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Speaker 3: Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret.

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going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion.

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dot com Today.

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Speaker 2: Maining a live man like this man letting butterfly flapping

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his wing. Dig down in the forest. Man, it gonna

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cause the tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.

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Speaker 4: Man, nobody see nobody else.

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Speaker 5: You don't need no man, you don't like you followed

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the little story and you got dicted like that.

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Speaker 1: Man, go back and dang.

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Speaker 5: On the panel.

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Speaker 1: Man, no matter.

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Speaker 4: Man. All right, Jeremy Slate, Welcome to Jay Burton Show.

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How are you doing? Man?

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Speaker 5: Hey, I'm doing great.

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Speaker 6: Man.

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Speaker 5: Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. You and I got connected relatively recently on social

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media and we're going back and forth and you sent

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me another interview you'd done. And it's always fun when

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you listen. You're listening to someone for the first time

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and you're thinking, like, oh, he's this is good, but

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he's got to mention to this, and then three seconds

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later you bring it up and like, ah, my man,

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he knows exactly what he's talking about. I mean, look,

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that's how you should judge anyone. Do I agree with them, Yes,

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they must know what they're talking about. But in all

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serious disband it was a great interview. And so if

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you could, could you introduce yourself to my audience? Well,

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who are you and what do you do?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 6: So I'm the CEO of a company called Command Your Brand,

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and for the past ten years we've been placing our

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clients on high level podcasts. And then I guess, in

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terms of what I've been talking about in the last

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couple of years, my master's going back almost twenty years now,

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is in early Roman Empire propaganda. I actually studied the

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propaganda of Augustus, but in the in the last two years,

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I've really been looking at a lot of trends that

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have been happening, you know, in the US, in Europe.

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And one of the major things I've looked at is

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I've become very good at pattern recognition and I have

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two different channels that I talk about this on. The

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first is called Hidden Forces in History, and we look

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at kind of the power structure behind history.

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Speaker 5: We look at banking things like that.

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Speaker 6: And my other channel is called the Roman Pattern, which

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is really the main thesis. I talk about the three

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main things that cause a civilization to collapse. And it

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doesn't mean that you know, hey, we are Rome, but

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it means that a lot of the same things that

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they were doing. If you look at different civilizations collapsing,

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they do a lot of similar things.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there are several things there. One i'd almost be

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not to say more interested, but quite interested to talk

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about your degree. I'd sort of dabble in the classics.

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And one of the major conclusions from reading Virgil is

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that the idea is it's kind of like the you know,

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the internet meme, like we wis kings. You know, it's

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sort of this like revisionist history to explain how we

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actually not only is the Roman Empire super cool and awesome,

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but also it's connected to the Trojan War. And okay, look,

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there's a lot more to it than simply that, but

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it is a very interesting element of that document that

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isn't often discussed, at least in common circles.

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Speaker 6: Well, the thing that's interesting about it too is if

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you look at Augustus, you know, he's coming in as

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the republic's kind of fading out, but he's trying to

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convince people that a republic still exists because Rome naturally

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hated kings. They traditionally, before becoming a republic, had seven

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traditional kings, and so the idea of kingship was very

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much hated in Rome. So he had to convince people

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he was not a king but still put himself in

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a very similar position. He kind of uses like a

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really interesting word salad to do that. But one of

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the things that he does is he puts a big

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attention on literature and the ane. It is actually one

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of the things that he commissions to be written, and Virgil,

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when putting it together, actually towards the end of his life,

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doesn't finish the Enea, and in his will he wanted

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the work destroyed if it was left unfinished, and Augustus

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actually manages to stop that because hey, he wants this

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epic to show you know, just how important Rome is

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and tie it to something great like the Trojan War.

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But really it's a masterful piece of propaganda in order

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to tie the Romans to something that existed long before

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them and also tie themselves to like a royal lineage,

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because the character of Eneas is very interesting. He leaves

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the Trojan War with his father Ascanius on his back

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and walks across Italy and ends up in a city

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called Alba Longa, which is later going to found the

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kingdom from which Rome comes from, because Romulus and Remus

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are from Alba Longa. So it's a really interesting tie

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in to kind of give this mythical East Ethos to

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the Romans and what they're coming out of.

