through how you first your first development of those works and how they connect to the making and breaking of the American Constitution?

OK, well, first of all, thank you, Edward, for inviting me on the podcast.

And yes.

So from Purit, New England to a long history of Boston to the Constitution.

Well, the thing that I think they all have in common is that they are all about various ways in which people, mostly in early America, think about and develop communities of one kind or another.

And in particular, they are all committed to the idea that the material and social circumstances of life are hugely important in understanding how communities are formed and sustained over time.

A lot of that comes from having worked with Bernard Balin as a graduate student at Harvard.

Give us some talking points there so I don't just have to curl back into the book that I'm reading, you know, back into, you know, the Stamp Act crisis or something of that nature.

Now it's like they're desert sheep everywhere and the prices are pretty much held and everything else has gone crazy.

you know? Yeah.

Yeah.

So if you, if you break them, I will, I want to go back to the desert because I want to, I want to reference that one later.

Um, when I went on my first stone sheep hunt, that was the first sheep hunt that, that I went on and it would be originally set for a moose goat combo.

And the outfitter called us about a month before season and said, Hey, I had a cancellation, got in there and I hunted stone sheep for 25,000.

Like now, like, 25,000, you can't hunt any sheep for 25,000.

You know, what advice would you have for somebody that would like to start hunting in North America and And they call you, what would you tell them? What's the takeaway advice for somebody calling you?

Tell your story

...

the dog was a phenomenal tracker, um, phenomenal bird dog, and we get on this island, my, my best friend and I.

And, uh, we're sitting around the fire at night and the very first night, and the fire is aimed, it's, it's, it, it's, it's on the side of the island that the mainland can see.

And all of a sudden we hear this rock splash and it sounds like, I mean, you could kinda tell, um, it sounds like about the size of a volleyball.

And it goes splash, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.

You could hear it rolling down, 'cause an island is just a big tapered rock basically with trees on it, up in Canada.

I'm just kidding you.

really hard that's the saying is a grand jury will will indict a ham sandwich like it's hard not to get indicted uh how does that how does that compare to a preliminary hearing

so with a grand jury there is actually a jury there uh with a grand jury there's no defense attorneys there uh the defendant doesn't isn't even there the prosecutor gets to call witnesses to Show to the grand jury that, yeah, there's a case to be answered here.

Yeah.

With a preliminary hearing, those same arguments are made to a judge.

Okay.

And the defense does get to be there.

However, and this is one of those things that makes it so, this particular one so interesting, is that at a preliminary hearing, The judge just has to see that there's some evidence.

A little bit.

What's the AICPA's role and continuing to comment on the guidance that's coming out or what you're seeking guidance on?

So there's a thousand page bill that got passed last year, went through the reconciliation process, which is just a procedure so that they, you know, they did it with a simple majority.

That's how they could get it done with a partisan vote.

Thousand pages.

Think of it this way.

The legislative phase where it goes through Congress and gets to the president is running the marathon.

But once you cross the line, you got to run back to the start for the implementation phase.

What's it been like

That stuff is just getting a little too much for me.

So let's not worry about the price right now.

Let's just go time aspect of it, of how much time you get to spend.

Now, look at the general population of hunters.

Can they spend 40 to 60 days hunting and other things? Especially, you guys are blessed because you hunt next to where you live, right? Like a short distance.

Say you live in Grand Rapids and you're hunting up in Ocean County, it's an hour to hour and 15 minutes both ways.

So I see a lot of people that will come up on a Thursday or a Friday.

It's not worth it.

That helps people in Boston, New York, and California, and everywhere else.

Well, that, that is sort of the theory, but if you look closely, cracks appear in the structure.

So in order to make things like the 20th-century enormous expansion of the federal government and what it spends its money on possible, the Constitution had to be amendment- amended, and that was the 16th Amendment in 1913, which allowed for an income tax.

Before that time, earlier attempts to create an income tax had been struck down by the Supreme Court.

And the reason is that in the original Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, the same clause that has the, the Three-Fifths Clause in it that was, you know, struck out after the Civil War, that demanded that any time the national government levied direct taxes on the people, those taxes had to be apportioned according to the population of each state, right? So a state with a lot of people, New York, would pay a lot.

