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Deadly Shooting at Busy Florida Airport Sparks New Concerns for Fliers
John Layfield: No, and I don't think they will be. There's no way to quantify the loss of life and the horrific things that happen. But when you're talking about just the economy, you have to look at what historical precedent and other places that have lone wolf terror attacks. Places like Boston, places like Orlando, London, Madrid, Paris. Those places have rebounded very quickly. And you see little to no drop in tourism. The places that get hurt are places like Egypt, like Tunisia, where the whole system people feel cannot prevent more terrorist outbreaks. And there you see tourism number drops significantly. As far as a lone wolf, I don't think people are going to alter their travel plans. They may think about it a little bit. But history has shown they're not going to alter their travel plans significantly.
Gary B. Smith: Well, I kind of agree with John. In fact, my daughter's flying out of not Ft. Lauderdale but West Palm Beach on Sunday. So near enough that, you know, am I concerned? Of course. So, you know the first point should people be afraid. I don't think afraid. But I think you should be wary. I mean, this is a person who checked the gun through baggage but really, you know, with baggage claim at an airport like Ft. Lauderdale, there's nothing to prevent – I mean, that's really open to the public. Someone just driving up their car and shooting. I mean, that could happen anywhere. That could happen in a shopping mall, it could happen in a movie theater. I think we're of the day and age now where people need to be aware. I do agree with John, though. Look, my daughter's still going to fly out of the airport, and I think everyone else that has a flight will. You're aware, but you go about your plans, and you kind of get on with it. It's the age we live in. I don't think it's going to affect people's travel or the economy.
Hadley Heath Manning: That's right and usually right after an attack at any type of venue; we do see increased security and a response to that type of attack. So airports are likely to be safer than ever in the weeks to come. But this obviously very tragic event. I agree with Gary, it can happen anywhere. That's simply the world we live in. There are risks associated with travel. There are risks associated with leaving our homes. So we have to be realistic about what the threats are. Not to be alarmed but to be wary and to know that this is simply the world that we live in.
Julie Roginsky: I flew almost the first day that you were allowed to fly after 9/11 after the travel ban was lifted and people were at the airport looking at each other but nevertheless people went on with their lives. It's not to diminish the tragedy that happened on Friday at Ft. Lauderdale or the horrible loss of life. But all of us to some extent take the risk as has Hadley said waking up in the morning walking out of the house that this could strike at a mall, airport, movie theater. So we continue with our lives, knowing that this is just part of the risk we take of being alive. And we are a resilient society. We'll continue acting and behaving as we always have.
Jonas Max Ferris: Well, I don't think it's totally irrelevant. Airports -- look, people already irrationally fearful traveling by air. That's why terrorists want to attack airports because there's already a percentage of people that don't fly out of fear. Even though almost 2 million people fly every day and a crash is so small. If you make a movie about a plane crash within it's not going to be aired on planes. So it's going to make some people more scared of flying. So it has possibly more of an effect of behavior, the economy, than a mall attack or something else. Because we're not scared to the mall. I guess some people are, I should say. But to your point about security, I don't know if seeing more security makes everybody feel comfortable. Oh, look, there's a lot of security in time square or airport. Some people are, like, if I'm in a place that needs heightened security, it reminds people also. In addition the cost of that.
Fierce Debate as Democrats Claim Repealing ObamaCare Will 'Make America Sick Again'
Hadley Heath Manning: Yeah, so ObamaCare, there's no doubt. It's a bad law, it's hurt our economy, our health care system, it has hurt our freedom. By the same token, I don't think it's right to use the life expectancy, it's actually a worse job that we're taking care of ourselves because this is largely due to obesity rates, drug abuse, and even suicide rates. So I would say bottom line absolutely we have to get rid of ObamaCare. We have to do better. Deliver health care better and pay for health care better in this country. But proponents of ObamaCare use life expectancy as to why we needed reform in '09 but I don't think it's great for the metric system.