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Speaker 4: Well, and the deep irony of that is you see

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Roman itself become the founding myth for any number of

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other societies, right, like the the Czars say, well, we're

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kind of the Romans, like Kaiser Caesar like that. There's

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the similar I say, Cope, I don't mean to say

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that aggressively, but creative interpretation of history. You see with

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the Germans and even.

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Speaker 6: Even the Third Reich, right, the third exactly is the

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Reich comes from the German word meaning kingdom. It's the

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third kingdom. The first kingdom is the Roman Empire, the

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second is the Holy Roman Empire. And Hitler thought the

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third Reich would be the third great German Kingdom.

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Speaker 4: Well exactly. And you're speaking about the patterns of history,

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these foundational myths, Okay, sure, are they literal history in

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the sense that you could find all the archaeological justification. No,

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But functionally they are the thing which ties an empire

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and nation together, the story you tell yourself about yourself.

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Speaker 5: Yes.

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Speaker 4: And one of the things that I've noticed about America,

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and I think part of the reason why things have

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gotten so weird and so crazy. Is that the most

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recent version of our myth? There have been several, Right,

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obviously you have the American Founders. There's sort of a

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modification with Jackson. Then you know, the Civil War becomes

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the kind of central founding of another republic, sort of

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stacked on top. But really, for the last eighty years

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it's been, you know, the story of World War Two.

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And you see that echoed every time we pick a

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fight with someone, right, slivanon Malasovich is, yeah, he's basically Hitler,

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and Saddam Hussein he's basically Hitler. And you know that

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myth was very powerful. It you know, sort of propelled

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us through almost one hundred years. But as it sort

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of starts to weaken, it seems as if there is

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no really cohesive narrative about what we are coming into

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you build on it or take its place. And so

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I'm curious. One of the things that you were speaking

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about your comments on Rome is you know that an

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addition to currency debasement, which we will get back to,

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one of the other things that sort of brought about

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the end of Rome was the weakening of borders. And

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so before we get into that, it's probably best to describe, well,

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what is a citizen? So if you could, could you

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describe what a Roman citizen was and how that's different

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from our conception of citizenship and modernity.

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Speaker 6: Well, so it changes a lot, and that's I think

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something that's important to understand because if you look at

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initial citizenship in Rome, and we're going back to the

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kind of the mid republics, we're looking like three hundreds

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four hundreds BC, and if you look at that, it's

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initially people that are in Rome and kind of the

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territories very close to that, and it's going to be

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a real issue for kind of the Italian states outside

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of Rome that they don't have citizenship. And if you

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get towards the Late Republic, this is one of the

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things that Marius, the great military reformer, is going to

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push for. He's going to push for citizenship for the Italians,

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and eventually that will get out to the point that

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it's called the struggle of the Orders, which kind of

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brings us to this citizenship for the Italians. So now

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citizenship applies not just to Rome and the territories are

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very close to, but also to all Italian states that

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are kind of part of Rome. And the way Rome

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expanded during the time of the Republic is it wasn't

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initially from taxes. It was we conquer you, we put

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a government in place, you give us soldiers, and we'll

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kind of leave you alone. So Rome was able to

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expand by bringing in these new territories that would fight

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for Rome, and by serving in the legions. It's initially

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twenty five years, it's in the later Empire it's going

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to be closer to thirty years. You could gain citizenship,

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and what that would mean is it's citizenship for you,

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your family, your children. So you would start to have

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more Roman citizenship in these territor tories. Now if you

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get into the mid Empire, so around like to twelve,

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Caracala is going to give citizenship to thirty million people overnight.

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It's very debated why he did this, but it's thought

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that the reason he did it is in order to

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be able to tax the inheritance of these new citizens,

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because anyone in a Roman territory paid about five percent tax,

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whereas a Roman citizen paid ten percent tax. Now you

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also got some goodies for that, like you know, if

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you look in the Bible of Saint Paul, one of

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the reasons he's able to travel so much is because

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he has Roman citizenship. It's kind of like having a

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golden passport in a lot of ways. And then there

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was also something called the grain doll that every citizen

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was allowed to have a certain amount of grain supplied

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to them by Rome. So you do get a lot

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of these benefits. And it's also the ability. This is

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going to change a lot in the Late Empire because

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around two eighty four the Empire becomes a lot more

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you know, hard rule, a lot more autocratic in a

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lot of ways. But in the early Empire you could

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redress your a grievances directly to the emperor, like it

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was something as a citizen you had a right to do.

