WEBVTT

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They may just say to me,
you know what, we don't want your

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kind. Ask not what your country
can do for you, Ask what you

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can do for your country. Mister
Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's

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the Ricochet Podcast. I'm Rob Long, joined by Peter Robinson and Steve Hayward.

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James Lylats is off this week.
Our guest today is Seamus Brunner,

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who's written an amazing book about billionaires. Stay with us. It's when that

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speech crosses into conduct that violates our
policies against bullying arounds that speech not cost

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that barrier? Does that speech not
call for the genocide of Jews and the

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elimination of Israel? America is a
nation that can be defined in a single

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word. How's the foot him?
Excuse me? Hello, and welcome to

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the Ricochet Podcast. This is episode
number six hundred and sixty nine. Every

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time I say that number is just
astonishing. Uh. You can join us

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at rickchet dot com and be part
of the most stimulating conversation and community on

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the web. We hope you do. Go to ricochet dot com right now,

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but in the meantime, have a
listen to us. I am Rob

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Long, coming to you from New
York City and joined as always by my

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Ricochet co founder Peter Robinson and Palo
Alto. Peter, how are you?

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I'm extremely well, rob how are
you? I'm doing great? And we

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are also joined by Ricochet's I do
we could Holy friend Rickochet, marrit Ricochet

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adjunct visiting professor Steve Hayward. Steve, are you You're somewhere kind of glamorous?

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Right? Yeah, I'm in central
coast of California. Well, this

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week I'm struggling to find my context. Rob, I've lost my context and

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I can't find it anywhere. So
you brought it up. Let's start,

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let's go so it. Presidents of
Harvard University of Pennsylvania and Matthews Institute of

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Technology MITA were somehow bested by at
least aphanic in the house, which is

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a kind of doubly triply humiliating for
them. And I was just going to

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ask you so so they couldn't answer
a simple question which seemed pretty obvious to

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the rest of us, right easy
to answer. They kept saying it to

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me, you know, whether they
condemn a calling, whether calling for the

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genocide of Jews violates their own university
speech standards, they couldn't answer that question.

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Now, my real question to you
is this, the the combined endowment

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figures for all three of those universities
got to be one hundred billion dollars,

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right, correct? Correct, But
I'm not exactly close to one hundred billion

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dollars. You'd think they'd be better
prepared. You'd think they would have anticipated

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this question, right, They both, all three of them look so terrified

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and stunned. What. Well,
Okay, so I'll go next, because

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Steve, having spent a great deal
of time in academia in recent years,

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we'll actually have detailed will have thought
this through the level of detail that I

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couldn't approach. On the one hand, I felt a certain sympathy for the

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three of them because they were all
attempting to answer the question under First Amendment

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jurisprudence. They got hung up on
that. And under the First Amendment,

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even calling for the genocide of an
entire people is legal. Speech is legal

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until Oliver Wondell Holmes Old test you
get a clear and eminent danger shouting fire

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in a crowded theater. But of
course that isn't really the relevant standard because

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all three of these institutions long,
long ago tossed a sigh any attempt to

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live up to the First Amendment,
or any rigorous attempt to incorporate First Amendment

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standards into the standards of their own
universities. So I may get this wrong

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in one detail or another, but
you'll understand the general point I'm trying to

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make. At Harvard, if you
miss gender someone, that's a serious offense.

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At Penn there are proceedings moving forward. I believe they're still underway against

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Amy Waxman, a brilliant published,
widely published, widely respected teacher at the

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University of Pennsylvania Law School. And
why is that? Because she has suggested

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certain things that we know to be
statistically true, that there's a higher crime

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rate among African Americans, that young
American, young African American males are more

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given to crime, they come from
broken All of this is you're not a

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allowed to say it, even though
as far as I'm aware, no one

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has even alleged that Amy Waxman has
said anything untrue. She's said things that

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make people extreme. And by the
way, of course, all this is

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uncomfortable to hear. I'd rather not
hear it, even myself, I'd rather

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not hear it, but it's true. It's certainly covered by the First Amendment,

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but it's not covered by the University
of Pennsylvania's own actual standards. So

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a least Stephanic asks asks a straightforward
question, don't come up here and try

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to pretend that you abide by the
First Amendment when we know that you cease

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doing that years and years ago according
to your own standards, Are people on

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your campus allowed to call for the
genocide of the Jewish people? And of

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course the answer should have been an
immediate no. That would violate our standards.

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They could not bring themselves to say
that, and that was just I

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don't so over to Steve, why
were they trying to pretend? Why were

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they attempt to wrap themselves in the
First Amendment? We all three of them

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absolutely had to know that they were
going to run into trouble on this.

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Yeah, well, three points.
One is the universities have been trying to

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navigate between academic freedom and the First
Amendment and preserving safe spaces for all their

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protected classes, and now that has
all blown up in their face and they

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don't know what to do about it. Second, I'm quite sure that they

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had lawyers and pr people supplying them
with talking points, and all those people

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live in a campus bubble and did
not realize. By the way, it

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wasn't just at least stemanic. There
was Kevin Kylie, I think, was

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the guy who said, if I
am a parent of a Jewish prospective student,

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can you assure them they'll be safe
on campus? They couldn't even answer

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that monequivocally, couldn't even give a
generality about having a safe space. Here's

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my hypothesis about what's ultimately the problem
here. And this will sound contradict you

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at first because it has two propositions. The first proposition is, and I

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think people will perceive this and maybe
not the second one. The first one

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is college administrators are terrified of the
campus left, of their leftist true,

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true, true. The second proposition
right now, the second proposition takes a

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minute to understand what squares with the
first one, which is campus administrators,

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deans, department chairs, they actually
don't take the left seriously. But that

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I don't mean they're not afraid of
them. They don't take their ideas seriously.

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When you hear Larry Summers, former
president of Harvard, or my Dean

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Chemerinsky say I can't believe we're getting
this anti semitism. Chemerinsky's phrase was nothing

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that's prepared me for the anti semitism
that I'm seeing right now. It's been

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there all along. But the point
is when they read some crazy you know,

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the left wants ethnic studies, gender
studies, they want colonial studies,

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and all the intersectionality business. It's
the easy, the path of least resistance.

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Say sure, go ahead, and
to have a department hire twenty crazy

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faculty in what they now call cluster
hires around social justice. And now suddenly

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these people say, oh, actually, we really do mean that we want

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Jews to die and for Israel to
cease to exist. And the reason they're

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surprised is they all thought this was
just fun and games. We can do

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land acknowledgments, right, the land
acknowledgements drive me crazy. We can always

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do. No one ever says,
let's give the land back under Yale or

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Berkeley or Harvard. Only Israel has
to give the land back. That's what

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the mob is demanding. Right,
So it was double standards galore, and

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give back to whom. I wonder
though, that's the other question is yeah,

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well, yes, of course,
I mean it's ridiculous stuff. But

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everybody, I mean, I've seen
these land A student will give a land

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acknowledgment and some professor or an illustrator
will go, thank you for that very

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profound statement. They don't mean that, they know it's nonsense, but they

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go along with it. And now
that they really mean it, they are

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powerless to say anything intelligible because they've
been complicit. I mean, sorry,

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I'm sorry, I'm ranting, But
the explanation I've heard Hilarry Summers has been

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was president of Harvard. He did
nothing to get in the way of this

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spreading cancer on the Harvard campus.
One morgal of detail. Sorry, I

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file away job ads for department searching
professors, and I file away all the

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ones saying we want somebody by the
way in English, German, literature,

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all kinds of all the disciplines in
the humanities, and we want someone who

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will work in decolonialization and intersectionality.
Now where are the provosts? You know,

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the provosts at universities are supposed to
be the quality control officers they ought

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to be saying no, you can't
have that ad. Some of those ads,

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by the way, we want especially
underrepresented minorities to apply for these positions.

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That comes right up to the water's
edge of being an illegal ad under

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Title seven of these Civil Rights Acts. So yeah, the provost ought to

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be standing up and saying no,
you can't do this, but they couldn't.

