What's the biggest danger that we confront now? And I think the clearest immediate
danger is probably this phony war, this proxy war the Ukraine. But then
after that, it's the potential collapse of the financial markets followed by a collapse
of the economy, followed by social upheaval here in the US, and this
can go on all over the world. You're listening to Carrie Let's Financial Survival
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Financial Survival Network now more than ever. And welcome you are listening to
watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carry Lutz. Well,
a lot going on in the world, to put it mildly, to put
it charitably, but let's try to get a perspective on what exactly is going
on? Is this the end of Western civilization as we know it? Our
good friend Doug Casey is with us from the International Man. Doug, it's
always great to have you on the show. So what's going on here?
Are we're going to survive this, or we're just useless eaters that they want
to get rid of so they can implement their a grand plan. Well,
you know, George Carlin was always my favorite comedian and mine too. I
don't think we have to worry. The Earth is going to survive and it's
just going to shake off these problems like a like a dog after it has
a bath. But I always like to look at the I always like to
look at the bright side. If we take a gloomier view, it's entirely
possible we could be moving towards World War three. And that is really really
a scary prospect. I mean, it could destroy civilization as we know it,
and the fault would lie about one hundred percent, in my opinion,
with Washington DC. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you these policies
that we've followed post World War two. I mean, even look, you
could go back to the Civil War. We all know that. But just
in the so called modern era from World War One on, basically everything that's
gone on, the gone wrong in the world is to some extent, Washington
DC's fault, don't you think. I do think that actually, and it's
it's really a pity because America used to stand for something. America used to
be an exceptional country. And it was exceptional because it was the only country
in the world's history that was actually founding on the principles of individual freedom.
And well, the values that were put across in the constitution, freedom of
speech, freedom of thought, free markets, that's all that's all being washed
away at this point. Yeah, well, it looks like basically every institution.
And it's not just the United States here. I think it's says a
global phenomena. You look what's happening in China with everything there, and you
know, just I watched these videos of stuff falling apart in China, the
so called Tofu drag projects, where they're just like cutting corners, even though
they know that the highway is going to collapse and thousands of people will be
killed, they just cut corners. I mean it's corruption. I mean,
America certainly doesn't have a monopoly on corruption and does it. No, it
doesn't. And China is interesting because I lived in Hong Kong. For goodness,
how long did I lived there? For? About fifteen years on and
off. And when I first went to mainland China to Beijing, when we
landed in Beijing airport. It was just somewhat bigger than the little airport in
Aspen, Colorado. When we took a car into a downtown Beijing, it
was on a two lane road and there were still farmers with oxes following the
fields next to it. Yeah. I mean, the progress that China has
made is unbelievable. It's incredible. That's on the bright side. But at
the same time, since a lot of it, a lot of it,
not all of it has been state directed, They've made some huge miss allocations
of capital, stupid miss allocations a capital for political reasons. So I'm not
terribly optimistic about China over the next ten years, certainly, but I'm not
optimistic about any place in the world for the next ten years. Is an
island decade? Is there an island we can all escape to the land of,
you know, fantasy island paradise where we get away from all the foibles
and the insanity of government. I mean, we're living in a kafka esque
world right now, Doug, Well, you know, talking about islands,
one guy that you might want to have on your show is a Jelika who
founded Liberland. Have you explored that at all. No, not yet,
but I heard some mention of it. Yeah, it's an island in the
Danube River between Croatia and Serbia. And because of just the way these things
work, neither Croatia nor Serbia claims it for reasons of their own. So
the stake a flag there about goodness how long ago? Ten years ago,
and he's trying to get it recognized as a country, get people to live
there, and uh so, who knows anything can happen from that point of
view. But what other islands might be interesting to uh to uh to go
to and stake out Well, certainly not Haiti. I mean that's uh,
that's going to become the fifty first state of the Union over the next few
years if they don't watch out. Uh. Eighties an issue that another one
of the United States screw ups going back to the eighteen hundreds. In fact,
most of Latin America, much of it in Central America, and everything
that's going wrong there now is directly traceable to American imperialism. Invasions that took
place, many many invasions, you know, during a. Smedley Butler's time,
and the inability of the US to lake ever really look for a meaningful
solution. They're always looking for the next strong man who would just basically let
us pick our fruit trees, you know, banana republics. Yeah. Yeah,
the people in Washington just can't leave things alone. And I don't think
that's ever going to change. And the reason I say that is because you've
got two kinds of people in the world. People that like to create things
and move atoms around and make things and manipulate physical reality, and people that
like to move people around and manipulate people. And those are the kind that
always go to Washington because you can get control of the of the instrument of
the state where they can force people to do that. So it's gotten worse.