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So citizenship did have a ton of value, but there

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were also various forms of citizenship. They would be citizenship

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with the vote and citizenship without the vote. So it

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was kind of a very interesting thing to be a

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Roman citizen. And it's hard to define really what makes

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a Roman and this is there was a big debate

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on X a few months ago between one of my

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favorite follows, by the way, go follow this guy if

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you're not a Roman helmet guy and Elon Musk about

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you know, what is romanness and how is that changing?

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You know, Rome had always been very cosmopolitan, and I

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guess that's the issue of how do you define what

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a Roman is? Because if Rome expanded into your territory

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took you over and you were there long enough, well

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you became very Romanized because people wanted to be like

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Rome because there was a lot of goodies you got

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for having that. So that's kind of one issue. Now,

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the thing you're going to start to see is as

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currency starts to break down in the late Empire, and

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as these generals that were declaring themselves emperor care more

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about their civil wars between each other than their borders,

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you start to get these enclaves developing on the borders

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that are living with the Roman territory. They're not really

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being Roman, and you start to have this kind of

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loss of a shared reality. So I think that's one

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of the major things that you're looking at as an

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empire breaks down, is there starts to be this loss

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of a shared reality and then people kind of aren't

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playing the same game.

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Speaker 5: If that makes sense, well, definitely.

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Speaker 4: And one of the other things my Roman history is

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a little spotty so I might be wrong on this

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plus or minus one hundred years. But one of the

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other things that I think is interesting looking back at

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Roman history is the relationship between effectively like ownership and citizenship. Right.

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You know, this is the you know, the I mean

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a lot of the controversies that led up to you know,

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the eventual birth of the empire. Right, But you have

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this founding idea, however, imperfect, that we are a collection

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of effectively kind of Yeoman farmers, right that you know,

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we are people who you know, certainly fight, but you know,

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a Roman is tied to a piece of land and

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that is sort of his right. You know, this is

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an idea that runs all the way through the West.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: Even the American founders liked this idea. You know that

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the British, I guess before they were even the British

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did as well. And it's one of those things that

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as that system falls apart, partially due to the influx

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of slaves, but also to let's be honest again, kind

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of the rise of you know, relatively speaking, high finance,

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that connective tissue goes away, and so you have we

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could say, like genetic Romans with really nothing, right that

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become these sort of like welfare sponges you have, So

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they have no tie to the land anymore. They don't

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really own a stake per se in the empire or

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even you know, the state of Rome past the Dole

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and an incredible influx of people who are looking to

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get a piece of that, right, And I mean you

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don't have to be a genius to look around and

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say like, wait a minute, I've seen this one before. Yeah,

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and so we've been talking about this a lot, So

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let's just kind of set the framework here. Where does

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this currency debasement come from? Like how was it done? Literally?

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And also like what what's the advantage? Why would you

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make your coins worthless?

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Speaker 6: Well, I want to touch on the other point first

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before I jump on currency, because that's a really pertinent point.

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And if you look at you know, we talked about

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Rome being a kingdom, so it's traditionally in the West,

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because you know, the East, the Byzantine Empire, they still

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would have considered themselves Romans. It has three eras in time.

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It's a kingdom first in seven fifty three, then it

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becomes a republic in five h nine, and an empire sometime.

