State of Gold

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**State of Gold**

**Restoring the California Dream One Bold Idea at a Time**

California was once a beacon of prosperity, hope and innovation – symbolized by the Gold Rush, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Today it’s the least affordable state in the nation and plagued by poverty, homelessness, and sky-high taxes. How did we get here, and how do we turn California around?

State of Gold is a media platform and citizens’ movement dedicated to restoring the California dream. Host and longtime real estate and tech executive Jon Slavet combines practical wisdom and insurgent energy, as he sits down with voices from across the spectrum.

The show will examine and promote the best ideas from any corner to solve the state’s most pressing issues. State of Gold cuts through the noise to explore what’s gone wrong in the Golden State – and what it’ll take to make things right.

**www.stateofgold.com**

Latest Episodes:

California Has One Governor's Debate and CNN Is Running It | John Phillips Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Guest

John Phillips, KABC Talk Radio Host & OC Register Columnist

Guest Bio

John Phillips is a Southern California radio host, political commentator, and columnist for the Orange County Register. He has covered California politics for two decades and has been called the state's political historian by figures in the California political establishment. Phillips is a regular voice on the intersection of state policy, elections, and the consequences of one-party rule in the Golden State.

Show Summary

California has one gubernatorial debate this November, and CNN is moderating it with out-of-state hosts who have no stake in the issues destroying the state. Host Jon Slavet sits down with veteran California political commentator John Phillips to walk through the full landscape of the November 2026 ballot: the governor's race between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton, the LA mayor's race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman, 14 ballot initiatives including three major tax measures, and the homelessness crisis that no level of government seems willing to solve. The conversation closes on the LA mayor's race, the homelessness industrial complex, and a historical parallel that sticks: in the 1930s, when Upton Sinclair nearly won the governorship on a platform of government ownership of farms and factories, California's business elites (the Chandlers, Hearst, Louis B. Mayer) stepped in and stopped it. Today's elites, Phillips says, the Elon Musks and Peter Thiels, have the resources to do the same. Will they?

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome: John Phillips on the State of California Politics

00:30 – One Debate, CNN Moderators, and the Issues They Won't Touch

00:59 – Homelessness, Insurance, the Bullet Train: California-Only Problems

02:46 – The Train to Nowhere: Waste, Fraud, and Uber Blacks to Sacramento

03:51 – Becerra 60, Hilton 38: The PPIC Polls and the Basement Strategy

05:30 – Embarrass Becerra Into Debating: Boyle Heights and the Cold Storage Fire

06:38 – 14 Ballot Initiatives and the Case for Direct Democracy

07:18 – Hiram Johnson, Southern Pacific, and Why Initiatives Exist

08:06 – The SEIU and CTA: The New 800-Pound Gorilla in Sacramento

09:39 – Prop 43: A Supermajority for Local Taxes (Currently Failing)

10:08 – The Billionaire Tax (Prop 40): How It Split the Labor Movement

11:19 – Will the AI Industry Leave California? The Catastrophic Risk of Prop 40

13:01 – Bass vs. Raman: The LA Mayor's Race Nobody Wants

15:13 – The Doctored Fire Report: Karen Bass Can't Learn from Failure

16:03 – Defund the NGOs: The Homeless Industrial Complex

16:51 – Enforce the Rules: Rehab, Treatment, or Prison

17:39 – Dr. Drew and the Missing Coordination Between City, County, and State

18:20 – Nothing Changes Until People Vote Differently

20:18 – Upton Sinclair and the Elites Who Saved California Before

21:29 – Today's Titans (Musk, Brin, Thiel) Won't Step Up. Yet.

Connect with John Phillips

X : https://x.com/Johnnydontlike
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@randywangradio

Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and join the conversation on Instagram and LinkedIn with the hashtag #stateofgoldpodcast
Connect with State of Gold

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
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Website: www.stateofgold.com

California Is Ranked Dead Last for Business. Here's the Treasurer's Fix | Fiona Ma Sep 22, 2026

Show notes

Guest

Fiona Ma, California State Treasurer

Guest Bio

Fiona Ma is California's State Treasurer, overseeing the state's debt portfolio, investment pool, and savings programs including CalSavers, CalABLE, and the ScholarShare 529 plan. A CPA by training, Ma has held five elected offices over three decades: San Francisco Board of Supervisors, State Assembly, State Board of Equalization, and two terms as Treasurer. She is currently running for Lieutenant Governor against Republican Gloria Romero in the November 2026 general election.

