This week Atrioc gives us the low-down on "Liberation Day" tariffs, Aiden institutes the Lemonade Stand lightening round, and Doug gets fired up about why we aren't building things.Recorded on: April 2nd, 2025Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCurXaZAZPKtl8EgH1ymuZggAudio Listeners can hear us:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yz44z9z3t8VQu4WRmsrs6Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lemonade-stand/id1799868725Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7d7e1f54-49a3-4082-81e8-f70bfe1ace63/lemonade-standiHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-lemonade-stand-269417962/Follow usTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thelemonadecastInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelemonadecast/Twitter - https://x.com/LemonadeCastThe C-suiteAiden - https://x.com/aidencalvinAtrioc - https://x.com/AtriocDougDoug - https://x.com/DougDougFoodEdited by Aedish - https://x.com/aedisheditNew takes on Business, Tech, and Politics. Squeezed fresh every Thursday.#lemonadestand #dougdoug #atrioc #aiden
Chapter 1: What is Liberation Day and why is it significant?
The woke liberals are trying to bring down your Liberation Day. Today is Liberation Day and I will not have my way.
We're free. We are free. It's Liberation Day. Mark your calendars. Do you believe it took almost 250 years for America to do Liberation Day? We had Independence Day. Nobody ever thought to do this. Trump is the first to liberate us. I think we're being liberated from Cheap products, is my understanding.
About many other things that we'll talk about today in Liberation Day, as well as what we're not being liberated from is expensive housing, which I think Doug is going to get into.
Yes, I will be talking about the many things ailing the particularly left-leaning governments and their inability to build things in America, which I am very passionate about. and annoyed at.
It's actually a short list. There's actually very few problems. Yeah, it all works.
And then I think, Aiden, you're also going to talk about how you wanted to adopt a South Korean child.
I was full set on adopting a South Korean child until I heard the big news, which I'll tell you guys later in this episode. But I believe we wanted to start with something new where we kind of go through a lightning round of smaller topics, one minute per topic. And Doug has prepared and we wanted to start the episode off with that.
I just think this is really funny because like two weeks ago we said people's attention spans are getting too short and we have to like bring real rigor. I'm literally texting on my phone right now. As we're talking in the show and you want to add a one minute lightning round topic to the Cut. Cut to me.
Let me out. Okay. I'm going to try to give some quick things here. All right. First off, XAI purchased X. So you know how when Elon bought Twitter a couple years ago and people were like, this is a bad idea. This is stupid. How is he going to pay this back? Well, one way that he has an exit strategy is to buy it himself from his own AI company. So he recently did this.
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Chapter 2: How are new tariffs impacting businesses?
I had a good thing to say, but that's fine. People don't care. Two more quick ones. Last week, we talked about the massive hit coming out of China, the movie called Nezha 2. Yes. Pronunciation, I'm sure, is horrific. I actually went and tried to watch it because I was curious. The second one isn't available on streaming yet. The first one is. It's incredible. It's like an amazing movie.
I loved it. And I was like, wow. Okay, I get it, China. Like, well played. It was so, like, creative and interesting. Like, just well made stories.
I was going to say, Doug, this episode, China, they build homes, they build trains, they have great movies. I no longer want to move to Japan. Yeah, I actually really would like to watch the movie. I watched a few Chinese animated films when I was learning Chinese during COVID for that six-month period, and I really enjoyed the couple things that I watched. So...
In a minute, I want to say one thing. We talked about this like a week ago, the movies thing. I looked at the data all the way back to 1912. America has had the number one movie every single year of human history of cinema until now, until this year.
2020 doesn't really count.
2020 doesn't really count because there wasn't any money in it and we didn't have any theaters open. But outside of that, that's crazy.
I believe Liberation Day refers to us getting back the number one spot.
I think we have to buy Minecraft tickets. In order to topple the new Chinese movie empire, we have to go see the Minecraft movie. And that brings it... Do we have any more lightning round topics? Oh, yeah.