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This is debated, but sometime between thirty one and twenty

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three BC. So one of the things you're going to

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have change in the last one hundred years of the

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Republic is there's a guy named Gaius Marius, and he's

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a very famous military reformer of Rome. Actually, the Roman

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eagle standard is something that he creates. It's something that

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he actually adds to the Roman military. Before Marius, Rome

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had been very much a citizen soldiery. He actually starts

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to create more of a class of professional soldier. So

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that is very much a difference in how Rome is

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going to start to function. And he mentioned people not

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being tied to land after the Punic Wars and after

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the reforms of Marius. This is going to be something

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that's debated for a long time. And it's actually one

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of the biggest reasons that Julius Caesar in the Late

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Republic is a to get the support he's able to

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get because he wants to take land that Pompey has

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gained through conquest and give it to veterans, because those

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veterans would come back and they'd have nothing to come

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back to because their land might have been sold in

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the time they were gone. Because people might have expected

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they died, so you'd have a lot of these military

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men come back with no purpose, nothing to come back to,

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and Caesar thought we should give them land. So this

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is something that's actually debated quite often, is what do

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we do with these people that don't have any land?

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Speaker 5: And it's one of the major.

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Speaker 6: Reasons that the optimatees, which is the very high end

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political class, create a struggle with Caesar's political class, which

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is the popularies or the kind of party of the people.

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So that's something that has been a problem for a

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very long time and actually one of the things that

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causes the Republic to become an empire.

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Speaker 4: Well on that point, and sorry, sorry, I.

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Speaker 5: Totally at the basement point, but I couldn't miss that.

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Speaker 4: The problem is I want to get to it, but

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we keep coming, we keep touching on things that are

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really interesting. I'm sure the comments will be very kind

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to us for it.

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Speaker 6: But in all seriousness, always ripped me apart and tell

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me I don't know anything about anything, but what are

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you gonna do?

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Speaker 4: But look, I've built a brand on not particularly knowing

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anything about anything, so you know they're used to it.

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But in all seriousness, one of the other things that

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I think is an interesting parallel is the degree to

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which slavery massively increased inequality in Rome. Now you could

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look at that and say, no, shit, slaves are not

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equal to a guy with a bunch of stuff. Sure, hey,

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that's true. But also cheap labor effectively allows capital to

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be much much more productive. Right when when you combine

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that with credit, right, which is obviously helped along by

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currency debasement, an unequal distribution of wealth that is becoming

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more and more unequal, and then the cheap labor to

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take that land and make it into something productive. Oh wait,

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and also a massive scheme of you know, government contracts,

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whether that's for grain or weapons or anything else. And

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not only do you start to see the parallel, but

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it's like, well, it's no shock that that created an

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unstable system because that is going to massive Well take

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an unequal system anyway. You know. Look, we're not communists,

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but I think we can all say that, you know,

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even at its most liberal, Rome was not exactly, you know,

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not exactly an equal system.

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Speaker 6: Well, it was more of an oligarchy if anything, because

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about ten ten percent it's it's a republic, but like

347
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ten percent of it is literate and it's about the

348
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same you know, five to ten percent that's actually running things.

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Speaker 5: So you're not wrong by saying that.

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Speaker 4: Right, And it basically takes those contradictions or takes those

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tensions and ratchets them up, right. So, I mean you

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know that you have this system. Was it the lat

353
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of Fundia, right, the kind of like these massive farm

354
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abs into Yes, these like massive.

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Speaker 6: Well because the rich would actually it wasn't even just that,

356
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like you'd had a lot of fundia, but you also

357
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had rich people. And this is one of the things

358
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Caesar got upset about, which just start farming public land

359
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because no one would stop them.

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Speaker 4: I mean, at a certain point you always have to

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like admire the balls it took to do it right,

362
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Like like if you just set up a farm in

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a public park, I don't know, it's not good, but

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you know there's something at.

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Speaker 6: That point in time, if you hold the power, who's

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gonna stop you?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? True, true, But I want to go back to

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the specific currency and it's not just like my special

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interest is, you know, not some gold buck or something.

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But it matters more than it than you would assume

371
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on sort of initial impression right, So if you could describe,

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like one, what is the temptation in this why do

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rulers constantly go to this option? Like what does it

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get you? And then when do we really start to

375
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see that becoming a problem in Rome?

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Speaker 5: Well, why why do they do it? Because it's intoxicating.