Show Summary

California ranks dead last among all 50 states for business climate, according to the latest Chief Executive magazine survey of CEOs. In this episode of State of Gold, host Jon Slavet sits down with State Treasurer Fiona Ma to ask what she would do about it if elected Lieutenant Governor in November 2026.

Ma, who spent her pre-government career as a real estate tax accountant advising businesses on where to locate, makes the case that California has failed to create meaningful incentives to attract or retain companies. Texas now has more Fortune 500 headquarters than California, and Ma says the state government's lack of outreach to business leaders is a core part of the problem.

The conversation covers a wide range of policy ground: the $1,600 per acre tax burden crushing family farmers, a wine grape surplus with no market, the cannabis industry (where 60% of sales are now illegal due to tax rates as high as 40%), the philosophical debate over billions in state spending on undocumented residents while citizens struggle with affordability, and Ma's work launching the Early Wealth Partnership Navigator with Google.org to help families access savings programs. Ma also signals openness to a California flat tax, calling the current system too complicated for ordinary taxpayers.

Chapters

00:00 - Cold Open: "I Used to Advise Companies to Leave California"
00:15 - Welcome: Fiona Ma on the Lieutenant Governor Race
00:30 - Resume vs. Policy: The Contrast with Gloria Romero
01:29 - Agriculture Deep Dive: 250 Farm Tours and Counting
02:53 - The $65 Billion Ag Industry Under Siege
03:19 - $1,600 Per Acre: The Tax Burden on Family Farmers
04:00 - Wine Grapes With No Buyer: A Real Crisis Right Now
05:28 - CEO Survey: California Ranked #50
06:05 - What Incentives Does California Actually Have?
07:37 - Newsom's CEO Phone Calls and the Real Response
07:55 - Education: The LG Sits on UC, CSU, and Community College Boards
08:44 - Pell Grants, Cal Grants, and the 85% In-State Shift
09:51 - Student Housing Crisis: Living in Cars, Driving Hours
10:18 - Paid Internships: The RIT Model That Works
10:53 - Billions for Non-Citizens While Citizens Struggle
11:29 - Unintended Consequences: Emergency Rooms as Primary Care
12:17 - Cannabis Banking: An Obsession With Good Reason
12:56 - Auditing Dispensaries by Counting Cars in Parking Lots
14:14 - Ten Years Later, Still No Real Banking Access
14:50 - Revenues Down 30%: The Black Market Flourishes
15:53 - Cultivation Tax, Distribution Tax, Local Tax: The Full Stack
16:34 - 60% of the Market Is Illegal Products
17:20 - The Fix: Lower Taxes, Better Banking, Federal Action
18:51 - Supporting Kids and Families: The Early Wealth Navigator
20:12 - One Stop Shop: Why Families Shouldn't Need 10 Websites
21:43 - Queen for a Day: The Single Biggest Priority
22:28 - A California Flat Tax: Could It Work?

Connect with Fiona Ma

X: https://x.com/fionama
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fionamacpa/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionamacpa/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/fionama
State Treasurer's Office (official site)
Campaign website

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

CA Democrats Killed All 3 of Her Affordability Bills | Suzette Valladares Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

Guest

Suzette Valladares, California State Senator

Guest Bio

Suzette Valladares represents California's 23rd Senate District, spanning Santa Clarita, the Antelope Valley, and the high desert. Born and raised in Los Angeles to a family that has been in California for a hundred years, she was first elected to the State Assembly in 2021 before moving to the Senate, where she has made affordability the test she applies to every vote. She is a member of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus and one of Sacramento's most persistent authors of public safety legislation, from human trafficking enforcement to lifetime protective orders for victims.

