Point of View May 14, 2026 – Hour 2 : Thursday’s Top Stories

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kerby Anderson. Second Hour Today, let's see if we can talk about what's going on in China right now. Certainly you are going to see some things in the press. I would point you to the fact that we have posted today our Pray for America.

[00:00:32] Most of the time we encourage you to sign up for it and if you have not signed up for the Pray for America newsletter that we send out once a week, it is something that Liberty McArtor puts together and really encourages you to pray for America or pray for our situation that we might have. We certainly would encourage you to sign up, but today Karen took the time to post the one on Trump's summit in China. It gives you an overview of kind of some of the issues that we should be praying about

[00:01:01] and I would encourage you as you read through that if you have not signed up for our Pray for America newsletter or actually it is an email alert that goes out once a week, we would encourage you to do so. Now when you look at China, I have said sometimes politics and China certainly fits in this category. It is like the ultimate Rorschach inkblot test. You know what those are? Those where they show you an inkblot and then you say what does it look like to you?

[00:01:27] And it in many cases shows how people project themselves on an image. And that is very true right now in the political sphere and probably best illustrated by the way in which the mainstream press and then the alternative press has covered this trip to China. First of all, I yesterday posted a piece and we posted it again for you to see. It comes from our good friend Gordon Chang in which he pointed out that if you looked at a lot of the legacy press,

[00:01:56] the word of the week was the word weak, W-E-A-K, weak. In other words, the president comes headed to China in a very weak situation where Xi Jinping has all sorts of leverage against Donald Trump. I also use as a quote from The Economist, the former editor said that Donald Trump is in a weaker position.

[00:02:20] But if you were to watch some of the other programs and last night I tended to watch Fox because I wanted to see what I guess is going to be an interview tonight that Sean Hannity does with the president. Last night, Sean Hannity did an interview as they were flying over on Air Force One with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Many of the commentators are talking about how Donald Trump is in such a strong position. So it illustrates again, I guess you see what you expect to see.

[00:02:49] If you do not like Donald Trump, you hope that he's in a weak position. You say he's in a weak position and say that Xi Jinping has all sorts of leverage over us. If, on the other hand, you recognize that, as I point out in a commentary that will come out next week, based upon some of the things that Victor Davis Hanson points out, there have been a fair number of successes. And right now, China finds themselves in a difficulty even being able to get gasoline.

[00:03:18] They have been dependent upon Venezuela. Remember what happened there? 60% of the oil that China gets to produce all sorts of products, from gasoline to diesel to kerosene and the rest, comes from the Strait of Hormuz. If you notice where that is right now. And so, certainly, you're going to have Xi Jinping act in an aggressive way. And I'll mention that in just a minute.

[00:03:42] But I think it illustrates again that, certainly, that is the way he deals with certain individuals. As a matter of fact, in this piece by Gordon Chang, he quotes from an individual at a think tank that said, when foreign leaders visit Beijing, they're viewed not as peers, but as the modern equivalence of tribal chieftains arriving to pay tribute. And so, you had some of the bluster that comes from Xi Jinping.

[00:04:07] But I think he also recognizes that they really don't have too many cards in their hands right now. And when you get into issues of artificial intelligence, certainly fentanyl, Taiwan, human rights abuses, there's quite a bit that Donald Trump can say. But that being said, at the same time, Xi Jinping is not going to look like he is weak.

[00:04:33] So, one of the early statements we had from him was that these two countries, China and the United States, could risk some kind of danger if there are clashes or even conflicts over the issue of Taiwan. And the statement read, the U.S. side must exercise extreme caution in handling the Taiwan question.

[00:05:00] The argument, if it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes, even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy. And so, again, that was some of the readout there. Again, you have the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, confirming that Taiwan is still an issue.

[00:05:25] And the U.S. policy, he said, on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today. Now, the concern, though, is some of the people in Taiwan and other places have wondered whether or not the United States, under Donald Trump, may, in order to have better trade deals and more bilateral cooperation, we might, in some respects, back down from that.

[00:05:51] And there is no indication, I can see, that Donald Trump or Marco Rubio are planning to do that. But nevertheless, the United States has recognized that they don't want to necessarily force a change. And if nothing else, the stand of the United States has been pretty much consistent across multiple presidential administrations, he said.