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Speaker 6: It lets you spend money that you don't have, which

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is which is pretty incredible. And I guess a good

379
00:20:12,079 --> 00:20:16,039
example of this is the denarius, and the silver denarius

380
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was kind of the main coin that would be used

381
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in most transactions. And as the denarius starts to devalue,

382
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people are going to start hoarding gold and that becomes

383
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a problem that there's not gold in circulation. So the

384
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gold the silver coin of the first century in Augustus,

385
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:34,559
that's about ninety five percent pure. By the late third century,

386
00:20:34,559 --> 00:20:38,039
in the two eighties, it's like five percent pure. This

387
00:20:38,319 --> 00:20:42,519
is this here is a silver coin of the late

388
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third century, very rare to find because there just weren't

389
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:48,200
as many. But this is Valerian who was actually captured

390
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,599
by the Persian shah Shahpoor the first and actually used

391
00:20:51,599 --> 00:20:54,200
as a footstool the rest of his life. And then

392
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this is a bronze coin of a relion. This would

393
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have been kind of the standard. A bronze coin would

394
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be used every day.

395
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Speaker 5: So what would.

396
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Speaker 6: Happen is they would basically add other base metals to

397
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those coins, and over time you kind of got to

398
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:11,960
the third century where that bronze coin that I just

399
00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:13,880
showed you would be bronze and kind of had like

400
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:16,839
a piece of silver foil over top of it that

401
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:19,359
would wear off in your hand over time. So how

402
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:23,640
did it happen. There's a few different things that kind

403
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,160
of lead to this that so I apologize for kind

404
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,519
of all the kind of back end work. I'm here

405
00:21:28,559 --> 00:21:30,319
to kind of set it up. But if you look

406
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:34,240
at the you know, as we have the Great Fire

407
00:21:34,319 --> 00:21:37,200
of Rome in sixty four a d and Nero needs

408
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to pay for a lot of things, so he'll start

409
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some currency to basement, So you're going to see the

410
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value start to drop during Nero. It holds pretty stable

411
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until the death of commonas in one ninety two. So

412
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we went from sixty four to one ninety two, almost

413
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one hundred and fifty years with a pretty stable currency. Now,

414
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the thing that's going to change in that year is

415
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it's the year of five Emperors and the last one

416
00:22:00,839 --> 00:22:03,519
that comes in, because basically they'd cause the civil war,

417
00:22:03,599 --> 00:22:06,480
they would declare themselves emperor. And you have it at

418
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,359
the last one, the second to last one, the fourth

419
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one of those is basically going to buy the auction

420
00:22:13,039 --> 00:22:16,279
by the empire and an auction from the Praetorian art

421
00:22:16,640 --> 00:22:21,000
twenty thousand cissirces. He now owns the empire. So you're

422
00:22:21,039 --> 00:22:23,920
going to have a military commander out on the Danube

423
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,119
named so timmya Severus, he's actually from North Africa who's

424
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:31,079
going to come in replace that emperor, declare himself emperor

425
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and do it by military force. And the pattern he

426
00:22:34,279 --> 00:22:37,359
uses is something that the emperors will after him will

427
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:40,039
pattern the rest of the empire. The thing that he

428
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:43,640
does is when a new emperor came in, he would

429
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,000
do something called the donative. It comes from the Latin

430
00:22:46,039 --> 00:22:48,759
word meaning to give. And that donative was a gift

431
00:22:48,759 --> 00:22:52,799
to the military. So he took from probably about twenty

432
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,480
years before Marcus Aurelius at that point in time, gave

433
00:22:55,519 --> 00:22:58,960
the largest donative to the Roman military ever. So he

434
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,759
takes that and go is way bigger than Marcus Aurelius did.

435
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:04,359
So now he gives this giant gift to the military.

436
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:08,240
He also doubles military pay, and then he also doubles

437
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:11,200
the size of the allegiance. He takes the praetorian guard

438
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,480
replaces them all with his own men. And now that's

439
00:23:14,519 --> 00:23:16,880
something that each emperor after him is going to do.

440
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,559
They're going to enlarge the allegiance, double their pay, and

441
00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:24,599
give this huge donative gift to them when they become emperor.