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I mean, right, but just
one moment, I'm just to repeat

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to build on Peter's sympathy, which
I you know, misplay sympathy, but

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I'm really good at misplay sympathy.
Yeah, what if Claudine Gay had said,

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president of Harvard University, had said, yes, it does violate,

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Well, then she's got to go
and punish all those students, like what's

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that one thousand of them, five
hundred them like in a in a stroke

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of a pen, one utterance that
she's got to enforce the rules, which

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she doesn't want to force that,
so she they're in a terrible position where

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they have to weasel word their way
out of it in an incredibly dishonest way,

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because you're exactly right, You're to
be honest, means you're gonna like

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they're all gonna what are they all
gonna go? Like even today there was

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a student at NYU who's too tore
down one of those posters, and NYU

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said, okay, well you're out
for till the till fall. But of

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course that's a cascade of tragedies for
this student because she's on financial aid and

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she has to beat the dorms,
and she has to do all this other

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stuff, and she's on scholarship and
all these things, right, which,

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of course you think about before you
violate university policy. But at the same

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time, most of the students had
no idea that those policies applied to them,

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right, like, these are just
rules to keep you from wearing a

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sombrero at a Halloween party. I
hadn't thought of this, But you,

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being an old time script writer,
you know exactly what would have come next.

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At least Stephonic, You're exactly right. The next way, if Claudie

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Kay, the president of Harvard,
had said, yes, that does violate

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our standards, then Elsa Stephanic would
have said, well, then, doctor

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k what disciplinary action have you taken
against the twelve students who did a sit

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in in your library? What disciplinary
action have you taken against this outrage or

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this outrage or this outrage? And
the answer, of course would have been

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actually none. You're right, You're
right, those women were in an impossible

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situation. It still surprises me that
they seem so unprepared. I'm unprepared for

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that. And also, I mean, part of the problem is that we

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now I've been listening to this for
the past three years, and one of

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the things I find ridiculous, ludicrous. But I've accepted that people believe is

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that speech is violence, speech is
harmful. So if that's the case,

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then whatever your speech is, you
got to be careful. I don't approve

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of that. I don't think that's
right. But if those are the rules,

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those are the rules. And then
suddenly say, well, no,

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no, no context is important.
Oh no, no, no, no,

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I mean actually only if it becomes
conduct Well, I mean that that

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just sounds like we're turning the clock
back because it's inconvenient now to have these

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standards, which I mean, the
other part of I have to say the

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the other part of this for me
is that I find all this really glorious.

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I gotta be honest, I'm enjoying
every second of it. I mean,

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I am not a good person.
I'm loving it. I'm loving it.

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I love a lot watching them squirm. I love the weasel worthy backtracking

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the next day. I love all
the anguish. I love the fact that

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all the trustees are getting together sayings, do we need to make a change

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here? I love it. I
call it like a Christmas present, a

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big, rich, delicious, gooey
plum pudding. I mean, it's horrible

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that it's in this context, but
I mean I would be lying if I

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didn't tell you that I loved every
minute. There's that great German word for

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this, right shotenfreud. But Rob, we should you know, we should

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have that with chocolate sauce and whip
with a cherry on yep, right now?

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Man, Oh, let's just ad
this thought. Uh, you know,

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I follow the public opinion polls on
this. In public regard for higher

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education has been slipping badly the last
five to ten years. It is polarized

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more Republicans than Democrats. There used
to be no gap between Republicans and Democrats

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and regard for universities, and it
was always very high. Now it's split,

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but it's even down among Democrats.
And I'll bet the next survey taken

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that asked the question will show a
discernible drop from the events of the last

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two months. One closing observation almost
even prediction. One suggestion. The suggestion

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is keep your eyes on Pen in
particular. Yeah, Penn has, for

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various historical reasons, has an especially
act has had and especially and does have

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an especially active and devoted Jewish contingent
among its alumni. And one after another

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has gone public put it in writing, this is not the way trustees,

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former trustees alumni is a big time, big money alumni ordinarily behave. Ordinarily

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things are handled quietly. They've gone
public saying unless things change, no more

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money from us. And this one
man yesterday, astonishing that he had had

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the foresight to do this, he
gave Pen one hundred million dollars in stock,

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but in the fine print reserved the
right to cancel that stock, in

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effect, to take it back if
Penn behaved in such a way as to

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reflect badly on the reputation of his
own firm. And he has now written

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a letter to pen It's public saying, unless President McGill goes, that one

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hundred million dollars gets canceled. Now, I have had some experience with trustees,

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and I can tell you that trustees
become intensely uncomfortable with questions of equity

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and first amendment versus this right and
balance. They really they don't want to,

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they don't feel they understand it.
They don't. But money. I

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can guarantee that there have been phone
calls among the trustees at Penn saying is

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this lady really worth one hundred million
dollars? Yeah? I mean it comes

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down to this right. Either you
can take my money or you can say

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podcast, especially now at big Retail
Christmas season. We got a guest.

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Our next guest, Seamus Bruner.
Seamus Bruner is the director of research at

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the Government Accountability Institute. He's the
author of the recently published Controligarchs, exposing

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the billionaire class their secret deals on
the globalist plot to dominate your life.

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Shamus, that sounds very left wing, Seamus. If you're going to have

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trouble with any of the hosts on
this show, it's going to be Robbie.

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Yeah, come back right now.
I mean, I kind of know

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why I don't like billionaires, because
they all tend to do exactly the same

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thing, and they complain a lot. But what what's your what? What

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what's wrong with What's what's a control
of ARC? That's a great question.

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And I wrote this book to appeal
across the political spectrum. It's actually much

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more important than a political book.
It's this is an existential book. This

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is the billionaire are not all bad, you know, not all billionaires.

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Most billionaires are quite good. And
there's three thousand billionaires. This is only

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about thirty of them. And there's
nothing wrong with making money. I mean,

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we're capitalists, so there's nothing wrong
with making money. But it's what

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you do with that money. So
I define a control of ARC as a

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billionaire or bureaucrat who is plotting and
scheming to dominate every aspect of everyone's life.

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They want to control every industry,
from food to health to information,

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I mean critically information. And once
they have control over things like the food

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sector, the information sector, the
financial sector, they can turn the dials

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and pull the levers and nudge you
in certain directions, and they really want

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to change your behavior. You see
that with control over the energy sector,

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actually banning gas stoves, banning gas
vehicles, you know, banning cows.

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So, Seamus, you're not saying
this is not the old charge that used

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to be leveled against John D.
Rockefeller Senior, that he was using his

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money to corner markets and make even
more money. He was using his money

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for profit. You're saying that there
are thirty billionaires who are using their effectively.

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They're giving, well, explain this, but they're using their money for

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ideological purposes. I'm going to guess
that one of the thirty you mentioned in

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your book is George Soros. For
example, give us two or three names.

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Yeah, so George Soros. Of
course he gets his own chapter and

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we talk about the Open Society mission
and how he uses things like that.

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I mean who could be against an
open society it sounds lovely, and who

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could be against things like a democracy
initiative or democracy partners? But he really

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inverts the meaning of these words by
buying off very small election. I mean,

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we see it with the prosecutors and
sowing chaos in our cities, opening

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the prisons. George Sorees is sort
of a special control of ARC. But

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the other ones. I mean you've
got Bill Gates of course at the at

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the top there, and then all
of the guys who go to the World

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Economic Forum and talk about things like
going cash lists or implementing digital IDs that

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are effectively going to be social credit
scores. I mean, I thought,

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the reason I wrote this book is
because there's all these things that sound like

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crazy conspiracy theories, and then then
you dig in and you see, well,

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actually, no, they do want
to use a form of digital ID

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to track movements and track activities.
And if you are going the wrong places,

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doing the wrong things, buying the
wrong things, you'll get you know,

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you know, you'll have sort of
this social credit score. We see

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it right now in Ireland. If
you're attending protests or riots, whatever the

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case may be. They want to
take away your right to free speech.

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And actually they're talking about taking away
the entitlements of these protesters, taking away

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you know, Europe's got it more
of a welfare state, but they've got

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sort of basic, universal, basic
incomes. They want to freeze their assets.

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You saw it in Canada with the
truckers. They wanted to freeze the

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trucker protests assets. So the motivation
here would be what these are people who

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are already so rich that the usual
motivation that still affects most of us,

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which is paying the mortgage, setting
something aside for retirement, they got They

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blew past that ages and ages ago. The mere accumulation of money after a

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certain level becomes uninteresting to them.
I'm trotting this out to see if this

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is if you approve of this,
if this is right, And so all

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their gratification shifts from earning profits to
doing good, and they define doing good

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as in one way or another,
manipulating the way the rest of us live.