Show Summary

Senate Democrats killed all three of Senator Suzette Valladares' affordability bills in a single day. She joins host Jon Slavet fresh out of session to explain who runs Sacramento, starting with the story behind her politics: A Latino family a century deep in California, now watching relatives leave for Texas and Arizona because they can no longer afford the state they were born in. The same pattern runs through her public safety work. Her MAST Act, a statewide human trafficking task force bill built to include survivors, passed the Senate without a single no vote and died in Assembly appropriations. Kayleigh's Law, which would let judges issue lifetime protective orders so victims can stop re-petitioning courts every few years, was whittled from lifetime to 25 years, to 20, and then gutted entirely. She also explains why every sexually violent predator released in Los Angeles County has been placed in her high desert district, and what would happen if one were ever headed for Beverly Hills. The back half is about how she wins anyway: The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, a build-first energy answer that pairs small modular nuclear with extending Diablo Canyon, the E15 fuel bill that could save drivers 20 to 40 cents a gallon, and the Reagan rule she governs by: It is amazing what you can achieve if you do not care who gets the credit.

Chapters:
00:00 – Welcome: Senator Suzette Valladares
00:28 – Three Affordability Bills, Killed in One Day
00:49 – 100 Years in California, Family Leaving Anyway
01:42 – The CARB Letter: Refineries and Cap and Invest
04:17 – Mend It or End It?
04:30 – Build First: Small Nuclear and Diablo Canyon
05:26 – Public Safety and the MAST Act
10:15 – A Task Force Without a Single Survivor
11:47 – Kayleigh's Law: Gutted in Appropriations
13:33 – Predator Placements in the High Desert
16:16 – The Beverly Hills Double Standard
16:56 – Inside the Problem Solvers Caucus
19:24 – E15: 20 to 40 Cents Off a Gallon
21:10 – Reagan's Rule: Credit Doesn't Matter
21:48 – Writing an Op-Ed Across the Aisle
23:44 – What Gives Her Hope: The Next Generation

Connect with Suzette Valladares

X: https://www.x.com/senvalladares
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/senatorvalladares
Facebook (Official): https://www.facebook.com/SenValladares
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzette-martinez-valladares-53794a28/

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Rent Control Destroys a City Better Than Bombing It | Nick Gillespie Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

Guest

Nick Gillespie, Editor at Large, Reason Magazine

Guest Bio

Nick Gillespie is editor at large at Reason, the libertarian magazine founded in 1968 under the banner of "free minds and free markets", where he has spent 32 years making the case for limited government and individual autonomy. He hosts The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie and co-wrote The Declaration of Independents, which argued a decade ago that unaffiliated voters had become the largest bloc in American politics. The grandson of Italian and Irish immigrants who arrived in 1915, he lives in New York City, where he watched the Democratic Socialists of America take the mayor's office up close.

Show Summary

"They are beating nothing with something." That is how Nick Gillespie, editor at large at Reason, explains the sudden rise of democratic socialism in America's blue cities. The DSA has a young, motivated army and a big promise: rent control, price controls, Medicare for all. What it ran against in New York was Andrew Cuomo's sense of entitlement. On the national stage, Gillespie says, JD Vance fielded a question about expensive gas and the high cost of living without mentioning tariffs, the Iran war, deportations of the people who build houses, or federal spending that went from $4.4 trillion to $8.8 trillion in two fiscal years.

Gillespie then takes apart what the socialists are actually selling. The goal is a world without billionaires, which in practice means a world without the dynamic economy that raises living standards. Price controls failed in the 1970s and everywhere else they have been tried. He also names who is buying: highly educated, mostly white, upper income voters for whom socialism is a source of meaning and a status symbol. The same generational signaling, he argues, explains why anti-Israel politics now travels bundled with the socialist package. The back half goes wider. Independents are the biggest voting bloc in America and Gillespie argues both parties are "paper mache" institutions, one captured by the DSA, the other by a backward-looking leader in Donald Trump. He defends Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos as builders rather than looters, explains why Starlink may be Musk's most revolutionary product, and closes on America's 250th year: bullish, because we always do the right thing after trying all the wrong ones. Then a warning for Jon's home state. California and New York are handing their future to Texas and Florida, and it is entirely about governance.