442
00:23:25,319 --> 00:23:27,599
I'm trying to remember the quote offhand, but when Severus

443
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,359
is on his deathbed, he says to his sons Caracala

444
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,839
and Gaeta, enriched the soldiers and forget all others. And

445
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,640
that's kind of the pattern that emperors after them will

446
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,240
continue to apply. So that's really the key thing that

447
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,880
starts currency to basement is you have this new brand

448
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,559
of emperor. It's not quite sever Its. It's going to

449
00:23:48,599 --> 00:23:50,400
get the name. It's a little bit later on in

450
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,160
two thirty five you're going to have a guy named

451
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:56,240
Maximinus Thras that's actually fit considered to be the first

452
00:23:56,319 --> 00:23:58,799
of what are called the barrack emperors or military emperors

453
00:23:58,799 --> 00:24:01,920
declaring themselves emperor. But it really is applied off this

454
00:24:02,039 --> 00:24:05,920
pattern that Severus creates and every emperor after him is

455
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:08,680
going to create So in the period of the Third

456
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:12,079
century Crisis, which is two thirty five to two eighty four,

457
00:24:12,519 --> 00:24:15,039
you're going to have like twenty six different emperors and

458
00:24:15,079 --> 00:24:18,920
they're each going to apply that same strategy of large donative,

459
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,240
give a higher pay raise in large the legions, because

460
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:25,799
that's where their power base comes from. And you're going

461
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:28,960
to get to the point of two eighty four, when

462
00:24:29,599 --> 00:24:32,359
the crisis finally ends and a guy named Diocletian takes

463
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,440
over that they're at fifteen thousand percent inflation, and that's

464
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,240
really how they get there is just military spending. Now,

465
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,039
all of these other things are going to exasperate it,

466
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,480
like the grain dole or Caracala giving out citizenship to

467
00:24:44,519 --> 00:24:47,440
thirty million people in two twelve, So these things are

468
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,839
going to exasperate it. But it's really that pattern that's

469
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,960
created by Severus that emperors after him continue to apply.

470
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Speaker 4: So one of the things that I'm I'm curious about

471
00:25:01,079 --> 00:25:04,279
is so friends of the show the Good Old Boys

472
00:25:04,279 --> 00:25:08,319
have been going through a long retrospective on HBO's Rome,

473
00:25:08,839 --> 00:25:11,400
which I might add I've actually never just rewatched.

474
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:14,039
Speaker 6: By the way I watched it, like twenty years ago

475
00:25:14,079 --> 00:25:16,319
when it came out. I literally just finished rewatching about

476
00:25:16,319 --> 00:25:16,960
two weeks ago.

477
00:25:17,799 --> 00:25:20,039
Speaker 4: Well, well, fair enough, and I haven't watched it. It's

478
00:25:20,079 --> 00:25:22,400
basically just a podcast about Roman history with a thin

479
00:25:22,519 --> 00:25:25,039
veneer of talking about a TV show in the background,

480
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:29,440
which I appreciate. But you know, in the background constantly

481
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,920
through this, you know, because Caesar is returned from Gaul,

482
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:39,880
are these these massive slave auctions and this represented obviously

483
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:45,920
a huge influx of capital and money into Rome. So

484
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,039
how and free of me this is no really broad question,

485
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:55,920
but how do these conflicts in Rome affect the sort

486
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,279
of like effective inflation rate? Because it seems as if

487
00:25:59,319 --> 00:26:03,359
there's so much money, there's so much value flying around

488
00:26:03,799 --> 00:26:08,880
that that would lead to asset inflation. Right if the

489
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,160
conversion rate from a I don't know a house to

490
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,839
a slave I'm pulling these numbers out of thin air

491
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:15,839
was like two to one, Right, you could buy a

492
00:26:15,839 --> 00:26:17,960
house for two slaves. Well, if all of a sudden

493
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,960
you've brought back you know, however, many tens of thousands

494
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,279
caes are brought back, it seems that you know that

495
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,920
ratio would change. So to what degree was there inflation

496
00:26:29,079 --> 00:26:32,039
simply from the sort of like spoils of war.

