Straight Talk with Bill Frady 8/31/26 Hour 1 - Guest host Tony Dale fills in for Bill Frady on News Talk 98.9 WORD, discussing the national debt, welfare, and surveillance.

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Transcript [00:00:00 - Introduction & Initial Remarks] Tony Dale: But it isn't Bill Frady. It's actually Tony Dale—or what's left of him anyway—sitting in for Bill. Be thankful for Bill getting a day off today. Do you know that this is the first vacation he's taken? How thoughtful of him to allow me to sit in for him today. Before I get rolling, I was listening to the business news—John, the engineer, and I were listening to that—and the name of the company that was doing the research on all of that was Smarter Assets. I was just wondering if you abbreviated that, what would that be? Just curious. Okay, so I want to start with something a little different today that ties into everything that's going on. Whether you look at what's happening around us in light of the very well-known book The Fourth Turning—and if you're not familiar with that, let me just start: The Fourth Turning, written back in, I think it was '06, predicted spot-on the crash of '08 and further crashes after that. The whole premise is that everything is cyclical, and that we go through these turnings, or seasons as it were, in historical cycles that repeat. But long before Strauss and Howe wrote that book, way back almost a hundred years ago, a historian by the name of Alexander Tytler, a Scotsman, wrote something that I think is well worth considering in light of what we're watching unfold around us. He said this: "A democracy..." Oh, before I get going, I do want to remind you that if you would like to text me and give me your thoughts on whatever, 800-905-0989. And also, if you want to call, that is, I believe, the Ingles Talk Line, and we can chat. Like they used to do in talk radio when I first got into talk radio back in the '70s; everybody talked to each other. Now we all text, but that's another story. Okay, so this is what Alexander Tytler wrote decades ago: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. And from that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over fiscal policy—always followed by dictatorships." Then he went on to say this—think of it in light of the fact that we are having our 250th anniversary: "The average age of the world's great civilizations is roughly 200 years, and they progress through a very specific sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; and from dependency back into bondage." Now, let's think about that in a couple of different things. Fiscal policy—that was his point there. This is what happened to the Athenians, it happened to the Romans, it happened to Spain, it happened—it's happening to Britain, and honestly, the world economy. So last week, as you of course probably know, my wheelhouse is things financial—commentary, retirement planning, and all that. So we passed the $40 trillion in debt level. And we would like at this point, by the way, to thank Congress, because you guys stole every penny of that. So I want to put it in perspective. Keep in mind, in light of what I just shared with you of history here, okay? So that is up roughly two and a half trillion nearly in eight months' time. Now, when you look at how we got here, it's pretty simple. It's exactly what Alexander Tytler was talking about. The welfare state is what is basically eating America alive like a cancer. So when you include welfare benefits, pensions—half of all federal, state, and local spending, half of it, is just going to transfer money from one group of people, the productive class, to another group of people: the people who aren't producing, either retirees who are not producing anymo ...

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