[00:06:17] So, with that as background, let's also recognize that there are some other issues to address. And, of course, one of those was the issue of artificial intelligence. Another, if you're going to talk about who has the cards right now, this did surface in some of the conversation yesterday, even with the mainstream press. And that is, China is more export-dependent than it's ever been in the recent past. What do I mean by that?

[00:06:46] China needs to sell things. China makes things, and then it exports those, and that is the source of income to their economy. Because, of course, they have to spend a fair amount of money to, of course, just even afford the oil. Which, by the way, is not making its way to China right now because of some of the problems in the Strait of Hormuz. So, again, this has become a real issue.

[00:07:14] Because even though it makes all these things, it doesn't really have what you might call a consumer-driven economy. Well, the United States does have a consumer-driven economy. But you need to be able to manufacture those and sell those. And then, of course, that brings us to one other issue, tariffs.

[00:07:38] You can imagine that in addition to talking about the T, that is, Taiwan, there will also be conversations about some of the other T's, trade and tariffs. And so, in some respects, these are some very important sticking points between China and the United States. And recognize that what is there for public consumption is important, but not half as important of what is happening behind the scenes.

[00:08:07] We've seen this before, going all the way back to John Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis to Reykjavik when you had Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev gathering together. And it's probably happening right now as well, behind the scenes. Some kind of negotiation, some kind of deals. And we'll see where that takes us.

[00:08:31] And I think it was really striking when you think of the fact that not only was standing with Donald Trump, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, but again, Tim Cook, President of Apple, and Larry Fink of BlackRock. Very interesting summit. We'll continue to watch it, and we'll be back right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett has been talking about a financial realignment of the global financial system, which he calls Bretton Woods 2.0, but should probably be described as Bretton Woods 3.0. Here are the three eras of the U.S. economy. Bretton Woods is the agreement established in 1944. The U.S. dollar became the reserve currency, and the agreement also created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

[00:09:30] The dollar was pegged to gold, and every other currency was pegged to the dollar. That lasted until 1971 when Richard Nixon closed the gold window. Bretton Woods 2.0 was never officially negotiated but emerged because of an agreement with Saudi Arabia to price oil in dollars and recycle the proceeds into U.S. Treasuries. This was the era of the petrodollar and lasted about 50 years. But now we see many countries selling oil in Chinese yuan and other currencies.

[00:09:58] Bretton Woods 1.0 was the dollar on gold. Bretton Woods 2.0 was the dollar on oil. Bretton Woods 3.0 is the dollar on stablecoins. People in other countries with unstable currencies would like to have their finances in dollars rather than their local fiat currency. Stablecoins are backed by U.S. Treasuries, which helps the government fund its national debt. With that as background, perhaps you can see why Congress already passed the Genius Act, which regulates stablecoins,

[00:10:26] and why the Senate now seems poised to pass the Clarity Act, which provides a regulatory framework for stablecoins and other digital assets. I believe we are moving into a new era of finance, which the administration believes will help us to continue to fund the growing national debt. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:56] That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let's see what we can talk about socialism and capitalism. And I've got two very good pieces, one by Noah Rothman, one by John Stossel, which we'll get to. But this is something we have been very concerned about for some time, because the younger you are, the more likely you are to think that socialism is better than capitalism.

[00:11:24] So seven years ago, we produced this little booklet on capitalism and socialism, which primarily sort of looked at what are some of the arguments people use against capitalism, and what are the answers to that. But a few years later, it occurred to me that probably what I should also do is deal with the issue of socialism by itself. So this little booklet I'm holding up right now dealt with some of the obvious arguments against socialism.

[00:11:51] And those two were, I think, two great resources that we've had available for some time. But then in light of all the things that have been happening and the individuals that have been elected to office, I thought we need to do another booklet on socialism, but we really already have two on that. And then it occurred to me, I know, let's, if we can, talk about one of the best books to critique socialism, written by Friedrich Hayek, which is entitled The Road to Serfdom. And I'll hold this one up.

[00:12:20] And so again, I recognize very few of you would ever read that book. But this is sort of like the CliffsNotes version of that, so that you can see that when you get to this issue of capitalism and socialism, we really want to provide you with resources, especially if you know young people that buy into this. I might just, as a program note, mention that there's going to be a future Outlook magazine on this as well. So there are lots of ways in which we've tried to address it.