497
00:26:33,079 --> 00:26:35,319
Speaker 6: So I don't really know the answer to that, but

498
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:39,039
I can tell you one of the things that continues

499
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,640
Rome to be able to expand as the continual military

500
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,960
conquest and the Roman Empire is going to reach its

501
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,799
furthest extent in one seventeen AD under Trajan, and you're

502
00:26:50,839 --> 00:26:53,200
going to have kind of smaller movements after that. But

503
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,720
for the most part, the empire stops expanding. You know,

504
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,039
Severus will spend some time in Britain trying to ensure

505
00:26:59,079 --> 00:27:02,079
things there. In the one twenties, you're going to have

506
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,480
Hadrian builds the wall to try and keep the picks out,

507
00:27:04,799 --> 00:27:09,319
But for all extents and purposes, Rome stops expanding after

508
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,559
one seventeen AD. There will be smaller territorial ads, but

509
00:27:12,559 --> 00:27:15,119
for the most part, this kind of machine that keeps

510
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,279
kind of grinding up everyone, you know, further and further

511
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,680
out stops. And I think that's a really key point

512
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,039
because one of the things that allows Rome to do

513
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,559
what it does is it is continually bring in more

514
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:30,680
territory and more wealth. Once that stops, that's going to

515
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,960
be a major change in how things operate, right, because

516
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,920
you're no longer bringing the gold and the silver. You know,

517
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,119
you have your silver mines in Datia which are kind

518
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,480
of out towards the Balkans, but those silver mines actually

519
00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:44,440
go dry I think in the third century, in the

520
00:27:44,799 --> 00:27:48,079
early third century. So now you have this ability to

521
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,599
get wealth changes dramatically. So I think that's a really

522
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,079
key point. Is I don't know as much about how

523
00:27:54,279 --> 00:27:57,440
slavery would cause inflation, though you know it is something

524
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,640
that continually to come into the empire. But I can

525
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,920
tell you that the territorial expansion ending in one seventeen

526
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,880
is a major major point of no longer continue to

527
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:08,279
bring in new wealth.

528
00:28:10,279 --> 00:28:14,279
Speaker 4: All right, fair enough so, And honestly, look, man, I'm

529
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:16,279
that was a question I was curious about the answer to.

530
00:28:16,759 --> 00:28:18,559
Speaker 5: But I don't know something.

531
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,559
Speaker 4: No, I appreciate it. Look, my preparation for you on

532
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:27,200
this show was what's your schedule tomorrow? Right, Yeah. So

533
00:28:28,319 --> 00:28:32,240
one of the things that we mentioned earlier I want

534
00:28:32,279 --> 00:28:37,759
to actually get into is the way in which inflation

535
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:44,599
increases sort of the power of the moneyed interests, right,

536
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,279
And you know, part of that has to do with

537
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,200
who gets the newly inflated money first. Also, you know,

538
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,440
if your wealth is stored in liquid assets, Inflation is

539
00:28:56,519 --> 00:28:58,200
much less of a problem for you than if you

540
00:28:58,319 --> 00:29:02,920
just own a house or a farm. So how does

541
00:29:03,039 --> 00:29:05,640
this sort of inflation that we see, whether in Rome

542
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:09,880
or you know, in the West, affect normal people? Right?

543
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,960
How does it sort of shift the balance of power

544
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:13,720
in a society.

545
00:29:15,079 --> 00:29:18,079
Speaker 6: So that's the one problem we have with history, and

546
00:29:18,279 --> 00:29:19,839
I'm going to be totally honest with you here. We

547
00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:22,000
don't know as much about what regular people are doing.

548
00:29:22,519 --> 00:29:25,200
And that's one of the real struggles because the people

549
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,519
writing the history are the people that are educated and

550
00:29:27,519 --> 00:29:30,640
the people that do have wealth. So we can surmise,

551
00:29:30,799 --> 00:29:33,880
but it's hard to know exactly what their life is like.

552
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,359
And I think when you're looking at even when Rome

553
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,440
quote unquote falls, it really just transitions. It doesn't fall

554
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,559
in four seventy six. The life of someone living in

555
00:29:42,599 --> 00:29:44,799
four seventy six and five hundred in Roman.

556
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 5: Territory is a poor person. Their life wouldn't have changed

557
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:47,039
that much.