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In the interest of George Soros as
a particular and I think skewed sense

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of justice. Bill Gates is on
and on about the planet and how we

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need to shift from eating beef to
eating I don't know what grasshoppers or grass

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or somethings. Yeah, so have
I got that these billionaires of whom the

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rest of us should be on red
alert because in one way or another,

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they're coming after us. To them, they're doing good. That's all they

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want to do with all their pile
of money is to do good. Is

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that right? Yeah? I mean
the chapter one is called the Good Club.

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They actually formed this club called the
Good Club. That should be a

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big red flag right there. You'd
think they could come up with something a

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little more creative. And so the
first meeting of the Good Club was in

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May two thousand and nine. Bill
Gates convened the meeting. It was at

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Rockefeller University in New York. George
Sorows was a co sponsor. There were

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00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:59.200
other billionaires there, Oprah Winfrey,
Ted Turner, among about ten others.

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And so they get together in May
two thousand age Yes, right, the

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people who want to save the planet. It's a very ambitious goal. And

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so they get together and they say, well, Barack Obama's just been elected.

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We've all spent an enormous amount of
money and influence to get him there.

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Uh. It's also in kind of
the the tail end of the global

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00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:22.759
financial crisis. So there's this populis
resentment rising up amongst the people who've all

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been foreclosed upon. And these guys
all made a boatload of money, people

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00:23:27.400 --> 00:23:33.319
like Warren Buffett Blackrock is a ConTroll
of arc entity. And so, uh,

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00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:34.519
they get together and they say,
what should we spend all of our

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00:23:34.559 --> 00:23:38.039
money on. We've got this,
uh, this great president who can you

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know, do what we want?
And they basically all unify around this cause

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of overpopulation. And you hear Bill
Gates talk about it. And this is

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00:23:47.480 --> 00:23:51.559
another one of those things that is, you know, conspiracy theorist fodder that

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00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:55.880
I wanted to get to the bottom
of and overpopulation. So is the earth

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00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:59.279
overpopulated? I mean, that's a
debate that we should be having. Some

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00:23:59.319 --> 00:24:02.880
people say absolutely not. It's we've
got plenty of space. If you've ever

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00:24:03.160 --> 00:24:07.160
traveled by airplane over and lost countries. Let me guess they never say to

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each other there are far too many
billionaires. Now all say there are far

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00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:15.599
too many peasants. Exactly right.
And so George Sorows has got five kids,

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00:24:15.799 --> 00:24:21.400
Ted Turner's got five or six kids. So actually Ted Turner has proposed

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that entrepreneurial, enterprising peasants could actually
sell their fertility rights. I mean it's

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00:24:26.519 --> 00:24:30.319
a new thing. I had never
heard of fertility rights. So if you're

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00:24:30.359 --> 00:24:33.359
poor and you make yeah, it's
like a carbon offs at a child offset,

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00:24:33.359 --> 00:24:36.680
you could sell it to, you
know, a billionaire who might want

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00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:40.960
to have more than two. Okay, So these guys are lefty nuts and

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00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:45.680
the only reason that we pay attention
to them, should pay attention to them,

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00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:49.279
but we should is that they are
so rich and so well connected in

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00:24:49.319 --> 00:24:55.799
the technocracy that runs much of the
country that they're coming after us and they

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00:24:55.799 --> 00:24:59.400
can actually get Okay, Now,
one more question before I toss it over

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00:24:59.400 --> 00:25:00.920
to Steve Hayr. You don't know
Steve as well as I do, but

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00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:06.559
I can tell from his eyes that
he's desperate to get in here. So

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00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:15.279
are there any of these billionaires who
are doing good? Are there any who

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00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:22.440
are giving their fortunes to the charter
school movement or to the founding of new

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00:25:22.839 --> 00:25:27.039
churches? Are there any who are
proceeding with a certain humility and actually giving

337
00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:34.119
their money away and toward causes of
which we might approve? Certainly many,

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00:25:34.240 --> 00:25:38.200
there are many, many good billionaires
out there. This book isn't about them,

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00:25:38.319 --> 00:25:42.480
but and I don't and I don't
want to care. It wouldn't sell

340
00:25:44.440 --> 00:25:48.400
right right one day. But no, the billionaires who fund, you know,

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00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:52.720
like causes like our own, so
you can you can look those those

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00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:56.799
individuals up, their great American patriots
and the funders of charter schools especially.

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00:25:56.839 --> 00:25:59.720
And I don't want to caricature you
know, these guys on the cover of

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00:25:59.759 --> 00:26:02.119
the look. I mean, I
certainly don't. I get deep into their

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00:26:02.200 --> 00:26:06.720
history and kind of find out what
makes them tick. And Bill Gates,

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00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:11.119
for example, he's rebranded as this
philanthropist, so no, he's, you

347
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:12.279
know, not the guys in this
book, they're not giving to those good

348
00:26:12.279 --> 00:26:15.319
causes. But they do, I'm
sure give to good causes. I mean,

349
00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:18.000
they've given enormous sums of money.
But if you were to look at

350
00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:19.359
a pie chart, it would be
like the width of a paper clip on

351
00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:23.720
the pie chart the money that they
are they are spending. Like Bill Gates,

352
00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:27.400
for example, he was never very
charitable at all. I read,

353
00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:33.559
you know, his father's memoirs and
accounts from his siblings and accounts from Microsoft

354
00:26:33.559 --> 00:26:37.000
employees. While he had a much
more active role in the company, by

355
00:26:37.039 --> 00:26:38.440
all accounts, he was brutal.
I mean, his sister said he was

356
00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:42.960
quote nasty his mother. John D. Rockefeller Senior, this is a man

357
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.119
who was absolutely ruthless in acquiring his
fortune, who's now rebranding himself as a

358
00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:53.559
man who gives dimes to children.
Well, it's brilliant of you to bring

359
00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:56.920
up that comparison, and I get
into it in the book, and it's

360
00:26:56.920 --> 00:27:00.799
just sort of what as Rob tell
you, Yeah, of course that's his

361
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:07.240
industry. Well, actually, it's
fascinating that the Rockefellers were in John Due

362
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:12.720
and were a prototype of control of
arc prototype where it was only after the

363
00:27:12.799 --> 00:27:18.680
Justice Department started looking into the practices
of Standard Oil or in Bill Gates' case,

364
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.880
Microsoft, that they set up their
foundations. And then they set up

365
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:26.680
these foundations in John D's case,
starts giving dimes out and Bill Gates's case

366
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:32.680
starts giving out million dollar checks to
schools and libraries. Now, was he

367
00:27:32.799 --> 00:27:34.680
just trying to help the kids learn? Or was he trying to implement things

368
00:27:34.720 --> 00:27:41.119
like social emotional learning, this intentionally
vague term that does away with arithmetic and

369
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:47.359
science and math and puts in things
like DEI into kids' brains. But it's

370
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:51.759
more like brainwashing. But anyhow,
Bill Gates, I mean, on her

371
00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:53.960
death Bet his mother was pleading with
him. He's now the richest man.

372
00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.640
It's the mid nineties and he's been
the world's richest man for twenty of the

373
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.480
last thirty years. She says,
please please give some of your money to

374
00:28:00.559 --> 00:28:04.680
charity. He still would not until
he sets up the Bill and Melinda Gates

375
00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:08.480
Foundation. I mean, you should
watch some of the anti trust depositions where

376
00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:11.559
they're in, you know, questioning
Bill Gates about his practices. It's very

377
00:28:11.799 --> 00:28:17.200
Clintonian how he's like, I don't
know what you mean by, you know,

378
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:21.160
cut off the air supply to my
competitors. But he sets up the

379
00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:26.480
BILLI Milinda Gates Foundation, rebrands,
becomes this great philanthropist and since then he's

380
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.960
gotten into a lot of industries.
Now Bill Gates is he's a farmer,

381
00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:34.680
he's he's a doctor, he's an
educator. He's got a lot of hats

382
00:28:34.680 --> 00:28:38.240
that he wears. But but and
it's not a problem that he wants to

383
00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:41.680
invest. He kind of says,
Oh, I'm just investing in farmland to

384
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:47.440
diversify my holdings. But what we
found at the government Accountability Institute. Is

385
00:28:47.480 --> 00:28:52.079
he's using the same tactic that Microsoft
used. It was called embrace, extend,

386
00:28:52.279 --> 00:28:56.759
extinguish, where he enters an industry, extends his reach and then works

387
00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:00.559
to extinguish and cut off the competition. Now that the way they're doing that

388
00:29:00.599 --> 00:29:07.160
to the farmers is with all these
climate change regulations and emission standards and to

389
00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:10.359
save the planet ostensibly. But I
can tell you, I can tell you

390
00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:14.039
the fake meats that he invests in
beyond meat impossible foods, a lot of

391
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:18.119
these lab grown meats that are coming
up, they're more energy intensive. I

392
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:22.400
mean, nobody knows sustainability better than
a farmer. They go out of business

393
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:26.319
if they don't treat the land and
be good stewards of the soil. So

394
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:30.839
these companies that are growing it in
labs are much more omitting of what Bill

395
00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:36.759
Gates would call greenhouse gases. Yeah, seamous, it's Steve Hayward out in

396
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:40.440
California. By the way, there's
something quaint. I'm glad you margin farmer.