Chapters

00:00 – Cold Open: Beating Nothing With Something
00:24 – Welcome: Nick Gillespie of Reason
00:30 – Why Socialism Is Rising in Blue Cities Now
01:40 – New York's Mayoral Race: Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa
02:50 – JD Vance and the $100 Gas Tank Answer He Skipped
03:59 – $4.4 Trillion to $8.8 Trillion: Where Inflation Came From
04:46 – What Socialists Are Selling vs. What They Can Deliver
06:14 – Abundance: Build More Housing and Prices Fall for Everyone
07:53 – Who Votes DSA: Educated, White, Upper Income
08:37 – Symbolic Grievance and the Cost of the Wrong Degree
09:17 – Why Socialism Comes Bundled With Anti-Israel Politics
11:41 – The Right Plays the Same Signaling Game
12:27 – Independents: America's Largest Voting Bloc
12:54 – The DSA Owns the Democrats. Who Takes the GOP?
13:47 – Elon Musk, First Trillionaire: Cautionary Tale or Victory?
14:16 – Two Ways to Get Rich: Looting or Building
16:25 – America at 250: Why Gillespie Is Bullish
17:40 – One Generation Away From Losing Liberty
18:20 – California and New York Are Handing It to Texas and Florida

Connect with Nick Gillespie

X: https://twitter.com/nickgillespie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nick.gillespie.940
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gillespienick/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gillespie-2ba38786/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheReasonInterview

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Why a National Wealth Tax Would Bury California | Steve Moore Sep 11, 2026

Show notes

Guest:

Stephen Moore, Economist; Co-Founder, Committee to Unleash Prosperity

Guest Bio:

Stephen Moore is one of the country's best-known free-market economists. A co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and the Club for Growth, and a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, he served as a senior economic adviser to Donald Trump and, with Larry Kudlow, helped craft the tax cuts that passed in 2017. He first came to Washington in 1983, when the national debt was $1 trillion, and today he also sits on the board of Lightspeed, a company building houses with robots.

Show Summary

California's billionaire tax is headed for the November ballot. Moore's answer starts with a construction worker's line he loves to quote: "I was never hired by a poor person." His new Committee to Unleash Prosperity project puts a number on it, finding that a billionaire's benefit to everyone else, in jobs, wages, and taxes, runs about ten times what they keep. Tax billionaires, he argues, and you simply get fewer of them, and he explains why the national wealth tax Ro Khanna wants, with the floor dropped to $50 million, would put California in an even deeper hole.

Moore runs through the rest of the fiscal picture with the same bluntness: a federal budget he says could be cut by a third, a Social Security system he calls the worst investment of your lifetime after comparing his own $3,500 monthly benefit to the $10,000 an index fund would have paid, and a broken health care market.

The conversation closes on the two forces he thinks decide California's future. First, AI: the farm-tractor logic of creative destruction, the data centers he calls the ignition switch of the economy, and the cancer cures he expects within 15 years. Second, taxes: his advice to the next governor is one Prop 13-sized reform - a 5% flat tax, that he says could set off another California gold rush.

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome: Economist Steve Moore
00:11 – The $40 Trillion Debt: How Bad Is It Really?
00:48 – The Least Rotten Apple in the Cart
02:15 – Houses Built by Robots: The Productivity Boom Ahead
03:29 – Crafting the Trump Tax Cuts with Larry Kudlow
04:30 – Cut Washington by a Third, Get Better Government
05:40 – The 12% Fix: Social Security as a 401k
06:49 – The Worst Investment of Your Lifetime
07:27 – Insurance Companies Are Ripping Us Off
08:17 – The Question No Patient Asked in 30 Years
08:50 – No Prices, No Market: Health Care Transparency
10:32 – Iran, Oil, and the Price at the Pump
12:21 – "I Was Never Hired by a Poor Person"
12:35 – What Is a Billionaire Worth? The 10x Math
13:46 – The Myth of the Robber Barons
16:29 – Why a National Wealth Tax Buries California
18:06 – The Farm Tractor Rule: AI and Creative Destruction
19:50 – Curing Cancer, Restoring Sight: The AI Upside
22:40 – Data Centers: The Ignition Switch of the Economy
23:01 – Advice for California's Next Governor
24:33 – Prop 13 Then, a 5% Flat Tax Now