Gary B. Smith: Look, I don't understand the defense of ObamaCare, to be honest with you. Because almost by any metric that it was advertised as, it's failed. It was supposed to bring premiums down; instead they've gone up by an average of 25 percent. Oh, unless you live in Arizona where they're up by, like, 145 percent. I know my premiums have gone up 30 percent for the past two years in a row. I'm having trouble finding a primary care physician because doctors don't want to sign up for it. You know, we were promised that we could keep our health plans. I liked my health plan before with blue cross, blue shield in Maryland. Don't have access to that anymore. It's not competitive. You've got insurance companies dropping out of states, so now it's becoming monopolies, almost sheer monopolies. And the big metrics they wanted was, well, we're going to ensure more people. Maybe but the fact is a lot of those people have moved to Medicaid. We already had Medicaid. You didn't need a government-mandated running health care in order to do that. So, you know, people don't like it. It's despised by the majority of people out there. I say let's move on. We're not going to get any sicker, we're going to get healthier.
Julie Roginsky: I want it to change. I didn't think it went far enough. I want to get rid of the insurance companies. So, look, if you want to ask how people change, some of us don't think it went far enough
Jonas Max Ferris: Well, I don't know if the plan's in place are going to fix these two issues you're referring to. The one is the debt how sick we are and the rising cost. It's basically paid for by healthier people's insurance. So their premiums had to go up and rich people due to taxes. So something's going up because that's how it's paid for. If they fix it by making it a Medicare drug plan, then you couldn't point to who's seeing their premiums going up any more than they're making old people pay for your drug plan. As far as sick, health insurance in general, it's debatable how much healthier it makes people. You alluded to the people that are sicker, dying longer, longevity. A lot of them are white men. They're more or less heavily short already before ObamaCare. So if this insurance is so great at making you live longer, why are they getting morrow obese? The bottom line is for some people who didn't have insurance who had serious conditions, there's serious benefits in having a subsidized policy. But other people take more risks by having health insurance, having access to cholesterol medication, they all of a sudden eat differently. So it doesn't all of a sudden lead to better health outcomes.
John Layfield: I was not for it. But I wanted to succeed. The problem they did was they did not do anything with the health care system. They simply added more people to the insurance roles without fixing the health care system. And you see ObamaCare right now is 22 percent higher than work-based plans. And it has done nothing to fix this system when you talk about personality responsibility. Look, ObamaCare is not going to make us live longer or make us live less. Neither what will come next. That is personal responsibility. We have a health epidemic in the United States. And that won't be addressed with insurance reform, which is all ObamaCare was.
DHS Designates Election Infrastructure as 'Critical' in Wake of Intel Report on Russia
Gary B. Smith: It's one more example of impending government overreach. Just like we talked about last segment. Government neither submitted own health care. Neither party or the federal government. We're composed of 50 states. Each of the states get to do what they and want what they choose. Whether it's chad reading or paper punch or optical character. Look, once the government comes in and says, hey, remember Reagan, the famous words, we're here from the government, we want to help. Pretty soon it will be a national election. That's not what the constitution and what we're set up to do.
John Layfield: If the federal government is sending systems or software to help local, independent polling places have no fraud, I'm all for that. But I'm not for the federal government taking over this system because who's going to watch these guys? Have you seen what the politicians are willing to do to stay in power?
Julie Roginsky: Yeah, look, I agree partially with what John said. Nobody's taking over the election system. What they are doing is sending resources. And, look, I've worked with some of the local governments; it's not hard to hack these machines. If anybody knows how to do it, the Russians or Chinese do.
Jonas Max Ferris: The federal government has a right, but like John said, do we want them involved? First of all, easy to hack. There are some machines in some towns and voting slots, that's why so badly stupid and old-fashioned.
Hadley Heath Manning: Right. But Americans wonted voted for and they know why, and they made their own choices. We shouldn't pretend Americans got duped into voting for the wrong person. But we do need as a society for Americans to have faith in our institutions that includes our election system. So whoever's in charge? The federal government or the state government, they need to ensure that that process has integrity and that Americans can believe in it.
Stock Picks
Gary B. Smith: Apple (AAPL)
John Layfield: Home Depot (HD)
Jonas Max Ferris: iShares South Korea (EWY)
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