[00:12:47] But let me, if I can, also point you to the first article here by Noah Rothman, which has the rather interesting title, The Democratic Socialists Need a New Model. And the reason I bring it up is that if you look at especially the one that I've done on socialism, when you start talking about socialism, oftentimes you can say to young people, well, really, why would you want socialism? Because look at Venezuela.

[00:13:15] And immediately they move from, well, Venezuela is not a good example. A different kind of socialism would be to find a socialist country like in Norway or Sweden. And so again, in that piece, I even talk about the fact that Sweden really isn't even a socialist country anymore. Based upon some of the comments that come, interestingly enough, from the historian Andres Hagstrom.

[00:13:43] But interestingly enough, this piece that comes from Noah Rothman is the same way. Because he says the capitalist enterprise is alive and well, even if that is in what is supposed to be the paragon of socialism, Sweden. Today, one of the reporters says nearly half of the primary health care clinics are privately owned. Many by private equity firms. One in three public schools are privately run up for 20%.

[00:14:12] School operators are listed on the stock exchange. If you look at Sweden a little bit more, even more impressive, when Sweden has done better economically, what have they done with it? They've been able to shrink the size and scope of the state. I wish we had that in this country right now. Stockholm, Sweden has lowered its overall tax burden, reduced its health care and welfare expenditures,

[00:14:37] created incentives for private sector actors and charities to take on what used to be government mandates. So when you go back, it gives you some quotes from Bernie Sanders talking about socialism in Sweden. It's not that anymore. AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, talks about we need to be importing the Swedish model. Actually, she doesn't know what she's asking for. And that even has a quote from Senator Elizabeth Warren when she went for president,

[00:15:05] even at the time in which you had the Swedish prime minister saying, no, her protectionist impulses are not reassuring from a European perspective. And the bottom line is, is that, yes, there was a time when the Social Democratic Party was in power in Sweden. And Sweden was probably an example of a socialist economy. And as my booklet points out, it was an unmitigated disaster.

[00:15:32] And as a result, that's why many people fled Sweden who had any kind of wealth. Now, this article from Noah Rothman says today the wealthy are flocking back to Sweden and they're taking their capital with them. As a matter of fact, the per capita GDP of Sweden is now the envy of the European Union. There was a time when Sweden, if it had been a state, would have been the 51st state. But it's done a little bit better since then.

[00:16:03] So that's the first part. The other part of this is John Stossel, who actually does videos and then does a column based upon this. This column is basically capitalism, the thing that works. And he starts out by quoting from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who says capitalism is the absolute pursuit of profit at all human, environmental and social costs. It's not a redeemable system. He says, give me a break.

[00:16:30] And he recognized there's times when capitalism can be ugly. Matter of fact, tomorrow we're going to talk about on our Friday weekend edition some very concerning issues of corporate capitalism or crony capitalism. So we'll get to that tomorrow. But he also points out nothing else works. Nothing else makes life better for most people other than that.

[00:16:51] And then quotes from Steve Forbes of Forbes magazine who says capitalism is moral precisely because success comes from meeting the needs and wants of others. Higher standard of living comes from trading, buying and selling with one another. Everyone gets something from a transaction. John Stossel puts it this way. You get a double thank you. You get a thank you from the buyer and a thank you from the seller.

[00:17:16] Because in a free market where there's no coercion and there's no monopoly or all the things that kind of make a problem with a free market, if indeed you have a true free market, then the only way people will buy your good or service is if you make it attractive to them. And they are then going to make a voluntary transaction.

[00:17:42] They're willing to pay for that particular good and service, which they value as more than the money that they have in their hands. That's what capitalism is all about. And so, again, he then spends a fair amount of time quoting from some of the people that are actually being, if you will, the proselytizers of socialism in some of these new markets. For example, there's a YouTube channel called Secular Talk.

[00:18:11] I am familiar with it, in which the particular host says Jeff Bezos, his wealth is making a lot of people poor because we have a finite amount of money. Well, here is one of the things we talk about in both of these books, both on capitalism and on socialism, this idea that there's a fixed pie. Now, I recognize there sometimes is a fixed pie.