Connect with Stephen Moore

X : https://x.com/StephenMoore

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-moore-89bab738a/

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Californians Give Their Leaders a Failing Grade - Then Vote for Them Anyway | Alex Marlow Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

Guest:

Alex Marlow, Editor-in-Chief, Breitbart News & Host of the Alex Marlow Show

Guest Bio:

Alex Marlow is the editor-in-chief of Breitbart News, where he was the site's first employee and has run its newsroom since 2013. He is a bestselling author whose latest book, Breaking the Law, examines the six major court cases brought against President Trump. A Los Angeles native who came up through an elite LA prep school, UC Berkeley, and an early obsession with talk radio, he covers national politics from the perspective of someone still living in, and rooting for, Southern California.

Show Summary

Gavin Newsom is polling at or near the top of the 2028 Democratic field, and Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow joins host Jon Slavet with the obvious question: how does anyone run for president on that record? Marlow runs through the surplus that became a deficit, the fires, the homelessness, and the oppo file Axios reports is already being assembled - and explains why none of it may matter in a Democratic field he considers weak.

Marlow makes his calls: the Republican side is already settled for JD Vance (the one name he gave Trump when asked who should be vice president), Kamala Harris still in the driver's seat on the Democratic side, and a warning about the one kind of candidate who could take it from her. He and Jon dig into Scott Galloway's Newsom worship, why Woke 2.0 is just Woke 1.0 with new branding, and the question Marlow says decides whether California is salvageable at all: will the tech elite follow Elon Musk and Sergey Brin out of the Democratic coalition, or keep grading Sacramento an F and voting for it anyway?

The back half is a two-way report card on the Trump administration, from unsold victories like prescription drug pricing to the handling of the Iran strikes and tariffs, and it closes with Marlow's historical parallel for this moment: a new Gilded Age, where technology cured boredom and, in his telling, made us less informed, stupider, and crazier.

Chapters
00:00 – Welcome: Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow
00:17 – Newsom at the Top of the 2028 Polls
00:50 – The Record He'd Run On: Surplus to Deficit, Fires, Homelessness
02:08 – The Oppo File Is Already Being Built
03:12 – A Field So Weak the 10th Strongest Republican Wins
03:41 – Scott Galloway and the Newsom Aura
04:47 – The Tech Elite: Will They Follow Musk and Brin Out?
05:48 – Focus Groups: F Grades, Same Votes
06:16 – The 2028 Matchup: JD Vance vs. Kamala Harris
09:25 – Woke 1.0 vs. Woke 2.0: No Difference
12:41 – Can the Democrats Course-Correct Before 2028?
14:26 – Marlow's Honest Report Card on Trump
15:59 – The Unsold Victory: Prescription Drug Prices
18:20 – Jon's Case: Stale Bread on a Soviet Shelf
19:55 – The Historical Parallel: A New Gilded Age
20:29 – We Cured Boredom and Got Stupider
22:37 – The Positive Spin: This Gilded Age Builds Millionaires

Connect with Alex Marlow

X: https://x.com/AlexMarlow
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlownews/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/alexmarlowmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexMarlowShow
Website: alexmarlow.com

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Top GOP Strategist's Secret Advice to Steve Hilton | Mike Murphy Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

Guest

Mike Murphy, Republican Political Strategist; Co-Founder, EVs for All America

Guest Bio

Mike Murphy is one of the Republican Party's most successful political consultants, having advised presidential and gubernatorial campaigns for John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with dozens of GOP senators, governors, and members of Congress. A longtime media strategist and co-host of the Hacks on Tap podcast, he later founded EVs for All America and the EV Politics Project, organizations working to take the partisanship out of electric vehicle adoption in the United States.

Show Summary

Republican strategist Mike Murphy joins host Jon Slavet to lay out why he thinks California Republicans are mathematically doomed in the near term, what he actually advised Steve Hilton to do differently, and why he sees Democratic frontrunner Xavier Becerra as this cycle's Joe Biden. Murphy digs into the recent Berkeley poll showing deep partisan splits in trust of California's election system, explaining why the state still is not part of the multistate voter file compact most others use. The conversation turns to the 2026 midterms, where Murphy predicts Democrats take the House by a narrower margin than historical trends suggest, and where he thinks the real fight, and the real risk for Republicans, is the Senate.
He closes on lighter ground: The 3,000 mile electric Porsche drive he just completed for his nonprofit EVs for All America, why China's auto export numbers should worry every American policymaker regardless of party.