I mean it really has, Washington, and I used to live there
for goodness twenty years. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, it's it
really is a cesspool that draws that kind of person the way Las Vegas draws
gamblers and the way Hollywood draws want to be stars, Washington draws just not
the best in the brightest, but the scum of the earth. Sociopath It's
a magnet. It's a sociopathic magnet because hey, you're a sociopath. What's
better than getting to screw with people's heads and make them do things they don't
want to do, or, better yet, get them to do things that
you want them to do that they don't even know why they're doing them.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's a dream, Yeah, it really is.
And you know, I'm trying to think, what's the biggest danger that
we confront now? And I think the clearest immediate danger is probably this phony
war, this proxy war the Ukraine. But then after that, it's the
potential collapse of the financial markets followed by a collapse of the economy, followed
by social upheaval here in the US, and this could go on all over
the world. It's a worrisome thought. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you
know, the Founding fathers, particularly Hamilton, their major fear was a societal
breakdown and chaos. And I guess back then the perception was that the social
order, you know, was quite fragile, and that that government needed to
like reinforce the social order, largely by staying out of things that didn't know
what it was doing and didn't know how to do. And really, I
think the perception now, mistakenly among many of you out there, is that
the social order, civilization is firmly ensconced. But you only have to go
to our rapidly declining urban centers to see that that they're going rogue. They're
going native in these places like Chicago, Baltimore, and you know, you
know the list as well as I do. It's it's shocking that like things
like shoplifting has been normalized and and you know, the criminals, the truly
the inmates are running the asylum. Well, I did an article now as
you mentioned that at internationalman dot com just yesterday on the state of US cities.
And the thing is is that ever since the dawn of history, cities
have been the central of civilization. It's where you can have comfort and safety
and trade. U cities make civilization possible. And the way that American cities
are collapsing, they really are. They're not centers of production of new wealth
anymore. But there are cesspools where you put inventories of people and those people
aren't don't seem to be capable of anything but consuming stuff that's given to them
and voting. So the nature of cities has has changed, and it's it's
very disturbing for the prospects of civilization itself. I sometimes wonder if we couldn't
have a new dark age with you know, supply chains as as tenuous and
as complicated as they are. You break a few of them, and the
others break, and then others break, and it's hard to put these things
back together again because a lot of people in the West, well everywhere,
frankly, at this point, I don't know how to make stuff anymore.
Well, then I know how to do is sit in front of their computers
all day and manipulate digits, which is nice. That's great. Love love
computers or love hate them anyway, you know, it could it could,
It could get scary. I think I was thinking about this. Like,
you know, we grew up. We learned how to change a tire,
alright. Cars were a lot less complicated. You could kind of screw around
with a carburetor with the uh, you know, if the car wouldn't start,
you could actually maybe get it to start with a set of chopper cake.
You can figure it out looking if the distributor was working and so forth.
You can't do that anymore. I can't do it. Well. I
have an ev but that's neither here nor there. The fact is you know,
the modern vehicle, it's basically a brick when it stops working, you
know. And and then the number of people who can actually get these cars
to work is declining because that's a dirty job, and nobody wants to do
these dirty jobs. I mean, you know, I was like taking something
apart in my house to get my air conditioner to work, and because I
just didn't feel like calling somebody, so I messed around with some wires.
Air Conditioners are still pretty simple, at least the ones I have, and
I actually got it working. But you know, the number of things that
you can actually fix in your house nowadays is a very finite number of things.