[00:18:35] If we, over in our breakout room, have a pie and there's a certain amount for each person and I take a piece larger than I'm supposed to take, well then, obviously, I'm in a zero-sum game hurting someone else. But that's not what it is. Sports is a zero-sum game. My success is based upon your failure. My hockey team beats your hockey team. We win, you lose. Okay, got that.

[00:19:04] But there's not a finite amount of money. If anything, there is a growing pie, not a fixed pie, that happens. In over thousands of years, he says, we have had a very significant growth in the overall global productivity. Whereas in the past, only the nobility had money and the poor were kept out.

[00:19:31] But under capitalism, we went from a fixed pie to an expanding pie. And again, she makes the argument we talked about yesterday in why does AOC think billionaires can't exist? Well, she says, no one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars. This is all based upon a fixed pie model, which is not accurate.

[00:19:53] Amazon's founder grew simply because he was able to invent ways for us to shop more efficiently and pay less. He didn't put a gun to anybody's head to do that. And he actually pays, I think, very good wages to individuals and provides health care and the rest. And then, of course, John Stossel gives you some other quotes. Wonderful story of the woman I did not know who founded Pepperidge Farm.

[00:20:19] Some great quotes from Thomas Sowell, but basically ends with this statement. Only capitalism allows the experiments that create better lives. And if nothing else, just a reminder that we don't live in a world of a fixed pie. We have an expanding pie.

[00:20:39] If we are able to encourage you and give you an entrepreneurial opportunity in a free market, you can invent a better mousetrap, as they like to say. You can invent the next great idea and you can become wealthy from that as well. That's what freedom in a free market allows. That's what freedom in the political sphere allows. We need more of that.

[00:21:05] And that's why, again, anybody that believes that socialism is better than capitalism hasn't looked at the, if you will, testimony of history. And we do in our book on socialism remind you of all those failed socialist experiments. We're about to see a few more in some of the cities in America. But let's take a break. We'll be back with more right after this.

[00:21:33] Have you ever met a child you knew would do great things? They displayed remarkable imagination, understanding, and a zest for learning. Now imagine someone takes that child and instead of fostering their potential with a real education, they feed them nothing but lies. You know, that scenario isn't so far from reality.

[00:21:53] From a young age, Americans are fed a consistent stream of distorted facts from the secular indoctrination they receive in many public schools to the biases presented as fact in many colleges and universities to the barrage of misinformation from the mainstream media and the lack of moral grounding in our society. It's not that Americans aren't capable of understanding the truth. It's that they aren't exposed to it enough.

[00:22:19] You can expose more Americans to the truth when you give to Point of View, where listeners receive facts, perspective, and biblical truth they don't get from society. As long as we have truth, we have hope. Give today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:50] Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson.

[00:23:16] Back once again, let me just, if I can, point you to another article, and this one's by Byron York, The Democratic Fantasy World. And in case you're thinking he's a little too harsh, I might just point you to the fact that yesterday we had a piece which was entitled, Senator John Fetterman Bashes Conspiracies, in which, as a fellow Democrat, was concerned that his Democratic Party was made up of a lot of people that believe conspiracies that are not true.

[00:23:46] Well, in some respects, Byron York took this issue on and gives us some other numbers which are even more concerning. I mean, if you listen to what we talked about yesterday, about the fact that you had a significant number of people who self-identify as Democrat, who actually believe that one or more of the assassination attempts against Donald Trump are actually staged,

[00:24:13] it's interesting, Byron York dug in a little bit further, and what before was concerning is really concerning. And by the way, it isn't just Democrats, Republicans at a smaller level do as well. But let's get into it, because he breaks some of this down in a way that I really had not perceived how bad it was. And thus, let's again give credit to Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, who is a Democrat,

[00:24:43] criticizing his fellow Democrats about believing in conspiracies, one of which, of course, has to do with whether or not there was an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, where Senator Fetterman says, I was at the table. This is not a staged event. I can assure you that it was not. But Byron York is an individual who, of course, writes oftentimes for a number of different resources,

[00:25:08] but probably is best known as the political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, says a new poll suggests that a sizable number of Democrats, more than 40 percent in some cases, believe the attempts on President Donald Trump's life were fake. Now, the survey, I'm going to go into it in a little more detail. I don't want to get too much into the weeds here. There's a survey of a thousand Americans over the age of 18. It's done by NewsGuard and YouGov.