Chapters
00:00 – Cold Open: Can Republicans Take Back California?
00:15 – Welcome: GOP Strategist Mike Murphy
01:21 – What It Would Actually Take for Republicans to Win California
02:31 – His Advice to Steve Hilton's Campaign
05:05 – Is Becerra "The Joe Biden of 2026"?
07:03 – The $100 Billion Deficit That Could Force Real Change
09:30 – The Berkeley Poll: Trust in California's Elections and Voter ID
14:01 – The 2026 Midterms: What Happens to the House
15:01 – The Real Fight: Control of the Senate
17:00 – Why Trump's White House Won't Sell Its Own Economy
18:12 – One Trump Policy He Actually Likes
18:57 – His Break With Trump on Foreign Policy
19:33 – Hope for a Post-Trump Conservative Reset
20:18 – Driving an Electric Porsche Coast to Coast
21:45 – China's EV Dominance and the National Security Stakes
24:18 – What Gives Him Hope for California

Connect with Mike Murphy

X: https://x.com/murphymike
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelemurphy/
Substack: https://substack.com/@mikemurphy1

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

California's Billionaire Tax Would Cost $25 Billion | Josh Rauh Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Guest Bio:

Joshua Rauh is the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution, where he leads the Fiscal Policy Initiative. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research centers on public finance, state and local government pension liabilities, and taxation. From November 2019 to March 2020 he served as Principal Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He has testified before Congress on public pension debt and is best known for his "Hidden Debt, Hidden Deficits" series, which documented the true scale of unfunded pension promises across U.S. states. Find his finance Substack here: https://libertylensecon.substack.com/

Show Summary

In this episode of State of Gold, host Jon Slavet sits down with Stanford economist Josh Rauh to work through the numbers behind California's proposed Billionaire Tax and why Hoover Institution research puts the net fiscal impact at negative $25 billion. Rauh explains how the tax is already accelerating founder departures, how the legislation could be leveraged to sieze assets from any Californian, and what France's failed experiment tells us about what happens next. The conversation shifts to the federal debt, where Rauh makes the case that $40 trillion in accumulated deficits is the single biggest threat facing the American economy: The real reason mortgage rates won't come down, the reason 25 cents of every non Social Security tax dollar now goes straight to interest payments, and why the 1970s stagflation era is the closest historical parallel if Congress doesn't change course.

Chapters
00:00 – Josh Rauh Joins to talk Billionaire Tax and the Federal Debt
00:54 – The France Parallel: What Macron's Repealed Wealth Tax Proves
02:17 – The $25 Billion Math: Why the Tax Would Lose the State Money
03:36 – Founders Already Fleeing: "Raise the Series B, Then Leave"
04:09 – The Legislature Loophole: One Word From a Millionaire Tax
05:35 – Could This Become a 2028 Democratic Primary Weapon?
07:37 – If It Passes: The Zuckerberg January 1 Cutoff Problem
08:50 – Revenue for the State or Prosperity for the People?
10:00 – Proposition 42, Teachers' Pensions, and MediCal for Undocumented Immigrants
12:59 – Tariffs & Spending: Why They're Not the Biggest Threat
15:28 – The Real Crisis: $40 Trillion in Federal Debt and Your Mortgage Rate
18:07 – Clinton's "Balanced Budget" and the Accounting Fiction
18:55 – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security: Half the Budget Nobody Will Touch
22:26 – What a Federal Debt Crisis Would Actually Look Like
26:41 – California's IOU Playbook When the Market Corrects
29:22 – Reasons for Optimism in California

Connect with Joshua Rauh

X: https://x.com/joshrauh
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-rauh-01a02017/
Stanford Website: https://web.stanford.edu/~rauh/about.html
Personal Website: https://www.joshuarauh.com/

X: https://x.com/realjonslavet
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stateofgold/about
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stateofgoldpodcast/?hl=en
Website: www.stateofgold.com

Is the Jewish Community in LA in Danger? | Elizabeth Barcohana Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

Guest:

Elizabeth Barcohana, Attorney & CAGOP Delegate

Guest Bio:

Elizabeth Barcohana is a California Republican strategist, political commentator, and founder of Vote Gold, a 501(c)(3) voter education organization working to register 460,000 Republican voters in Los Angeles County. She serves as Chair of Jewish Community Engagement for the California Republican Party and is a prominent voice on California politics, election integrity, and Jewish community issues. Her family fled Iran just before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a history that shapes her urgent perspective on antisemitism and political displacement. With over 95,000 Instagram followers, she has built one of the most engaged conservative audiences in California.