397
00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:42.160
See if we call him, well, I did roll grapes for a

398
00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:47.079
little while once upon a time.
It's funny that you would mentioned Bill Gates

399
00:29:47.119 --> 00:29:51.000
and the anti trust business because this
now is sort of ancient history. But

400
00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:55.400
what we were afraid of was,
oh my god, Internet Explorer might dominate

401
00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:57.559
the browser market, which nowadays this
just shows you the problem with the anti

402
00:29:57.559 --> 00:30:03.039
trust. But I started spending some
time around Silicon Valley entrepreneurs gosh, almost

403
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:07.079
thirty years ago now because I'm getting
old, and there were two things that

404
00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:11.079
struck me. One was, especially
in the case of Gates, like why

405
00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:12.680
is the government coming after us?
What did we do wrong? I mean,

406
00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:15.200
yeah, we're tough competitors, but
they didn't get it. They didn't

407
00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:19.920
understand politics. Instead the dominant mentality. And I know Peter probably sees this

408
00:30:19.960 --> 00:30:25.519
because he lives there. Is your
tech entrepreneurs don't understand politics. They don't

409
00:30:25.599 --> 00:30:30.160
understand why social problems aren't solved like
engineering problems. They're actually social engineers.

410
00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:33.599
They don't realize that social engineering is
a you know, for all kinds of

411
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:37.799
reasons that we all know is a
ridiculous idea. They think they're smarter than

412
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:41.039
we are, because why shouldn't they
think that they've made all this money and

413
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:45.279
given us all this technological progress.
And I think the apotheosis of this was

414
00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:48.440
seen a few months ago or I
guess last year now with the downfall of

415
00:30:48.519 --> 00:30:52.920
Sam Bankman Freed. Now we follow
all his crypto shenanigans, But the part

416
00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:59.359
that arrested me and still does was
the fascination with effective altruism. Yes,

417
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:02.720
and why were they going to be
effective? Because they're smarter than the rest

418
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:06.599
of us and no better. The
implicit understanding of that, by the way,

419
00:31:06.680 --> 00:31:08.920
is that what the Ford Foundation and
the Rockefeller Foundation have been doing for

420
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:15.359
decades was ineffective. I have to
say it's another moment of schadenfreud, which

421
00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:18.720
has sort of been a theme here
today. So there's this hub risk they

422
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:22.519
have and that they're smarter than us, and that's what makes them dangerous.

423
00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:26.720
I mean Carnegie. And here's the
distinction. These guys want to change the

424
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:30.720
world because they have a vision.
The older billionaires like Carnegie, they thought

425
00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:34.720
when Carnegie's case, he thought it
was an obligation to give back on moral

426
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:37.160
grounds, right, he thought if
he dived any money at all, he'd

427
00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:41.400
go to hell. And the Rockefellers
it's a mixed bag. But they want

428
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:47.920
to do good and but no,
this new class has got they're completely different

429
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:51.359
class a billionaire by the way,
that's why. I love your title control

430
00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:55.319
of Guark. I think that's absolutely
perfect. They don't see any reason why

431
00:31:55.319 --> 00:32:00.279
they shouldn't be in control deep down
inside their contemptuous of democracy. Sorry,

432
00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:01.759
Seamus, this isn't really question.
It's a long rant, but I wonder

433
00:32:01.799 --> 00:32:06.920
if it's a wonderful You're nailing it, Steve, You're nailing it. Go

434
00:32:07.039 --> 00:32:09.839
on continue, No, no,
I just that's sort of my observation is

435
00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:14.920
this is a different class of philanthropy
and quite sinister. Yeah, well,

436
00:32:14.960 --> 00:32:19.200
you're absolutely right. So there's this
great MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, and he

437
00:32:19.279 --> 00:32:22.160
actually captures exactly what you just said
by saying, I mean they basically have

438
00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:27.519
a god complex. Why because they've
built their own worlds, these digital worlds,

439
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:30.759
things like Meta and Facebook and Microsoft, and they think because they can

440
00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:36.319
turn the dials and pull the levers
in their own digital worlds and get their

441
00:32:36.519 --> 00:32:40.000
intended results there and everything's perfect and
to their liking, that they can export

442
00:32:40.079 --> 00:32:44.079
that ability to the real world.
And that's the problem because they can't.

443
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:47.279
You can't social engineer. All you
can do is try to control people,

444
00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:51.880
and Americans we don't want to be
controlled. And that's one of the big

445
00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:54.200
problems. I mean, the number
one goal of these controller guards that just

446
00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:58.799
the people in this book, not
all billionaires obviously, but just these guys,

447
00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:06.319
is they want to transfer power from
individuals and from even countries to international

448
00:33:06.359 --> 00:33:10.720
institutions, things like the World Economic
Form, the United Nations, you know,

449
00:33:10.759 --> 00:33:17.200
the World Health Organization, institutions they
control supernational organizations. And so I

450
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:21.559
mean that's how George Soro sort of
plays into this. He wants to abolish

451
00:33:21.599 --> 00:33:24.039
borders. I mean a lot of
the chaos that we're seeing in our lives

452
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:29.440
now, from open borders to crime
in our cities, to even inflations,

453
00:33:29.839 --> 00:33:37.000
is really about weakening nations so that
international institutions can swoop in and save the

454
00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:42.279
day. So aside from buying your
book, which however, is not to

455
00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:45.400
be neglected. The name of the
book is ConTroll of Garcs and you can

456
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:49.759
get it on Amazon or anywhere else
that books are sold, or any other

457
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:57.039
monopolistic platform. Exactly buy it from
your localist bookstore. Please. Aside from

458
00:33:57.039 --> 00:34:00.759
buying your book, Shamus, what
should we do? What in the is

459
00:34:00.799 --> 00:34:07.079
there is there scope somehow for a
peasants revolt? Well visionary World Economic Forum

460
00:34:07.159 --> 00:34:10.079
visionary? You've all. Noah Harari
says, no, there's no hope.

461
00:34:10.519 --> 00:34:15.960
Abandon all hope, you peasants.
The peasant revolts of previous centuries are impossible.

462
00:34:15.960 --> 00:34:21.360
Today. I think I have great
hope. I think there's awakening happening

463
00:34:21.440 --> 00:34:24.000
amongst the people, I mean on
the right, conservatives. The debate for

464
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:28.280
at least forty years has been no
tax cuts, in regulation, that's our

465
00:34:28.320 --> 00:34:31.519
economic policy. And we're starting to
realize that the big corporations do not have

466
00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:37.639
our best interests in mind. And
so previously one might defend corporations like Microsoft

467
00:34:37.760 --> 00:34:40.840
or Meta. No, the debate
of the future and we're starting to wake

468
00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:45.119
up to this is over artificial intelligence, which is going to bring about a

469
00:34:45.239 --> 00:34:51.000
unit like you're already hearing calls for
a universal basic income UBI. And Sam

470
00:34:51.039 --> 00:34:53.760
Altman, the head of open ai
chat you know, off and on again,

471
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:59.679
head of open ai chat GPTs maker. He says that UBI is coming

472
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.480
because job losses are coming, big
job losses, and it's going to hit

473
00:35:02.519 --> 00:35:06.400
the professional classes first. I mean, you may be listening and thinking of,

474
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:07.519
well, I'm safe from you know, I use AI right now.