[00:25:35] It's a very credible poll in which they make three statements. Do you agree with any of these? The assassination attempt against Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 26th was staged. Number two, the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a Trump presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024 was staged. Number three, the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at Trump International Golf Club in September 2024 was staged. Now, do you agree with that?

[00:26:05] This is amazing. I mean, I'm just off the charts. First of all, pollsters found that 34 percent of Democrats said the one at the White House Correspondents' Dinner was staged. That's a third. Forty-two percent of Democrats, that's almost half, said the Butler shooting was staged. And 26 percent said the Trump Golf Club incident was staged. Just to be fair, by contrast, 13 percent of the Republicans said the White House Correspondents' Dinner was staged.

[00:26:34] Seven percent of Republicans for the Butler shooting. Seven percent for the Trump Golf Club. And again, as he said, as bad as the Republican numbers are, reflecting an information system and troubled culture in which fewer and fewer people believe what they read and watch. But he says, here's the real issue.

[00:26:54] The Democratic numbers are off the scale, reflecting something far beyond that, a political atmosphere in which some people will believe anything about their hated opponent, that he is a fascist, a dictator, a man who would stage an elaborate, phony assassination attempt for political gain.

[00:27:15] He says one of the most striking parts of the finding was that the seemingly almost it's almost impossible to deny what happened, as he points out, in Butler, Pennsylvania. Because, of course, we're talking about one that was on the news July 2024.

[00:27:36] And yet you have all sorts of Democrats arguing that Trump was not shot, but that this was, I guess, some kind of fake blood that he put to his ear. But you've got to put this in perspective. Not only was Donald Trump shot and visibly bleeding, but one man was killed and two others were seriously wounded. And yet, interestingly enough, all of it captured on video.

[00:28:05] We had a funeral for one individual. Two people go to the hospital, in addition, of course, to President Trump going to the hospital. And you have now most Democrats don't accept, almost most of the Democrats don't accept that it happened. And here's something else that I had missed. And this is where, again, kudos to Byron York.

[00:28:25] Because he says the poll questions gave respondents the opportunity of saying they were not sure whether these assassination attempts were staged or not. So think about this. If you add to it they were staged or I'm not sure, this gets the percentages even higher. And it's just even hard to get my head around this.

[00:28:48] Because he says when you combine the number of people who said that a particular event was definitely staged with those who said they were not sure whether or not it was staged, you get a majority of Americans who question the reality of the Trump assassination attempts. Let's put those numbers together. For the Butler shooting, now 53% say it was staged or they were not sure.

[00:29:12] For the correspondence dinner, 56% said it was staged or they were not sure. And even for the Palm Beach golf course incident, 52% said it was staged or they were not sure. And as you have already picked up, these figures were, of course, dominated by the Democratic respondents. Now just think about this.

[00:29:37] If you can't get something as straightforward as that, as being something that most Americans would agree to, you can begin to see what we're dealing with because now you're talking about huge numbers. Let's put it in perspective. Millions and millions of Americans who believe the assassination attempts are massive lies, or at least they might be lies.

[00:30:07] And he then says, now we perhaps can get a better perspective on some of these other incidents that have happened. And I'll just use one since we only have a few minutes before the next break. And that is, do you believe that Russia tampered with the vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president? And that's, of course, to be in 2016.

[00:30:31] And first of all, that was something that was asked in the YouGov poll many years ago. And first of all, the statement is clearly false. There's never been any evidence that Russia tampered with any of the vote tallies. None at all. I mean, the argument sometimes bid, well, what about the dossier or something like that?

[00:30:55] But no evidence, even people that don't like Donald Trump, have ever argued that Russia tampered with the vote tallies in the 2016 presidential election. But nevertheless, and this is, again, a YouGov poll, 31% of Democrats told pollsters the statement was definitely true.

[00:31:17] And another 36% said it was probably true, which means 67% or two-thirds of all Democrats actually believed that Russia may or did tamper with the vote tallies in the 2016 election.

[00:31:36] That is just off the charts, but it illustrates, again, some of the kinds of problems, the kind of fantasies, and the kind of conspiracies that a very significant voting bloc, millions and millions of voters, who are going to go to the polls right now in the primaries, go to the polls in the general election in November,

[00:32:01] who actually, for example, don't believe that these assassination attempts were real, but do believe that Russia actually tampered with the vote tallies in the 2016 election. And once you add to that all the other fantasies and conspiracies, you've got to be concerned about the future of this country.