Show Summary

Elizabeth Barcohana joins host Jon Slavet for a wide-ranging conversation about rising antisemitism in American cities, the accelerating leftward shift of California's Democratic Party, and what Republicans can actually do about it in Los Angeles County. She describes, for the first time publicly, her family's contingency planning for possible displacement from Los Angeles, drawing a direct line from her parents' flight from Iran months before the Shah fell to what she sees forming in American cities today. From there the conversation covers why so many Jewish voters remain with the Democratic Party despite rising antisemitism in its progressive wing, why Barcohana believes the DSA takeover of California's Democratic establishment is already complete, what the LA City Council's non-citizen voting proposal actually contained and how far it exceeded anything California law currently permits, and why Vote Gold is targeting voter registration as the single highest-leverage play available to California Republicans right now.

Chapters

00:00 Rising Antisemitism & Contingency Plans: Discussing safety concerns and family history in Los Angeles.

01:17 Lessons from the Iranian Revolution: Comparing historical Jewish diaspora persecution to modern urban realities.04:48 Demystifying the Jewish Democratic Vote: Analyzing historical alignment and the post-Oct 7th political shift.

08:47 The Progressive Democratic Takeover: Explaining why far-left factions have already captured urban party leadership.

10:17 Auditing the LA Mayoral Primary: Assessing Spencer Pratt's campaign and the Bass-Raman runoff.

14:05 Non-Citizen Voting Push: Unpacking the LA City Council's proposal and progressive voting strategies.

19:34 The Vote Gold Initiative: Outlining the 460K LA campaign to educate and register voters.

Connect with Elizabeth Barcohana

X: https://x.com/E_Barcohana

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethfromcalifornia/

Official Website: https://www.elizabethbarcohana.com/

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Why the Major AI Firms Are Fighting to Self-Regulate | Nick Gillespie Aug 25, 2026

Show notes

Guest

Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large - Reason Magazine

Guest Bio

Nick Gillespie is an acclaimed libertarian journalist, cultural critic, and Editor-at-Large at Reason, the magazine of free minds and free markets. The former editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason magazine, Gillespie hosts The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast and is co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America. Recognized as one of America's leading classical liberal commentators, he offers sharp, principled analysis on technology, government overreach, free speech, and the future of human agency.

Show Summary

As artificial intelligence rapidly accelerates toward recursive self-development and human-level intelligence, a high-stakes debate is unfolding over who should control its safeguards. Libertarian commentator and Reason Editor-at-Large Nick Gillespie joins host Jon Slavet on State of Gold to discuss why handing AI regulation to politicians will stifle technological progress and entrench corporate monopolies.

Gillespie exposes how entrenched tech giants utilize "regulatory capture" under the guise of public safety to write rules that protect their market share and block emerging competitors. Addressing the global AI race, Gillespie argues that attempting to out-regulate an authoritarian state like China is a losing strategy, insisting that America's true competitive edge lies in free-market dynamism and first-to-market innovation. Finally, Gillespie rejects apocalyptic AI job doom-saying, offering an optimistic vision of AI as an empowering tool - that will ultimately expand human agency, creativity, and economic opportunity.

Chapters

00:00 Recursive AI Growth: Examining AI's evolution toward breakout self-development.
00:53 Industry vs. State Safeguards: Explaining why self-policing beats political control.
01:24 The Regulatory Capture Trap: Detailing how Big Tech uses rules to crush competition.
02:12 Beating China in Tech: Leveraging free markets vs. state-directed AI.
02:46 AI & Job Doomsday Myths: Viewing AI as an empowering tool for human agency.
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