A state with a small number of people, Vermont, would pay a small amount, right? But that the collection of those taxes had to be designed to be fair to the populations of the states in that way.

The income tax amendment struck that out of the Constitution.

Uh, is that what you talk about when you talk about the crisis going on?

Yeah.

Um, we've been talking a story where to get New Zealand to grow, economic growth requires the cost of capital, if you like, to be as competitive as possible.

And we've got to realize we're in a competition for cost of capital.

A business can form and access capital anywhere in the world.

You know, it's, it's a, it's a very sort of free and open, um, thing.

So for, for them to form in New Zealand, the costs need to be competitive.

And the costs come from not just the price of equity, but also the burdens, if you like, that law and regulations-

Mm.

But, but how does the idea of empire and even, uh, you know, notions of, of imperial expansion also part and parcel of, of America's founding and evolution and even in, in its sort of, you know, constitutive sort of, you know, pieces? And how do we see that in relation to, to other sort of, you know, uh, colonial, imperial, settler colonialist entities, you know, France, Great Britain, and the like, who have a constitutive role within the making of America, both, you know, uh, as sort of, you know, settler founding sort of entities, but also sort of, you know, cultural and linguistic and, and other sort of, you know, pieces as well? So how does that also play a role in, in this whole, you know, understanding of America's, uh, notions of freedom and, and equality, justice, or even some of the other sort of ideas that, that are seen as sort of major sort of, you know, thought pieces that are, that are in line with and associated with American constitution?

Yeah.

Those are, those are big questions.

Uh, uh, I'll, I'll do my best.

So, you know, lots of people involved in, uh, the making of new American constitutions or the, the realignment of the 17s and, 70s and 80s were very upfront about the notion that essentially what they were doing was, yes, rejecting British rule, British authority over them, but at the same time, sort of picking up the ball of Britain's colonial project and taking it over themselves, right? They were gonna run with it now.

And Jefferson early on refers to the United States as an empire of liberty.

And, uh, in, in, in the chapter of my book on, uh, the r- the convention, the writing of the Constitution, and, uh, and then the ratification of it, you know, I talk about how fiercely various Americans argued about the Constitution, and some of the people who we think of as founders really hated it, right? Like Patrick Henry, a leading spokesman of the revolutionary movement, then governor of Virginia, he hated this new constitution.

Um, as you, as you talk about that whole idea, what are some of the, the, the key, you know, talk more about some of the key, you know, pivotal periods and moments where this reshaping, you know, evidences or shows this sort of, you know, constitutional sort of making and breaking that reflects continuity and change, and how does that help to shape American consciousness and even, you know, of, of, of America as it's sort of a, a, a contiguous state?

So how does that also play a role in this whole, you know, understanding of America's notions of freedom and equality, justice, or even some of the other sort of ideas that are seen as sort of major sort of, you know, thought pieces that are in line with and associated with American constitution?

Yeah, those are big questions.

I'll do my best.

So, you know, lots of people involved in the making of new American constitutions or the realignment of the 70s and 80s were very upfront about the notion that essentially what they were doing was, yes, rejecting British rule, British authority over them, but at the same time sort of picking up the ball of Britain's colonial project and taking it over themselves, right? They were going to run with it now.

And Jefferson early on refers to the United States as an empire of liberty.

And in the chapter of my book on the convention, the writing of the constitution and then the ratification of it, you know, I talk about how fiercely various Americans argued about the constitution.

And some of the people who we think of as founders really hated it, right? Like Patrick Henry, a leading spokesman of the revolutionary movement, then governor of Virginia, he hated this new constitution.

Um, as you, as you talk about that whole idea, what are some of the, the, the key, you know, talk more about some of the key, you know, pivotal periods and moments where this reshaping, you know-Evidences or shows this sort of, you know, Constitutional sort of making and breaking that reflects continuity and change, and how does that help to shape American consciousness and even, you know, of, of, of America as it's sort of a, a contiguous state?