[00:32:24] Because we oftentimes laugh about the fact that when you go out into the various areas in the country and even ask young people if they can name the three branches of government or name even one of the chief justices of the Supreme Court or even the current justice of the Supreme Court or who the vice president is, they can't come up with any answers. And we all jokingly say, and then these people vote. They don't know anything about the government. But now it's gotten even worse.

[00:32:53] We recognize the fantasy world that so many of these voters live in, and yet they're casting their vote on who will be the next member of Congress, who will be the next senator, eventually who will be the next president of the United States. And this, I think, is deeply troubling. So if you wanted to really dig into the survey and recognize that we do have people living in a fantasy land,

[00:33:20] this piece by Byron York is more than just a little bit concerning, and it's on our website at pointofview.net. Well, enough heavy stuff. Maybe we'll get into something a little more light in the next segment. And so we'll take a break and then hear from an individual I've enjoyed over the years, Bob Green. He's been a writer for the Chicago Trib, from TV dinners to smartphones. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:58] You're listening to Point of View. Your listener-supported source for truth. Last article is from TV dinners to smartphones, written by Bob Green. If you're not familiar, Bob Green has been a very well-known columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Before that, he worked for the Chicago Sun-Times. Best known for some of his books, in which he's done biographies. I remember he did the first one with Alice Cooper. Actually traveled around with the rock musician Alice Cooper,

[00:34:26] and then later did a couple others on some presidents. His best-selling book was on Michael Jordan, since he lived in Chicago, Hang Time, Days and Dreams with Michael Jordan, and as an individual that certainly was writing about a lot of fun issues. As a matter of fact, this particular article reminds us of his latest book, Chevrolet Summer's Dairy Queen Nights.

[00:34:50] But he's talking about how, in some respects, we were paving the way for screen addiction with TV dinners. Now, if I had a group in front of me right now, I'd ask how many of you remember eating TV dinners as you grow up? And the older you are, the more likely you are to raise your hand, although we were talking off-air about the fact that if you go to Lazy Dog, you can get TV dinners there. So, again, even the younger generation might.

[00:35:18] But TVs and televisions developed in the 1940s and early 1950s. And what would happen is the family would be at the supper table. We called it the supper table, remember this? And then after you would eat, you would then go into the den, and you'd watch television. And two things changed that. The first is by the 1950s, we had newspaper advertisements for what were called TV trays or TV tray tables.

[00:35:46] And these were these metal trays with tubular legs. And the idea was that you could set that up there and then have your meal on that, maybe even gathering around the dining room table, or you could go to where the TV was located. And the TV trays were generic, but then they got to be trademarked because the second part of that is a company out of Nebraska known as Swanson. Remember the Swanson TV dinners? Well, sure.

[00:36:14] And these began then to put together what were frozen meals in heat-and-serve aluminum trays. Usually had three compartments. And in many cases, they weren't the most edible, but they were okay. And he points out the fact that you would serve big and hearty slices of moist, tender Swanson turkey

[00:36:37] with giblet gravy, special cornbread dressing, fluffy sweet potatoes or just white potatoes, sometimes some garden-fresh peas. And so you'd get fried chicken, you'd get pot roast, you'd get Swiss steak. Before long, they even figured out how to add a fourth compartment, and that was for dessert, and that's where you got the apple crisp. For some of you, I'm bringing back memories.

[00:37:05] For some of you younger listeners are going, can you believe these people were eating out of aluminum trays? Well, yes, they were. And the bottom line is that that kind of began a process, which Bob Green suggests has carried on to this day. Because, and I may put this in a future book or article or something like that, 10 million TV dinners were sold in 1954. And that's when you had kind of the peak of the baby boom.

[00:37:35] You know, from 1946 to 1964, you had just an enormous number of babies, 76 million, if I remember right, babies born into the world. And as a result, this was a boon for mothers and also for kids that were there, because then you, of course, had the, as he says, the seductive power of the screens. Because now families wouldn't always eat in the dining room.

