who Alex loves in 2020 were big fans of Ms. Upton. Trump signed her to a lucrative modeling contract (and owned the pageant at the time), and Tucker Carlson went on a radio show and said that Upton would make a good wife because she was so dumb.

  • Alex talks to Anthony Guciardi, who is basically just there to do an infomercial for Alex’s supplement line.

  • Alex interviews the guy who owns the radio station that airs his show in the Chicago area.

  • Alex interviews Larry Klayman, who would go on to sue Alex in 2019.