You know, you could maybe screw in a couple of lightbulbs, and
if their WiFi lightbulbs, you know, you could spend an hour trying to
get them to work on the network. But outside of that, there's really
not much you're capable of of producing or fixing in your own home. Yeah,
you're right, and if something breaks, uh, generally you don't even
try to fix it. You're supposed to replace it. But the fact of
the matter is is that most of those replacement parts come from China, not
here in the us. Yeah, it's it's it's becoming an untenable form of
existence here on so many levels. And then yet you know, we got
you do have your elon musks of the world. Whatever people might think about
him, Hey, the guy owns space now basically he dominates space. And
you know, the things like the Internet being able to go all over the
world now regardless of infrastructure and wires. You know, so we are moving
ahead on certain fronts here as well, but complexity and the ability of the
human mind to keep up with it, to manage it. I think we're
like in a losing battle. Doug. Yeah, we'll just have to see
what happens. My solution to the problems of the world is more freedom and
a free market. You talked about useless miles earlier. Most of those useless
miles work work for the state. They're very well paid over their president there,
they're fellow citizens. And it seems to me that I don't know what
the percentage would be ninety percent at least of the US government certainly, and
local governments that are no better could be abolished. The argument that I make
is that since government is forced, since the government is coercion, that's the
nature of it. It's not we the people getting together, it's we should
really have nothing but a police force to protect you domestically, military to protect
you from foreign threats, and a court system to adjudicate disputes without resorting to
force. And the rest of the rest of the government I think is redundant
and useless and counterproductive and extremely costly to the average guy. I mean,
all of our biggest expenses are taxes defeed the beast. Yeah, to feed
the beast that refuses to be tamed. And yeah, like I saw a
funny meme it said, without government, who would water the roads because like
in Florida here they're watering the medians, but they can't seem to aim the
sprinklers properly and the streak gets watered. You know, So without government,
But if it was private and you look at, hey, we're wasting hundreds
of thousands of dollars a year watering asphalt, you'd figure out a way to
fix it. But there's no incentive for the government to stop watering the streets.
Yeah, no, there's not. And it's true everywhere. Frankly,
it's you know, before the Soviet Union collapsed, which was a wonderful thing
that it just collapsed peaceably. It's that, you know, Russians used to
ask, well, if we didn't have our government, who would make our
would make our shoes? Like playing got you would make our cars? Haven't
haven't thought of that? And that's pretty much the way the Americans think when
it comes to the various things that governments do today. So this is not
I think Russia gets a very bad rap because that country has totally reformed since
the collapse of so At Union. There are more Communists in American universities and
there probably aren't all of Russia today. Uh, the average Russian has kind
of learned his lesson at this point. Well, the old people, you
know, well whatever you grew up if you like. But the young people
are not that way at all. And people don't realize that. The uh,
the top tax rate in Russia is only twelve percent, So that's true.
It's it's it's funny that, you know, I've talked to a number
of people. I've I've been to the Soviet Union in Russia over the years,
at least half a dozen times, and I've been all over the place,
starting when it was the Soviet Union and US. It transformed into Russia,
and it's it's a very uh, it's interesting, still a dysfunctional country.
Once you get on rout in Moscow or I should say Saint Petersburg and
Moscow, it's still pretty backward, pretty pretty primitive. Yea, not a
lot of comforts. But you know, friends I have that live there now
on Westerners tell me that from day to day it's pleasant, it's free,
nobody bothers you. So this is not in the average American has been convinced
that it's still more door still the Soviet Union. It's not. Yeah,
this is very true. You know, it is different. But he Putin's
not my favorite dictator. But but I guess if the trains run on time,
then people are happy and and they move on. So a energy,
we have this insane energy policy emanating from the capitals of the world. It
looks like it's aimed at shutting down sustainable energy to me, sustainable energies,
hydrocarbons. It's been sustaining a modern civilization for over a hundred years and we're
trading it for which I think. I don't I'm not against wind and solar
and all that, but they just don't seem ready for prime time in a
lot of cases, and we're crowding out the energy system that works for the
energy system of the future that very well might not work. I mean,
isn't that the definition of insanity? We can't have modern life without without energy,
it just can exist. No, you're you're absolutely right. I mean,
I too have nothing against wind and solar. They're fine for special applications
and special places, but as mass power for an industrial civilization, it's actually
crazy to try to do that, and to spend hundreds of billions. It's
going to be trillions of dollars to build these things which lose money, which
is to say, destroy capital, and the more you do it, the
less reliable the grid becomes. It's actually crazy. So once again, this
is the kind of people to get into the state that do these do these,
do these crazy things that the answer from a technological point of view is
nuclear power, which is by far the safest, the cleanest, and the
cheapest form of mass power generation. And the hysteria that we've had against nuclear
power for many years, I guess it's started with the hippies evolved into the
greenies. We shouldn't be there are about fifty new technologies for small self contained
variable nuclear plants. Uh, safe, cheap. There could be hundreds of
them, thousands of them around the US that could actually fulfill the promise of
nuclear power. It will be almost too cheap to monitor. Yeah, but
that's what they told us in the sixties. Nuclear power is going to be
so cheap that you won't have to you know, you won't have meters.