475
00:35:07.760 --> 00:35:12.840
Just no, you are training your
replacement. And so when everybody starts losing

476
00:35:12.880 --> 00:35:15.519
their jobs, and you'll see more
and more videos of people in their car

477
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:20.119
crying about how they can't afford rent
or groceries. In their tragic videos,

478
00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:22.840
the UBI will be pitched as the
solution. Well, we can just give

479
00:35:22.880 --> 00:35:28.320
you a meager, you know,
monthly check and you'll be fine. Sam

480
00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:30.320
Altman, by the way, says
it'll be a thirteen thousand, five hundred

481
00:35:30.320 --> 00:35:34.119
dollars check. And you may he
already knows the figure, yeah he,

482
00:35:34.199 --> 00:35:37.920
Oh, for all two hundred and
fifty million working Americans, it'll be thirteen

483
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:39.360
thousand, five hundred. And you
may think, well that ain't bad,

484
00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:43.079
you know, I could I can
make ends meet on thirteen thousand, five

485
00:35:43.159 --> 00:35:45.079
hundred a month. No, no, no, it's thirteen thousand, five

486
00:35:45.159 --> 00:35:52.320
hundred per year. According to Sam
Altman's manifesto about the coming AI revolutions,

487
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:55.440
and so what do we back our
own billionaires? Do we back the good

488
00:35:55.440 --> 00:36:00.280
billionaires? Is there any hope of
a Godzilla versus King Kong? We've got

489
00:36:00.280 --> 00:36:07.119
Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and David
Sachs and Joe Lonsdale. And in New

490
00:36:07.199 --> 00:36:09.119
York there's Cliff Ass. I mean, there are Cliff astness. I should

491
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:15.599
finish pronouncing his name. There are
good guy billionaires who seem I won't say

492
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:20.360
they're all spoiling. Elon Musk does
seem to be a man who enjoys a

493
00:36:20.400 --> 00:36:22.559
fight. He's spoiling for a fight. But the people that just named are

494
00:36:22.599 --> 00:36:28.000
willing to fight. Do we just
repose our hope in them and hope that

495
00:36:28.039 --> 00:36:32.920
Godzilla defeats can Kong? Well?
Number one, we need to wake up

496
00:36:32.920 --> 00:36:37.679
and spread the word about what's coming
and what these guys are up to before

497
00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:42.559
they close the close the loop and
close the net around us. But so

498
00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:45.119
that's that's the first thing is you've
got to be aware. You've got to

499
00:36:45.159 --> 00:36:47.440
have the facts. You've got to
be able to articulate these facts convincingly to

500
00:36:47.559 --> 00:36:52.800
your peers and your friends and your
family and evangelize you know that you know

501
00:36:52.840 --> 00:36:54.840
we don't want to be controlled.
Number two. Yeah, there's a there's

502
00:36:54.840 --> 00:37:02.119
a big imbalance between the George Soros
ATM machine and the Silicon Valley lads,

503
00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:06.920
the guys in this book. I
mean, they are spending enormous sums and

504
00:37:07.039 --> 00:37:10.000
we have great funders on the right. You mentioned them, and you know

505
00:37:10.039 --> 00:37:15.320
they're very generous and study after study
shows that conservatives are more generous than liberals.

506
00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:21.360
But there's an imbalance there just is
on you know, funding causes on

507
00:37:21.400 --> 00:37:23.920
the right, and so you know, not to not to say that they

508
00:37:23.960 --> 00:37:27.400
need to spend more, but they
really do. And I mean, we

509
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:30.480
may never match the George Soros ATM
machine, but it's important that we try

510
00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:37.079
one more question before I repose your
final moments in the in the tender hands

511
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:43.800
of Rob Long. And here's the
question. What are I'm very impressed And

512
00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:45.880
this isn't a question I'm going to
give a little speech myself here, but

513
00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:52.039
I'm tremendously impressed by you and the
other people that Peter Schweitzer has gathered around

514
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:58.679
himself in Florida, because what you
were doing is something that used to be

515
00:37:58.760 --> 00:38:07.119
known as journalism. Your book is
research. You've interviewed people, You've gone

516
00:38:07.159 --> 00:38:09.440
through documents, you have a thesis, and you print a and you write

517
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:17.079
a book about it. The institutions
that are capable, the legacy institutions,

518
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:21.320
the New York Times and on and
on, that are capable of long form

519
00:38:21.400 --> 00:38:28.360
journalism are garbage. They're just not
doing real journalism. There are some exceptions,

520
00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:32.480
but only some exceptions. So just
tell us very briefly about tell us

521
00:38:32.559 --> 00:38:37.880
who Peter Schweitzer is, tell us
what you guys are up to. Well,

522
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:39.239
well, thank you so much.
It's an honor to hear you say

523
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:43.400
that, and I will pass along
your kind words to Peter Schweitzer. He's

524
00:38:43.440 --> 00:38:46.119
an investigative legend. For those who
haven't heard of him, he is my

525
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:51.760
personal hero and mentor. I've worked
with him for since twenty eleven, so

526
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:53.719
over a decade I've been working with
Peter Schweitzer. I thought I wanted to

527
00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:58.360
go into politics by the way I
studied polysci. I thought I might want

528
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.599
to be a politician or something.
Interning for Peter Schweitzer for six months disabused

529
00:39:02.599 --> 00:39:08.719
me of those notions, and I
find it much more gratifying and helpful to

530
00:39:08.960 --> 00:39:13.719
be exposing the corruption. So I've
worked with him on the books Clinton Cash,

531
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:16.039
Secret Empires, and I'm kind of
the nerd that Schweitzer said, Okay,

532
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:21.920
now just go take you five thousand
pages of Clinton Foundation nine to ninety

533
00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:24.400
filings and make some sense of it. And so I follow the money as

534
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:28.239
our motto. So I put everything
into a Spreadsheet's what I did for this

535
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:31.760
book. I put all all the
figures into a spreadsheet and just start filtering

536
00:39:31.800 --> 00:39:37.239
and sorting, and eventually it's something
like a Uranium one speech where they're paying

537
00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:42.559
Bill Clinton five hundred thousand dollars in
Moscow will pop out. But yeah,

538
00:39:42.679 --> 00:39:46.480
it's atrocious. What the mainstream media
has become the legacy media New York Times,

539
00:39:46.480 --> 00:39:51.559
and we're seeing a renaissance now,
people like Michael Schallenberger and Matt Tayebbi

540
00:39:51.719 --> 00:39:57.559
and Barry Weiss and just like the
substack has really done such wonders for investigative

541
00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:01.440
journalism. And so I think that
that's what gives me hope, really is

542
00:40:01.480 --> 00:40:07.880
there are people out there who still
are digging through the mountain of prap that

543
00:40:08.079 --> 00:40:12.039
is thrown at us from you know, you get you get a foider request.

544
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:15.000
Either they give you nothing or they
give you a mountain of nothing.

545
00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:17.719
And uh so it's you know,
and I and I'm you know, we're

546
00:40:17.760 --> 00:40:22.199
working on trying to use some of
these AI tools that they're putting out to

547
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:25.920
uh expose the people who really want
to control our lives. So I actually

548
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:30.400
got bing GPT. I was on
the wait list and beta user for it.

549
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:35.119
Uh and it was amazing because I
was searching bing gpt for dirt on

550
00:40:35.159 --> 00:40:38.639
Bill Gates, and it initially was
turning up some great results, and within

551
00:40:38.679 --> 00:40:42.039
a month it was like, why
do you It starts talking back to me

552
00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:45.360
saying, well, why do you
think Bill Gates is an altruistic And I'm

553
00:40:45.400 --> 00:40:47.239
like, oh, altruistic is kind
of an interesting word, Like how do

554
00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:53.079
you define altruistic? Mister bing or
mister and missus bing Seamus? You know

555
00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:57.440
the other side. I hope this
book sells and sells and sells, and

556
00:40:57.480 --> 00:40:59.960
I hope that by the time you're
let me see, I'm going to guess

557
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:02.159
you're thirty five, is still a
few years away for you. I hope

558
00:41:02.159 --> 00:41:06.159
by the time you're thirty five,
you're at least you're on the way to

559
00:41:06.239 --> 00:41:09.679
becoming a Bill Gates of your own. But no, no, why would

560
00:41:09.679 --> 00:41:15.360
you wish that on the other side
pays better? You're aware of that,

561
00:41:15.440 --> 00:41:19.880
are you? That's right, Yeah, we're not in it for the money.

