Let us not forget about the trip Trump took to the North/South Korean boarder where he became the first President to enter North Korea. When asked about why he would speak with someone he disagreed with he correctly pointed out that it is how things get resolved.

If communication itself is treated as betrayal, that standard would have to be applied broadly—and it is not.

On this issue, Kent’s actions are logically consistent.

5) Assuming the base will follow blindly

Some supporters argue that Trump is playing “7D chess.” Others are beginning to step back and evaluate events more critically.

There appears to be a shift—more people are willing to question decisions rather than follow automatically.

Ironically, Kent’s visibility has grown significantly—not because of his resignation alone, but because of the reaction to it. What might have been a short news cycle has turned into a larger platform for him. If Trump hated the chaos of a one day news cycle talking about a resignation, he will really hate the new Joe Kent show coming to a streaming service near you. Trump’s emotional reaction created a larger problem for Trump. There is a lesson there.

In that sense, the response has amplified his influence.

The Takeaways

Logically speaking, the resignation itself is a negative moment for any administration—losing a senior official over policy disagreement is significant.

However, the reaction to the resignation has made the situation worse.

A more strategic response might have been calm and measured, such as:

“Today Joe Kent tendered, and I accepted, his resignation. He has served his country with dedication, and we are grateful for his service and sacrifice.

While we disagree on strategy regarding Iran, that disagreement reflects the very freedoms we defend. Based on current intelligence and leadership recommendations, we will continue our course of action. Should conditions change, we will adjust accordingly.”

The broader lesson is this:

Emotional reactions often escalate situations unnecessarily. When they become a pattern, they can undermine even strong leadership.

A note to Trump supporters

If this made you uncomfortable or even upset, pause and ask yourself why.

Is it because the argument is unfair—or because some of it may be true?

This is not about rejecting Trump. In fact, it is the opposite. If you support him, you should want him to be at his best. That means encouraging stronger, more disciplined, and more logical leadership—not reactive decision-making.

That is how leaders improve.

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For context let me say that we have always known the facts:

· Retail financial services and products are made to create profit off of clients

· The average financial services firm makes a 39.2% net profit

· 9% or less returns, while considered normal, are way too risky and predatory

Whenever we have presented those facts the reaction from retail financial service and products providers has been either to a) Throw an illogical fit talking about how higher returns are ‘too good to be true’ or ‘high risk’ (which are logically foolish statements) or they see the light and convert to a more responsible and educated position in regards to wealth creation and protection.

However, this post isn’t about what my company offers or who retail sales organizations respond to my company but rather how these retail professionals see and treat retail ‘investors.’

The Thirty-Year Professional:

Recently I was talking to a man who, for thirty years, has been providing retail financial products through networks of licensed retail financial products salespeople. He had overseen spending billions of dollars of middle-class American’s money in such a way that created wealth not for the ‘investor’ but the companies selling the products.

I was sitting at a table in a Speaker/VIP area of a financial conference with a couple of my staff when we joyfully struck up a conversation with the person I’m referring to. The conversation started out with what we do, who we offer our services too and the topic of retail investors getting ripped off came up.

Again, retail investors are taught (as if it is almost written in stone) that the rule of 72 will get them to their financial goal, that 9% or less a year returns are safe and acceptable, and “buying term and investing the difference” makes financial sense for most people (which it mathematically does not), just as a sampling.

I don’t want to get too into the weeds on what works and what doesn’t work on this post as that can become a distraction from the main point, which is the terrible experiences I’ve experienced.

Back to this thirty-year professional. We were talking about retail investors, how they have been fearful of some market drops, and how they really will never be able to keep up with the increases in the real cost of living (not just official inflation numbers).

His response: “That’s the benefit of being the predator, you don’t have to worry about they pray, you just want them wounded a little bit.”

He could clearly see that neither myself nor my staff were laughing as that kind of attitude is everything we are fighting to stop so he starts to fake laugh and say “Well, I’m Catholic so maybe I need to go to confessional.”

Just think of the thousands or tens of thousands of people who have put money in this guys hands for mutual funds, index funds, estate purposes where he knows whether you win or lose, he will always be the biggest winner in the equation. He wasn’t interested in trying to create multi-generational wealth, he was trying to make a fortune for him and his wife knowing full well that keeping people under the illusion of education, the illusion of safe investing that he was keeping them ‘wounded’ and captive.

The $50 Billion woman

Over 80% of the investable market, wealth building and protection tools, are not available to the public. It’s actually a bit higher than that, but you get the point. Real wealth creation and protection is typically reserved for the wealthy ($35 million in capital is the starting point). The retail financial services market really is a wealth extraction system that funnels small amounts of money from tens of millions of Americans for the stated purpose of creating wealth for the company owners selling those retail financial products and services.