[00:38:04] They would actually then have an opportunity to go and watch TV. Meanwhile, of course, the Swanson Company even took out ads. Watch your favorite TV shows and serve a turkey dinner, too. The ads featured this home economist named Sue Swanson, who I think was a made-up person. I think there was a Betty Crocker, but I'm not sure there was a real Sue Swanson, but I could be wrong on that.

[00:38:32] And this was a way in which you could then get some of the TV dinners, and this would be a way in which you could just sit in front of the TV and, indeed, watch your favorite TV program while you're eating your TV dinner. And he points out that the TV dinner was an early, if unintended, step towards our current world, where people can't look away from their screens, because we now not have the big screens. We have the small screens.

[00:39:02] We hold them in our hands. And I've talked many times about the number of times each day the typical American will look at his or her smartphone, a cell phone in that regard. But nevertheless, back then, even when the TV trays were actually unfolding, you had one of the columnists with the Los Angeles Mirror News say, Most of us spend too much time watching TV anyway.

[00:39:29] Why ruin our stomachs as well as our dispositions? Mealtime used to offer us an excuse for getting away from the darn thing. But he, of course, Hal Humphrey, who wrote that, had no idea what was about ready to unfold. And as somebody who has kind of watched that unfold, I used to have an MP3 player long before we had phones. So I began to understand how people might be drawn to look at their phone.

[00:39:58] I used to jokingly say, and this goes back decades ago, since I had an MP3 player, sometimes if I was in a line, I didn't mind sitting in lines because I would watch something while I was standing in line. And I began to realize once the iPhone unfolded, and we had the different cell phones unfolded, we have the situation today where entirely too many people have screen addiction. But nevertheless, Bob Green, in his delightful way,

[00:40:26] reminds us that before we had smartphones, we had TV dinners, and we couldn't necessarily even watch TV by itself. We had to have a TV dinner in front of us so we could watch what was on the TV. Of course, once the TVs could move, that wasn't quite as important, but it illustrates, again, some of the change of the technology and how it has affected us even to this very day. Let's take a break, though.

[00:40:54] Tomorrow we're going to be getting into some very important issues, not the least of which, of course, is as we talk about this idea of re-engage 2026. We're going to talk about the fact that the president has suggested on Friday night to all the way to Saturday that that could be a national Sabbath or Shabbat. We're going to be talking with a guest about that. I think you're going to appreciate some of those conversations as well. But let me also point you real quickly to the interview we did last hour

[00:41:24] with, first, George Barna, The Spiritual Progress and Regress of Gen Z. That's available on the website at pointofview.net. We also have the integration and focus that we had with Barry McGuire on Ignite America. As you go there, you'll see that we've also posted my commentary today on Bretton Woods 3.0, which I will probably get into maybe more next week because we won't have even time tomorrow with our roundtable guests.

[00:41:53] But as you go there, we'll also see one more time we're making available as we'd like to do the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is something we've packaged together, and if you'd like to receive it as a download, well, of course, we'll need your email. But I hope some of you would just say, yeah, I'd like to get a booklet in the mail. Just give us your address, and all you have to do is go to the website, pointofview.net. Click on the button that says get your free booklet today, and we will be glad to send it to you.

[00:42:22] All sorts of great material available to you today on the website, including some of these great pieces of material on capitalism, socialism, even this democratic fantasy land, and, of course, one from TV dinners to smartphones, all available at the website pointofview.net. As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. If you find yourself wanting to hear any more on some of the topics we've addressed,

[00:42:51] click on that button that says watch or listen, or maybe even send it to someone else that needs to know a little bit more about it. It's all available at the website pointofview.net. Tomorrow, looking forward to a roundtable discussion right here on Point of View. We'll see you then. I'm sure that you've noticed that social media is now filled with information generated by AI.

[00:43:20] Dramatic descriptions of politicians and music stars supposedly making statements about a current issue. Leaning into the microphone, looking into the lens, opponents silenced. It's powerful, it's riveting, and it's all lies. Even several national television networks were recently found using enhanced pictures, meaning manipulated, falsified, literally not giving a true picture.

[00:43:49] So many liars, so much deception. Where can we turn for truth? Right here, from Kirby and the team at Point of View. We need your support. Please, join the Point of View Truth team today with a monthly gift of $30 or more. Together, we can shine the light of truth and dispel the darkness and deception of this day. Give now at pointofview.net.

[00:44:16] Or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net. And 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.