562
00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:22.800
This is a nonprofit. I uh
okay, yeah, yeah, all

563
00:41:22.880 --> 00:41:25.880
right, Or to rob, you're
mistaking the part. So here's my real

564
00:41:25.960 --> 00:41:30.000
question. I mean, I you
know, I'm not really scared of people

565
00:41:30.039 --> 00:41:36.480
trying to control me. I'm scared
of people trying to make my life better

566
00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:39.599
and do good for me. That
the altruism that you said, like that,

567
00:41:39.719 --> 00:41:43.239
that's what I'm scared of. I'm
scared of people thinking, well,

568
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:45.639
you know what, if we let
you make your own decision, they're gonna

569
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:47.599
be messy and complicated and chaotic,
and you might make the wrong one.

570
00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:51.599
You know, we just went through
two and a half years of that.

571
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:58.960
That was essentially the subtitle of COVID
nineteen. Do what we tell you to

572
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:01.719
do, even if it's not really
important or necessary, because we just we

573
00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:08.320
it's going to make life simpler.
And I think there's something attractive about that,

574
00:42:09.159 --> 00:42:14.000
not just for the billionaires, but
for people. People acquiesced to this.

575
00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:19.199
People complain when the world isn't risk
free. They complain when well,

576
00:42:19.239 --> 00:42:21.599
I know, I have to do
this all by myself. They complain when

577
00:42:21.639 --> 00:42:27.199
there's no government or no official bureau
or app to solve a problem. I

578
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:32.159
mean, aren't I mean, I
understand you're you're focusing on thirty billionaires about

579
00:42:32.199 --> 00:42:36.039
the billions of dollars, but aren't
we the problems? And they have the

580
00:42:36.039 --> 00:42:38.360
reason, They have powered influences because
they're selling something that's very attracted to a

581
00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:43.320
whole lot of people. No,
I mean that's exactly exactly right. I

582
00:42:43.320 --> 00:42:45.440
mean I talk about it where it's
like slipping into a warm bubble bath of

583
00:42:45.480 --> 00:42:49.199
tyranny. I mean, it's very
it's very easy. That's kind of one

584
00:42:49.199 --> 00:42:52.280
of the scary things about it.
It's so convenient. And I and I

585
00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:53.559
do applaud them. Again, I
said, I don't want to caricature them

586
00:42:53.559 --> 00:42:55.559
in the book, and I did, and I applaud them for a lot

587
00:42:55.559 --> 00:42:59.360
of the tools they've made that have
made life easier, right down to the

588
00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:02.840
Rockefellers. You know, they they
made life better in a lot of ways.

589
00:43:04.519 --> 00:43:08.000
But what's coming down the pike with
with the AI revolution, and it's

590
00:43:08.079 --> 00:43:10.199
and you know, we don't need
to be scared of AI. I mean,

591
00:43:10.320 --> 00:43:15.519
we hopefully can use it for all
good things. But the power that

592
00:43:15.639 --> 00:43:19.840
it has, and that this is
the economic debate of the future over UBI

593
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:22.880
and and whether people, you know
a lot of people think about the UBI

594
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:24.119
is like, oh, well,
I'll just be able to finally take those

595
00:43:24.159 --> 00:43:29.639
guitar lessons and pick up painting and
culinary classes and it's just going to be

596
00:43:29.719 --> 00:43:31.880
lovely. And that's the thing.
It's not going to be lovely. Uh,

597
00:43:32.039 --> 00:43:37.159
And and working hard for a living
is gratifying, and they in trying

598
00:43:37.199 --> 00:43:40.440
to trying to take that away from
people is actually uh evil in a way,

599
00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:45.239
I think. But anyhow, you're
right, it's I mean, were

600
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:47.320
we not you and me on this
podcast, But we, as in the

601
00:43:47.559 --> 00:43:51.679
non control of arts, are part
of the problem because we saw it in

602
00:43:51.679 --> 00:43:54.480
the pandemic. How many people turned
into Karen's and I mean our own family

603
00:43:54.480 --> 00:43:59.440
members wouldn't let us into their houses
without masks, and and the masks became

604
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.159
like a safe banket. I mean
you still see people wearing masks just now

605
00:44:02.199 --> 00:44:05.079
in New York City. I see
them all the time. Yeah, all

606
00:44:05.119 --> 00:44:08.039
the time. So that is a
problem. And waking up, I mean

607
00:44:08.599 --> 00:44:13.199
we can have convenient I mean,
we live at the greatest time in human

608
00:44:13.280 --> 00:44:15.880
history. I mean it's amazing.
Maybe twenty years ago might have been better,

609
00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:21.440
but this is actually little to statistically
the best time it is. I

610
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:24.480
mean, you can have a meal
delivered to your door within a matter of

611
00:44:24.559 --> 00:44:29.280
minutes at the tap of a button. It's an incredible time to be alive.

612
00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:31.280
But we also do need to wake
up and take some personal responsibility.

613
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:37.079
I guess go outside and touch grass
maybe once in a while. But it's

614
00:44:37.360 --> 00:44:40.280
you know, we may end up
like China. Is all the warning is,

615
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:43.840
the West may end up closer to
a system like China. I mean,

616
00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:46.440
claud Schwab talks about stakeholder capitalism and
it, oh, it sounds so

617
00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:51.079
lovely. We've got all these stakeholders. They don't consider us stakeholders, and

618
00:44:51.079 --> 00:44:52.559
we don't get a seat at the
table, just like we didn't get a

619
00:44:52.559 --> 00:44:58.199
seat at the table during the pandemic. These problems, things like climate change

620
00:44:58.199 --> 00:45:01.000
are too big for the peasant class
understand. They need to be solved by

621
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:05.920
global institutions. And everyone to a
man in this book, right down to

622
00:45:06.079 --> 00:45:10.559
Bill Gates and and and you know
fashion they all praised China's response to COVID,

623
00:45:10.599 --> 00:45:15.920
and they said the ability of the
CCP to they use euphemisms like mobilize

624
00:45:16.280 --> 00:45:22.280
resources or or or they're quote efficiency
or something, and like, we know

625
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:25.559
what that's code word for. It's
co word for brutal authoritarianism where the people

626
00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:30.880
don't have a say and point us. And so all the people who like

627
00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:34.719
you know, just kind of are
slipping into this warm bubble bath of convenience.

628
00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:38.239
They're they're not going to They're not
going to like a system like that.

629
00:45:38.559 --> 00:45:42.400
They're not going to like the facial
recognition cameras. They're not going to

630
00:45:42.519 --> 00:45:46.480
like the weekend driving privileges lost for
disinformation and all of that. So,

631
00:45:46.679 --> 00:45:50.840
but it's hard to choose. It's
hard to choose the hard way, right.

632
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:52.280
I mean, when I come home, I'm up traffic abroad and I

633
00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:57.079
can land in the airport and I
sort of breeze through and I do you

634
00:45:57.079 --> 00:45:59.800
know, global entry. I don't
even show my passport. I just look

635
00:45:59.840 --> 00:46:02.320
in the camera. Yeah, it's
kind of great, you know, but

636
00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:06.360
I but I hear you, Okay. The book is called Control of Arcs,

637
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:09.280
Exposing the billionaire class, the secret
deals, and the globalist bought to

638
00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:13.679
dominate your life. The author Seamus
Bruner, Shamus, thank you for joining

639
00:46:13.760 --> 00:46:15.400
us. Thank you guys so much. This was this is a real pleasure,

640
00:46:16.079 --> 00:46:22.519
Seamus. Parody think in terms of
parody. I want you to infiltrate

641
00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:28.599
some parties at Davos and do an
update on Tom Wolfe's Radical Sheet. All

642
00:46:28.679 --> 00:46:31.679
right, I'm gonna make tell Schweitzer
whatever he has in mind for you.

643
00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:35.320
That's what I have in mind,
will you please? Yeah, if I

644
00:46:35.400 --> 00:46:37.360
end up in you know, a
Swiss prison, I'll thank you. That's

645
00:46:39.039 --> 00:46:43.159
the way. Think of all the
writing you could get done in. It

646
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:45.840
could be a lot worse places.
That's probably true. It's probably quite nice

647
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:50.960
over there in prison. Think of
all the tobal run they'd serve you great

648
00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:54.000
to have you, right, all
right, take care of Seamus. Bye.