I was on stage talking to about 1,500 people, most of them are retail financial services customers or retail financial service providers. I spoke about how the retail financial services businesses are just that, businesses, and their aim is to make a profit from what the financial products they sell. I explained how when a financial advisor earns a 1% fee and you earn a 5% return then they advisor really isn’t making 1%, they are making 20%. 1 is 20% of 5. The audience let out an audible gasp when the math clicked!

When I got off stage this woman approaches me with an already upset face. I knew that I was going to get an ear full. She proceeds to tell me that she worked for one of the largest firms in the retail financial services industry where she actively managed over $50 billion in retail investor funds. After establishing her resume, the points at me and says, “Do you realize most of the people in that room are retail investors?”

We then had a brief (yet slightly contentious) conversation about how I could have come up on stage and sold that room financial products and made a bunch of money, instead she is mad that I was explaining how the system works against the investor with less than $35 million and by me showing those investors who deserve more opportunities how to access those opportunities I’m working against the ‘system.’ She didn’t like the idea that if people learn how finance and commerce work the service providers those people will turn to will be companies that allow direct participation, lower fees, more opportunities and higher returns and they will turn away from the sales focused financial services companies.

The Insulting Billionaire

I was asked to speak and sign books at a conference for a financial company. This company was massive. They had thousands of financial services sales people and where hiring a few hundred more every week (the reason they were hiring a few hundred every week will become clear to adult readers momentarily).

While in a small group of the founder, myself, and some of the companies upper management we were talking about their business. They were proud to have topped over $500 million in sales and I was asking them about the key to their success.

I’ve been around a lot of retail financial service providers so I was expecting some level of “Finance Bro” hype but what I heard blew my mind.

The founder started laughing and said that because most people don’t understand how money works beyond employment and savings they are “easy targets” and they reason they sell so well is that “The customers are basically just re-res” and when I asked about his multi-thousand person sales team the again laughed about them and said “They are just slightly better trained re-res.”

Now, for those of you who don’t understand the slang, a “re-re” is an insult insinuating that his tens of thousands of clients and his thousands of salespeople are mentally retarded.

Yes, the leader of a national financial service company praised by the retail financial system credits his multi-hundred million dollar a year empire to the fact that retail investors who love etfs, index funds, etc are basically mentally retarded which allows him to succeed.

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The Billion Dollar Fund:

I was at a convention in Las Vegas (I find myself there a few times a year) and I was having a hallway conversation with a man who ran an investment fund targeting 45-65 year old professionals.

When I asked him how he landed on that demographic I was expecting an answer along the lines of, “Well, professionals make enough money where they can afford to make some investments and the age window is perfect as that’s when they are most focused on their retirement.” Which would have made sense to me.

The answer instead was “Because they make a bunch of money and think they so highly of themselves that they think they can figure out investing. All you have to do is regurgitate what they will find on-line when they look up retirement investing, they will count that as ‘research’ and cut you a check. They are the easiest to get money from.”

Maintaining closure of my mouth was very hard but I remember thinking “Well, he was shockingly open with that answer (he had been out with colleagues and feeling good) I might as well ask the next question. “Well even if the investors can’t seem to figure this out, don’t your advisors realize they are just hawking products for profit?”

His second answer was even more shocking. “You would think. It’s not that we want to rip people off, but you’re right, it’s built to shave profit. However, by the time someone gets their Series (a term referring to a test which provides the ability to sell different types of financial services such as mutual funds, stocks, etc) they have typically took it too, hook line and sinker.”

"Ok” I thought to myself, let’s try one more. So I asked “You mean they believe in what they’re selling as much as the people they are trying to sell it to?” At which point his eyes smile as much as his mouth did and said “At that point they are either lifers making a measly couple hundred grand a year worried about their own retirement, or they are out in less than 7 years and we just absorb their book (a reference to their clients) and thank them for the easy client roll.”

Turns out he hires advisors, let’s them be ‘rainmakers’ while they are studying for their series test, they buy into the retail financial services ethos. He starts them out as 20% commission knowing it will be hard to build a book of business, raises it to 50% after a couple years of effort and study, and actually makes twice as much on turn over of financial advisors as he does on the advisors who stay.

”Hey man” He says, “These schmucks make up to 50% of our 1.5% and they think they know how money works. I’m not going to f*ckin’ tell ‘em.”

The term is evil genius for a reason

Those Who Don’t Know Any Better

I have dozens of stories like this, all with witnesses and spanning decades. I want to be clear though, not every person in the retail financial industry knows they are not providing the best service to the clients. There are over five million retail financial services companies employing over thirty million people and I would say the vast majority of those thirty million people are wonderful people who probably think they can make a living while helping normal people achieve a wonderful retirement.

