Live from Madrid 2 (Sept 29, 2026) | Yaron Brook Show
(Season 12, Episode 156)
Watch now: https://youtube.com/live/Anji2QvT0QU
"Iran's currency just hit 2.5 million rials to the dollar — so why is Trump still afraid to win this war?"Iran is losing. Its currency just crashed to a record 2.5 million rials per dollar, inflation is spiraling, and its regime is so desperate it's now threatening to bomb the Saudis and the UAE — because it's too scared to touch Israel. So why is the Trump administration still refusing to finish the job?
Live from Madrid, Yaron Brook tears into the week's biggest contradictions: Trump's threatened diesel export ban and his midnight tariff war on Canadian whiskey — both textbook cases of a president making policy by whim instead of principle. Then Yaron pulls the actual CBO data to demolish the "hollowed-out middle class" myth once and for all — real incomes are up across every income group since 1979, and the rich are shouldering more of the tax burden than ever. He rips apart Anthropic's jaw-dropping $2 trillion IPO filing that openly admits its own product "may pose existential risk to humanity" — and asks who invests in that. And he closes with the 46th anniversary of the Simon-Ehrlich bet, the wager that permanently settled whether the world is running out of anything.
Plus: Spain's eviction ban chaos, the Senate capping what college athletes can earn, and why so many young Americans have started blaming the opposite sex for their problems.
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Main Topics:
0:00 – Intro from Madrid, 46 years of the Simon-Ehrlich bet teased
2:14 – Iran threatens regional infrastructure if its demands aren't met
5:15 – Iran's rial collapses to 2.5 million to the dollar
7:32 – Is the Strait of Hormuz really open? The tanker-tracking numbers
10:32 – Why there's no point going to war unless you're committed to winning it
~14:00 – Trump's diesel export ban: another price-control disaster in the making
~19:00 – Midnight tariffs on Canadian whiskey, dairy, and motorcycles — pure whim
~26:00 – Consumer confidence is falling even though Americans are getting richer
~31:00 – The CBO data that kills the "hollowed-out middle class" myth
~37:00 – The rich are paying more taxes than ever — the opposite of the narrative
~42:00 – Anthropic's $2 trillion S-1 admits its product could be an existential risk
~50:00 – Spain's eviction ban and the Senate's college athlete pay cap
~55:00 – Young Americans blaming the opposite sex
~58:00 – The Simon-Ehrlich bet, 46 years later: scarcity vs. human ingenuity
Live Audience Q&A:
~1:02:00 – "If tariffs are just a tax, why does Trump keep calling them leverage?"
~1:06:00 – "Is regime change in Iran actually still possible at this point?"
~1:10:00 – "If the middle class isn't hollowed out, why does everyone feel poorer?"
~1:14:00 – "Should an AI company be allowed to IPO while admitting it might end humanity?"
~1:18:00 – "Is rent control ever justified in a housing crisis?"
~1:22:00 – "Why do young men and women suddenly hate each other online?"
#IranWar #TradeWar #AIRisk #economicfreedom #InterestRates #IranNuclear #AIRegulation #TrumpNews #FreeMarkets #Capitalism #Objectivism #AynRand #Anarchism #EconomicsExplained
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Yaron is the executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute and a world class speaker. He is the coauthor of the national best-seller
Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government,
Equal is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality and
In Pursuit of Wealth: The Moral Case for Finance. He speaks around the world on a variety of topics including the morality of capitalism, Ayn Rand and her philosophy, finance and economics, and the value of inequality.