649
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:58.360
Well, thank god. I'm not
a billionaire. It's all I can

650
00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:01.880
say. Yeah, exactly, I'm
If you were Rob, you would be

651
00:47:01.960 --> 00:47:06.840
running the counter offensive. Again,
you're insufficiently alarmed, Rob. You do

652
00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:12.719
know people want to take your guess
stoves a chef for the words. In

653
00:47:13.639 --> 00:47:16.360
Santa Monica, where I used to
I lived. I rented in Santa Monica

654
00:47:16.360 --> 00:47:20.039
for many years before I moved to
Venice, before I moved to New York.

655
00:47:20.679 --> 00:47:22.679
They met, it was early days. They put out an ordinance where

656
00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:28.719
every new toilet had to be a
low flow toilet when those toilets doesn't really

657
00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:32.159
work right, and all these you
know, Santa Monica's film People's Republic of

658
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:36.760
Santa Monica. They called all these
millionaire billionaire environmentalists, right, they were

659
00:47:36.760 --> 00:47:38.119
all in favor of this. But
when they were redod to their houses for

660
00:47:38.159 --> 00:47:42.679
their millions of dollars. They didn't
want that. So but in order to

661
00:47:42.679 --> 00:47:45.360
get the certificate of occupancy, you
gotta have an inspection, and that inspector

662
00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:49.960
is going to look and see make
sure those toilets are like low flow toilets.

663
00:47:50.320 --> 00:47:52.920
So what they would do is they
would install the low flow toilets and

664
00:47:52.960 --> 00:47:54.400
all the bathrooms, and they get
the inspection, and then they would swap

665
00:47:54.440 --> 00:47:58.800
out the low flow toilets for they
really they're really good ones, the Japanese

666
00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:04.000
ones that like basically are like Niagara
falls. And so I think at some

667
00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:09.920
point someone estimated that there were twenty
five low flow toilets in the entire city

668
00:48:09.920 --> 00:48:14.039
of Santa Monica. They just kept
rotating from house to house to house to

669
00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:20.159
house. So I guess I guess
my only comfort I take from this from

670
00:48:20.239 --> 00:48:23.000
the book and from what Shamus was
saying, was that the great news here

671
00:48:23.159 --> 00:48:27.679
is that the billionaires are almost always
wrong. They almost always make terrible the

672
00:48:27.800 --> 00:48:30.920
roast. They think they're so smart, even the ones that we might be

673
00:48:30.039 --> 00:48:36.320
sympathetic to, and they make these
classic classic blunders. Sometimes it gets us

674
00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:39.360
all killed. Sometimes they lose a
lot of money. Sometimes nothing happens.

675
00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:46.119
But this stuff never works, So
I guess that's what I'm comforting myself with.

676
00:48:46.199 --> 00:48:51.000
But maybe I am insufficiently alarmed.
But yeah, they do a lot

677
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:52.880
of great damage along the way,
though. I mean, one case in

678
00:48:52.920 --> 00:48:57.039
point, just one is the Ford
Foundation, going back fifty years ago.

679
00:48:57.800 --> 00:49:02.480
One of their biggest grant areas was
overpopulation, and they bankrolled international planned parenthood

680
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:07.719
the tune of hundreds of millions of
dollars and led us some real horrors like

681
00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:10.239
you know, forced sterilizations in India
and such. There's a great book on

682
00:49:10.280 --> 00:49:15.960
this called Fatal Misconception by a historian
of Columbia who's otherwise a liberal. But

683
00:49:15.039 --> 00:49:19.079
it's very savage. And by the
way, even the New York Times now

684
00:49:19.119 --> 00:49:22.159
says, gosh, just in the
last month, gosh, maybe falling fertility

685
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:25.559
is going to be a real problem
for the next century. Which, by

686
00:49:25.599 --> 00:49:29.079
the way, it's like the universities. You know, Julian Simon, you

687
00:49:29.079 --> 00:49:31.000
know, Peter knows he was,
you know, they were saying this fifty

688
00:49:31.159 --> 00:49:36.320
forty fifty years ago. We have
been saying conservatives about university for the last

689
00:49:36.360 --> 00:49:38.360
twenty five years. And you know, boy, we have one after the

690
00:49:38.400 --> 00:49:42.719
other we get to say, I
told you so, but there we are.

691
00:49:43.239 --> 00:49:45.039
Yeah, I told you so.
That sounds that's that sort of weak

692
00:49:45.119 --> 00:49:50.039
sauce when everything's rubble, But you're
right. I mean that is that is

693
00:49:50.719 --> 00:49:54.079
I do. I do comfort myself
that way. I was aware of Seamus,

694
00:49:54.079 --> 00:49:59.360
and I was aware of his book. He's even better than I expected.

695
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:02.440
He's well stolen. Yeah, I
mean, he's well spoken, he's

696
00:50:02.440 --> 00:50:07.199
hardworking. So I take I really
do take a lot of comfort. Rob

697
00:50:07.519 --> 00:50:12.000
and Steve. All three of us
love good journalism, and all three of

698
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:16.320
us are of an age so that
we saw with our own eyes the journalism

699
00:50:16.400 --> 00:50:22.440
business model collapse. Just collapse,
all three of us in one way or

700
00:50:22.480 --> 00:50:29.039
another. I mean we've had this
conversation over drinks how many times over the

701
00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:31.119
years. Where's the new business model
going to come from? Where? How

702
00:50:31.119 --> 00:50:35.559
can you save the New York Times? How can you revive the Washington?

703
00:50:36.280 --> 00:50:38.920
Well, here's where it comes from. Peter Schweizer's put together half a dozen

704
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:45.320
really bright guys like Seamus in West
Palm Beach, Florida, of all places.

705
00:50:45.199 --> 00:50:52.239
Barry Weiss is in Montecito with something
called the Free Press Online. Shallenberger

706
00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:55.199
is up in San Francisco, Matt
Tayibe. I don't even know where Matt

707
00:50:55.239 --> 00:51:00.280
Tayibe is, but the Alex Berenson
from his home and Ry, I think

708
00:51:00.280 --> 00:51:06.079
it is someplace in upstate New York. Journalism, good journalism, is beginning

709
00:51:06.280 --> 00:51:13.360
to get done, new institutions,
new voices. I find that I have

710
00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:16.159
lived to hear the first shots of
the counter revolution. That's the way I

711
00:51:16.199 --> 00:51:23.519
feel. That's actually, that's so
optimistic, Peter. It's good for the

712
00:51:23.519 --> 00:51:29.159
The paradox is brought to us by
some billionaires or otherwise a problem. Right,

713
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:34.159
the Internet has lowered the barriers of
entry to this, which that's true,

714
00:51:34.440 --> 00:51:37.639
that is true. But that is
also the problem with billionaires is that

715
00:51:37.679 --> 00:51:45.679
they or rich people in general,
is that it's it's just irresistible to resist

716
00:51:45.880 --> 00:51:51.280
the idea that I'm rich because I'm
really smart. Yes, and I figured

717
00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:53.679
it out and you didn't. And
you know what, I'm really smart in

718
00:51:53.719 --> 00:51:57.000
this one area. I mean,
you could say this. You can say

719
00:51:57.039 --> 00:51:59.880
this about Elon Musk, very very
brilliant guy. Right, and we're going

720
00:51:59.920 --> 00:52:01.039
to go to Mars because if we
love Musk, he built an electric car.

721
00:52:01.079 --> 00:52:06.000
Nobody said he could do that.
Then he comes head to head with

722
00:52:06.039 --> 00:52:10.760
an ad supported media business, and
he's floundering and he's pretending that it's someone

723
00:52:10.760 --> 00:52:15.719
else's fault, whereas in fact,
he purchased an ad supported media business and

724
00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:19.960
now is complaining about the terms of
that ad supported media business, which is

725
00:52:19.960 --> 00:52:22.519
a little bit, you know,
kind of like a come upance for somebody

726
00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:27.239
who's fairly arrogant. But that's okay, that's all right, that is what

727
00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:30.519
the market is supposed to do.
The problem really is when that these sort

728
00:52:30.519 --> 00:52:36.239
of when the come up and this
doesn't happen because they are not part of

729
00:52:36.239 --> 00:52:38.679
the market. Instead, they're part
of the regulatory system, which doesn't ever

730
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:43.599
have a come upance. We never
lose regulations, We never lose bureaus,

731
00:52:43.599 --> 00:52:46.599
We never lose people telling us,
you know, how many gallons are in

732
00:52:46.599 --> 00:52:50.039
our toilet tech. We only get
more and more and more of them.