It's going to be so cheap. But they managed to screw that one up,
didn't they Well they did. It should be that cheap, and it
would be that cheap if it had if nuclear power had not been regulated and
to the level that it is that it is today. What are you doing
dry having an electric car? What kind do you have? It's not like
I got a Tesla. It's it's a lot of fun, you know.
It's basically a supercar for under a hundred grand. So yes, they're lightning
fast. I mean they're they're they're quite and they handle like slot cars because
it is very low to the ground and the tech you know, like I
put that thing on FSD. It just drove me home, you know,
fifteen minutes before this interview. Basically I had to intercede once because it wanted
to go in the wrong lane. And just the oh, the brilliance of
it. You know, it's really incredible. I'm all, I'm all all
for it. I like, uh, I've been a car guy in my
whole life. I'm all all for is electric vehicles. But you're taking you're
taking some risks. If the grid goes that Tessa will turn into a brick.
Yeah, yeah, I have a generator, but you know that it
is super super expensive. So yeah, I mean the you know there's a
risk, but but it's been a lot of fun. I have to say,
the most fun car I ever had in so many ways, like the
greatest car ever made, as long as you don't have issues, right,
Yes, yeah, no, I mean a lot of advantages, not many
moving parts, and it's quiet and no, they really are they really are
nice. It's just I understand. I can't confirm this, but there's legislation
to prohibit Americans from buying small generators. Have you heard that or is that?
Yeah, well they got to kill all the fun. Yeah, they're
contemplating it. You know the amount of pollution that a generator puts out,
especially if it runs on propein is nil. Natural gas is of all the
hydrocarbons, by far the safest, cleanest burning, most efficient, energy efficient.
But you know, leave it to these sociopaths to get on the bandwagon,
right, Yeah, it is. And incidentally, right now natural gas
is in real terms, at about the lowest level in history. Contracts are
trading it around two dollars and fifty cents for a thousand MCS and very very
cheap relative to everything, including US past. So I've been buying natural gas
producers and some of them, especially in Canada and Alberta, are yielding those
to ten percent dividends, and I think those dividends will only go up with
natural gas prices in the future. So that's kind of an interesting area and
otherwise overpriced stock market I think. Yeah, a lot of that, a
lot of that. All right, Well, hey, Doug, really appreciate
you coming on get sharing your insights on today's malaise with us, and the
best place to find you is Internationalman dot com and also on YouTube. I
guess that's where we are right now, isn't it. Yes, we will
be shortly. Yeah, okay, So I'm also on Doug Casey's take on
on YouTube, and I'd always like to plug my three novels. I've written
a lot of books, but I like to mention the novels Speculator, Drug
Lord and Assassin, which is another story. And they're all good reads,
so absolutely I've read a couple of them. All right, Thanks so much,
Doug. Hey, you've got a question for Doug myself, shoot me
an email k l at kryltz dot com and the link to doug site and
his YouTube channel is on the show notes to this interview on Financial Survival Network
dot com. Make sure you sign up for your free newsletter. Doug always
a pleasure. Keep up the great work. We'll talk to you again soon.
Thanks Kerry, thanks for listening to carry Lets's Financial Survival Network, your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survival Network
dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever.