All In Podcast Episode 256 Recap and Notes December 31 2025

December 31 2025

• Minnesota Fraud

  • Apparently its been a long time issue

    • Jeff Baillon investigated this issue about a decade ago

  • Other fraud investigations and issues later on in similar cases

  • 100s of millions of dollars in fraud reported across multiple cases

  • Nick Shirley joins the show

    • Started out as YouTuber in high school

    • Claims YouTube would demonetize if he had political content

    • Claims no big backing - he is independent

    • Started on this Minnesota fraud story recently

    • Hasn’t thought through about his legal safety on these issues so far

    • Learned to do door-to-door salesmanship throughout his life

      • Mormon upbringing
      • Youngest brother

    • Even the judges let the fraudsters go

      • They set aside jury convictions

    • Minnesota CCAP - state administered program but largely funded by Federal funds

    • Nick’s work is almost like a decentralized DOGE - exposing the government fraud

      • The country is being eaten alive by all this fraud, waste and abuse

    • Autism claims in Minnesota jumped 135x in 5 years: 2018-2023

    • Doesn’t even have a website yet

    • Is there any evidence that people in government agencies are participating in the fraud?

    • Alleged links to international terrorist group? This needs to be proven - doesn’t seem he has first hand knowledge

      • Scott Bessent has commented on this publicly

    • Another way of framing the allegation - this is political patronage

      

    • What if this is happening in CA also?

      

  • CA egregious examples

    

  • Whistleblower laws can also result in payouts if you expose fraud

  • This is everything pocketing the silverware as the Titanic is sinking

  • If the Republicans don’t take advantage of this for the mid-terms - they will lose

  • If the story dies on the vine - it is the beginning of the end of the American empire

  • Now that this is being exposed - the bond markets will sniff these problems out - the repricing will happen

    • Lot of people outside the US will have lot less tolerance for this

  • The first Democrat to say Elon Was Right will win the prize

    • They will never do it

  • Democrats denouncing government waste is like Don Corleone denouncing the Mafia

    • They are the party of government - they want it to be as large as possible - if a big chunk of it is fraud - so be it, fraudsters are donors too

  • CA has $0.5T bonds

    • Bond market is crucial for CA to operate - world’s 4th largest economy
    • State has to borrow another $0.5T+ to pay their pension obligations

  • The pressure is on - if voters don’t force the politicians then the financial markets will

  • CA, IL, NY are all trying to hold on until a Democrat owns office at Federal level - they will then try to get bailed out

    • If that happens 20-30% of US bond buyers will leave the market

• BTA - Billionaire Tax Act

  • Besties to Austin

  • Sacks has moved to Texas

  • BTA Tax Act - 5% tax act on assets of anyone worth > $1B

    • 1 union is filing it - shortfall of healthcare for some members
    • For now seems to be a negotiating technique

  • There are multiple of these being proposed around the country

  • This is like a tax on private property, not income

  • This is a private property seizure

  • This was tried in France in the late 80s and led to loss of revenue because folks left

  • It is being sold as a billionaire tax to make it easy to vote for it

  • They will come after ur private property

  • The real goal of this is to not tax billionaires - $8T = billionaires total worth, $170T rest of the country - thats the real honey pot

  • This is not a tax - its a taking - an asset seizure - and its not 1 time - the language doesn’t guarantee that

  • The proponents are trying to minimize it - they are trying to normalize a new precedent

  • Democracy can’t be 2 wolves and a sheep voting for what they’re going to have for dinner - you have rights - a lynch mob can’t vote for this

  • CA state auditor released a report this week that $70B+ of tax payer funds has been lost (so stolen?), i.e. can’t be accounted for

  • Apparently Obamacare ruined healthcare costs - cost curve went up crazily - they capped gross margins so if you can only charge 15% - instead of getting 15% of 1000 I would charge 15% of 10000 - this kind of thing put things out of control

  • The people who created the red lines are blaming the people who created the blue lines

    

• Nvidia enters licensing agreement for Groq

  • Chamath backed
  • Started the business 10 years ago
  • Prefill and Decode
  • Jensen similar to Elon in his mastery of his industry
  • Chamath is a sore winner