There have been many career long financial service providers who have bought fully into the idea that a 9% return on 15% of your income saved will lead to a healthy retirement where you live off of 80% of your current income via a 6-12% drawdown on assets. While these licensed professionals have been proven demonstrably wrong over the past two generations, they hold on to their financial beliefs like a faithful member of a church or MLM. Meaning they might have wrong beliefs, great intentions, and inappropriate influence which mixed all together can spell disaster.

My advise to you dear reader, do real research not confirmation research and be careful around retail financial professionals because while they may not be as evil as some that I have ran into there is a reason the evil ones find a home in that industry.

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Some of the problem certainly stems from access to more information than we have ever had available prior. You will see more news stories today and consume more information today than people 100 years ago would in almost their entire adult lives and we are simply not built for that overload of date nor that barrage of negativity.

However, that sea of information and news is not the only factor in the falling satisfaction with life. Much of what is happening today that is causing people to feel like they cannot stand the direction society is heading is a mental health crisis that is spreading further and faster than Covid-19 ever did and it is the liberal childish mind in adults.

Let me be really clear here, when I use the word ‘liberal’ that in no way means that only politically liberal voting adults are suffering from this mental illness, the term liberal is being used correctly in a manner describing the liberal (unchecked, unbound, unregulated) childish (immature, irresponsible) mentality a rapidly growing number of adults operate in day to day.

Like many things mental or emotional they tend to be dismissed too easily. Do not make that mistake with this crisis! Just because you cannot see into someone’s mind, you can certainly see real-life examples of this illness all around you.

The Child Mind

According to Mayo Clinic, Psychology Today, Cornell University, Science.org and an amalgamation of other medical sources the following definition is what is considered as The Childish Mind, a mental disorder impacting adults and a crisis level threat as it seems to effect more and more legally aged adults:

· Prone to emotional outbursts when challenged, given boundaries, or definitions that they don’t want to face up to.

· Presents (expresses) out of anger or hostility in order to cover for ignorance or ineptitude.

· Blames others for circumstances or outcomes.

· Name calling to cover for a lack of knowledge or ability.

· Bullying while claiming victimhood.

· Creating ways to present (express) as “different” in a way to garner attention and appear as special or unique due to lack of self-worth and lack of value to society.

· Rejection to, or inability to, learn from mistakes and take corrective action.

· Justifies childish behavior/offerings/decisions as ‘better’, ‘new’, ‘generationally relevant’

· Exaggeration of circumstances in order to create an artificial sense of importance and worth.

· Cannot offer a logical/rational defense of their beliefs and actions.

· Often engages in the activities they accuse other of conducting.

· Severe cases can result in acts of screaming, assault against people or property to include but not limited to vandalism and spitting and can even lead to loss of life. Many times, the severe cases present a danger to the adult with the child mind and the general public as a whole.

The Signs of adult childish behavior and low emotional intelligence, if consistent, can be an indication of on-going mental disorder.

How to Interact with Childish Adults or Adult Mental Disorder:

Set boundaries and do not engage with their behavior as continued engagement and access only encourages bad behavior.

Limit access, authority and responsibilities to prevent any form of damage being done to themselves or others

Do NOT reward or engage with their behavior in order to pacify, gain peace, or otherwise benefit as this only creates a continuation of bad behavior and likely an escalation of the poor behavior in the future.

Consequences of a population base suffering from such a mental health crisis:

According to Science.org, as little at 10-15% of a population base suffering from such a condition can be enough to shift the entire community. Consequences most likely to ensure:

- Increased hate amongst the population group
- Decreased economic output
- Less likelihood of collective effort to have positive results (socialism, collectivism, volunteerism less likely to be successful for example)
- Less satisfaction in relationship both romantic and familial
- More extreme movements politically and socially
- Rise of violence, hate, racism, bigotry all in the name of fighting racism, violence, hatred and bigotry

Why does this threaten Humanity?

Whether you, as the reader, believe the biggest issue facing humanity is:

• Abortion/Freedom of Choice

• Global Warming

• Democracy

• Salvation through Faith

Whatever you think the issue is, the ability to win is directly tied to the ability of other adults to process thought, use deductive reasoning, and then act on the conclusion rather than their emotional feelings as to what they want the conclusion to be.

For that reason, we are focusing my show, formerly The Josh Tolley Show, on advancing people’s ability to think logically on all issues and the show will now be known as The Logical Podcast.

Additionally, I have launched a non-profit for the advancement of logical living where we will be educating the public, funding lawsuits to bring logic back to the legal justice system, funding research in an effort to restore the scientific method.

As we embark on this mission I strongly urge you to join us! We are not asking for your money, we are asking for your commitment, your commitment to think logically, to develop yourself into an adult that finds true joy while bettering the world around them. This is a non-partisan mission so please keep your party bias outside and please also let others know you are making this change.

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