Very last one, which is funny. Also, my Chinese acupuncturist said the second movie is not as good as the first. So, sorry if anybody is kind of disappointed at the sequel.
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Chapter 3: What is the current state of AI in tech?
The way things like that work when you want to make like a really custom jacket with specific specifications and not just a blank hoodie that you like print on, which is a lot of what merchandise is, you have to make the specs of the product and then go to a factory and get that product specifically made. A lot of the industry for that type of item exists primarily in China.
China has a very, very developed and specialized manufacturing sector because of all the business they've done over the past decades, right? And a problem is a lot of that type of manufacturing doesn't even exist in the U.S., There isn't a local option you can go to because economically it doesn't really make sense for that type of company to exist.
Like if I wanted to make that type of custom clothing in the U.S., I would need to go to a U.S. factory that might be able to do that and that sort of business for those special types of jackets or hoodies or whatever we want to make. don't exist in the US.
So we work with factories in China, factories in Portugal, places where that is more like economically viable and that industry does exist that can make that item. So in the short term, like in response to these tariffs, right, the tariffs that already exist on China and the increase that had gone into place prior to this was already affecting our new orders of clothes going into this summer.
And it's actually been tough because the drops we have coming up are also licensed drops with like IP. So you're balancing the fact that you have to split the costs with like the licensor that you're working with. Now the cost of manufacturing the goods is going up because of these tariffs. And then this adds a huge percent to the base cost of those goods that we're making.
I'm locked into those contracts to make with those factories already. I can't back out and like make another decision now. So that is why I am like, this is a very selfish reason to be exasperated. But I think probably something that other business owners in the U.S. are feeling right now is they see this giant list and then be like, oh, this fucks me over.
This is perfect.
Let me just go on this real quick.
This is a perfect example. Also, yeah, I want to hear it because this is exactly what Trump wants. Exactly. Your response right now.
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Chapter 4: Why is there a focus on building things in America?
And instead, they lived in other parts of the Bay Area and had to take BART, the subway.
Yeah, I lived in Berkeley and I commuted every day. Right.
Because you can't afford to live there. And so these like one of the quotes from the book is in much of San Francisco, you can't walk 20 feet without seeing a multicolored sign declaring that Black Lives Matter. Kindness is everything and no human being is illegal.
These signs sits in yards zoned for single families and communities that organize against efforts to add new homes that would bring those values closer to reality. San Francisco's black population has fallen in every census count since 1970. Poor families, disproportionately non-white and immigrant, are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing, and street homelessness.
Every year, their policies in San Francisco and these incredibly progressive cities are making everybody suffer, particularly the groups that they supposedly care about. And that's why I get so frustrated, is because it's one thing if you're an asshole. And you say, fuck all y'all. We have our homes. We're going to not allow building because our values go up, right?
That's what Robert Wright does, this professor at Berkeley who constantly shuts down housing projects because he says there's not enough affordable housing. And then coincidentally, his housing that he owns in multiple parts of the Bay Area goes up in value. Dude, it's fine. If you want to be a selfish prick, that's fine. but, but own it. I don't think it's fine. I don't think it's fine.
I see what you mean. But fucking own it, man. Like, well, this is what bothers me to have such vehement culture of the, of the, of the, of the democratic governance in our country. That is all about how virtuous we are and how we care about these disadvantaged groups. And we care about homelessness or we're going to tax everybody to get all this homelessness.
And then you don't do anything about it. And objectively your policies year after year, fail the people around you. It, It baffles me that somebody like Aaron Peskin in San Francisco could be on the board of supervisors for like two decades. Every single year, his policies have made it less affordable. Homelessness has gotten worse. All of these metrics get worse.
And then he turns around and says it's the Republicans' fault in San Francisco. And I've just personally seen this and seen so much of that city struggle because of these policies.
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