Could that, could we use that?

That was Lenin, right?

The worst, the better.

Yeah.

Acceleration is here on the podcast.

We can start doing these in the afternoons, guys.

It's just tough for this gallous humor.

Welcome to the Cato podcast.

I'm Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Scharf chair for the public understanding of economics.

With me today is our senior VP for Policy and all-round expert on the uses and abuses of executive power. Gene Healy. Good to be here. And we're joined by two colleagues. Norbert Michelle is Cato's Money and Finance Guy. And the author of the recent book, Crushing Capitalism, How Populous Policies Are Threat threatening the American dream. Good morning.

And we're rejoined by our defense and foreign affairs supremo Justin Logan, who as ever is here

to puncture our wishful thinking with a healthy dose of foreign policy realism. Thanks for that

intro. The U.S. will never be a socialist country. Not my words, but those of President Trump back in

2019. Well, what is taking ownership stakes in American companies, if not the government

owning the means of production? We'll discuss the president's long, hot summer of arm-twisting

and deal-making with the country's business community, and ask, if not socialism, are we

heading for state capitalism?

And speaking of deals, any agreement between Ukraine and Russia to end the ongoing war there

still looks a long way off, despite the recent Alaska summit between Donald Trump and

Vladimir Putin. We'll explore whether that meeting and the subsequent gathering of European

and NATO leaders in Washington really changed

anything and made further U.S. involvement in the conflict more or less likely. But why don't we

...