733
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.320
And the solution isn't to replace those
people with people who agree with me.

734
00:52:53.400 --> 00:52:58.039
The solutions to get rid of that
altogether. Yeah, I said, we

735
00:52:58.079 --> 00:53:01.239
get the opposite. For my entire
adult life, you will hear Ralph Nader

736
00:53:01.360 --> 00:53:07.519
or some other person on the left
say regulation of X or Y has failed.

737
00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:12.559
Therefore we need more and better regulation. Yes, the right conclusion from

738
00:53:12.599 --> 00:53:20.239
this right, that's exactly right,
That's exactly right, well fellas, I

739
00:53:20.280 --> 00:53:24.480
mean, I I don't even want
to bring this up because it's I'm so

740
00:53:24.639 --> 00:53:30.880
I'm so exhausted by it. But
it does seem that this is am I

741
00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.800
right, this is the Hunter Biden
endgame here. The indictments that came back

742
00:53:34.920 --> 00:53:42.119
down yesterday are sort of that.
I mean, I think it's a very

743
00:53:42.119 --> 00:53:45.000
big deal. I think it's a
very very big deal and now means it

744
00:53:45.039 --> 00:53:47.639
cannot be avoided next year. It
is also I you know, I don't

745
00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:52.440
want to well put on a tiny
tinfoil hat and say curious that this indictment

746
00:53:52.559 --> 00:53:58.599
was not issued until after the deadlines
had passed for someone serious to file against

747
00:53:58.679 --> 00:54:01.199
Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
I'll just put it that way. There's

748
00:54:01.239 --> 00:54:06.440
all that we have that's good.
Tit Foyle hatism. I gotta like it.

749
00:54:06.519 --> 00:54:09.840
I like it like we have.
If you look at one of the

750
00:54:09.840 --> 00:54:14.000
debates, I guess it was the
first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

751
00:54:14.039 --> 00:54:16.360
Biden says, this is a close
reconstruction. If I'm not quoting him

752
00:54:16.360 --> 00:54:22.199
exactly, nobody made money on China. The only person who made money on

753
00:54:22.280 --> 00:54:27.599
China was this guy, and he
points at Trump. He was lying through

754
00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:32.400
his teeth. He was lying to
the American people in an election year.

755
00:54:34.079 --> 00:54:38.159
That is a danger to democracy.
And now we know he did it.

756
00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:44.440
No thanks to the mainstream media,
but thanks to James Comer and some very

757
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:52.119
dogged, terribly uncool Republicans in the
House of Representatives. But uh, and

758
00:54:52.199 --> 00:55:00.639
the yesterday Biden's lawyers. So he
has he's being indicted or a tax evasion

759
00:55:00.679 --> 00:55:04.480
to the tune of one point six
million, if I recall the figure,

760
00:55:04.920 --> 00:55:10.639
and Biden lawyers. Biden's lawyers had
the effrontery to say that if his name

761
00:55:10.719 --> 00:55:14.960
was anything other than Biden, this
case would never have been brought. If

762
00:55:15.000 --> 00:55:19.360
his name was anything other than Biden, he'd be in prison right now.

763
00:55:20.039 --> 00:55:25.480
It's staggering. It is just staggering
now to start thinking through the politics of

764
00:55:25.519 --> 00:55:30.039
this thing. What does it do? I mean, my fear is that

765
00:55:30.119 --> 00:55:37.440
it kind of numbs the entire electorate
to serious criminal charges. Oh well,

766
00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:44.119
doesn't matter that Trump has been indicted
by because now hunter Biden has been These

767
00:55:44.159 --> 00:55:46.400
should be taken seriously. And my
concern is that in some way they may

768
00:55:46.480 --> 00:55:52.039
neutralize each other in practice, in
the practice of practical politics, but it

769
00:55:52.159 --> 00:56:00.559
sure looks like it sure feels like
just a touch of justice. Yeah,

770
00:56:00.599 --> 00:56:01.639
I'm not so sure about that,
Peter. I mean, if you think

771
00:56:01.679 --> 00:56:07.719
back to Whitewater and the Clinton's complicated
land deal they lost money on and then

772
00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:12.000
ultimately an impeachment over you know,
sex scandal, which people said, ew,

773
00:56:12.079 --> 00:56:15.239
but that doesn't really rise to I
think that this is such obvious self

774
00:56:15.280 --> 00:56:21.480
dealing, such obvious influence pedaling that
even, you know, an independent voter

775
00:56:21.599 --> 00:56:23.679
or someone who's not especially idylogical,
is going to say, this really stinks.

776
00:56:23.679 --> 00:56:29.800
And I don't like these people that
that that. It does seem like

777
00:56:29.960 --> 00:56:37.719
classic government influence pedaling, corruption plus
tax evasion, which makes everybody mad.

778
00:56:38.559 --> 00:56:42.039
But what's interesting about it is the
only reason we had to do to get

779
00:56:42.079 --> 00:56:45.599
away with it was pay his thinking
taxes. He could have kept millions of

780
00:56:45.639 --> 00:56:47.719
dollars. Yeah. By the way, I don't know if you've seen the

781
00:56:47.719 --> 00:56:52.840
itemization of what he spent his money
on. It's really fun. Yeah,

782
00:56:52.480 --> 00:56:59.239
hundreds of thousands of dollars on women. I think that's the itemization line item.

783
00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:01.199
But we only reason we have this
sort of fifty six or whatever it

784
00:57:01.239 --> 00:57:07.119
is, fifty plus page indictment is
because the plea deal was thrown out in

785
00:57:07.159 --> 00:57:13.840
the summer. I mean, wasn't
the stately pace of justice. This was

786
00:57:13.880 --> 00:57:22.960
a weird, unexpected judge tossing out
a plea deal in August that ended up

787
00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:27.840
with the same prosecutor coming back with
this this, this kind of the size

788
00:57:27.880 --> 00:57:32.639
of this indictment suggests that there had
to been something going on before that plea

789
00:57:32.719 --> 00:57:36.199
deal was thrown out, because you
don't go from a plea deal which is

790
00:57:36.280 --> 00:57:38.280
gonna be fine, suddenly this guy's
going to do time for four or five

791
00:57:38.360 --> 00:57:42.159
years, right, That's that's I
mean, I'm no lawyer, we need

792
00:57:42.239 --> 00:57:46.280
john you here, but that seems
like a bizarre swing from we're not going

793
00:57:46.360 --> 00:57:51.639
to touch him to actually, we're
gonna throw the book at him. That

794
00:57:51.639 --> 00:57:53.400
that's it. That's an interesting story
that I can't wait for to be told,

795
00:57:53.440 --> 00:57:55.719
but probably won't be told for a
few years. But i'd love to

796
00:57:55.760 --> 00:58:00.079
know. Speaking of Foyas, I'd
love to have that those conversations for you,

797
00:58:00.159 --> 00:58:06.159
because that would be a really interesting
story. Let's speaking of interesting stories.

798
00:58:06.239 --> 00:58:08.840
This story is coming to an end. Thank you. Fellas for joining

799
00:58:08.920 --> 00:58:13.320
us. This podcast is brought to
you by shop Off. I support them

800
00:58:13.400 --> 00:58:16.519
by supporting us. Please I go
to rickshay dot com slash join become part

801
00:58:16.599 --> 00:58:22.239
of the last remaining sane sliver of
the Internet. We promise you, and

802
00:58:22.320 --> 00:58:23.599
if you can take a five minute, take a minute to leave a five

803
00:58:23.639 --> 00:58:25.840
star review on Apple Podcasts. I
know we keep saying that, I know

804
00:58:25.880 --> 00:58:29.920
it just people don't even hear it, but it actually really really matters.

805
00:58:30.760 --> 00:58:34.440
It gets us up when the AI
algorithm helps defeat the automatic brains trying to

806
00:58:34.519 --> 00:58:42.000
defeat us, and it's all unhappy. Honkah today. First day, it

807
00:58:42.039 --> 00:58:45.519
started last night. I think last
night was the first night. First night,

808
00:58:45.559 --> 00:58:47.599
first night was last night. You're
right, and Steve, thank you

809
00:58:47.639 --> 00:58:52.239
for joining us. Always a pleasure. See you on down the road Next

810
00:58:52.239 --> 00:59:00.679
week, Fellas, Next week,
Boys Ricochet join the conversation.