558
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 6: You know, when Rome goes from republic to an empire,

559
00:29:50,799 --> 00:29:53,319
the regular person, their life wouldn't really have changed that much.

560
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:55,640
So I think that's something to understand is you have

561
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:57,200
to look at the things they would have cared about.

562
00:29:57,519 --> 00:29:59,799
You know, disease is a huge problem. There'll be plagues

563
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,079
continually sweeping through. You have the Antonine plague in the

564
00:30:03,079 --> 00:30:05,400
one sixties that kills about ten percent of the Empire.

565
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,799
You have the Aciprian plague in the mid third century

566
00:30:08,799 --> 00:30:10,279
that kills an enormous amount of people.

567
00:30:10,279 --> 00:30:11,559
Speaker 5: So they're worried about disease.

568
00:30:12,519 --> 00:30:15,599
Speaker 6: They're worried about gambling, which was actually something that happened

569
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,319
a lot because people would earn money and they'd lose

570
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:20,599
it in the either a chariot race or something like that.

571
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,759
They're worried about their children dying. You know, death rates

572
00:30:24,759 --> 00:30:29,160
of children were extremely high. The family of the two

573
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:33,240
Grochai brothers in one thirty three, I believe their mother

574
00:30:33,319 --> 00:30:35,440
had eleven children and the two boys were the only

575
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,599
ones surviving. So death rates of children were really high.

576
00:30:38,799 --> 00:30:41,839
So for them, they're just worried about survival. For them,

577
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:43,160
it wouldn't have changed that much.

578
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:43,359
Speaker 5: Now.

579
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,119
Speaker 6: One thing I can tell you is as currency debasement changes,

580
00:30:47,559 --> 00:30:50,319
the marketplace itself is going to change. So what you

581
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,920
do start to see is people not being willing to

582
00:30:53,599 --> 00:30:56,440
at first take the correct number of coins because they

583
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:57,839
know the coin is worth less, so they're going to

584
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,119
require more. They actually get off coinage and they start

585
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:04,680
trading in a barter system. So that is something you're

586
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,079
going to see in regular people, is when they know

587
00:31:07,119 --> 00:31:09,119
the coins lack value, they know they can't buy what

588
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,480
they should, they're going to start bartering. And one of

589
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,559
the things that Diocletian is going to do as part

590
00:31:15,599 --> 00:31:18,119
of his famous reforms from two eighty to three h

591
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,640
five two eighty four to three oh five is he's

592
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,400
going to issue something called the Edict of maximum Prices,

593
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,720
because he doesn't want people overcharging for things which price

594
00:31:26,759 --> 00:31:30,839
controls them. They always work, trust me. And the other

595
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,440
thing that he does as well is he tries to

596
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,119
issue new coinage, but people still don't trust it because

597
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:39,880
the purity of the coins have gone down so much.

598
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:41,920
So the one thing I can tell you is that

599
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:45,000
a barter economy becomes a really big part of it.

600
00:31:45,079 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 5: It starts to form more of a black market.

601
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:54,039
Speaker 4: So moving to sort of more more modern examples, UH,

602
00:31:55,519 --> 00:32:01,640
inflation and these sort of economic terms are to be blunt,

603
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,839
deliberately obfuscated. Right. There was a post that went viral

604
00:32:05,839 --> 00:32:08,920
and x a while back, and it was funny. He

605
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,039
was making a point where the guy had calculated the

606
00:32:11,359 --> 00:32:15,559
Redneck CPI where since nineteen seventy he basically.

607
00:32:15,079 --> 00:32:16,839
Speaker 5: Tracked the price grade game by the way.

608
00:32:17,039 --> 00:32:19,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, of like a full sized pickup truck, long cut

609
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,359
Copenhagen and thirty out six AMMO and like a few

610
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,240
other things, right, and he basically came to the conclusion that,

611
00:32:26,319 --> 00:32:30,240
judging off of those assets alone, inflation was much much

612
00:32:30,319 --> 00:32:34,000
higher than sort of what it says on the tin right,

613
00:32:34,039 --> 00:32:39,240
the rate you would get from Wikipedia, for example. And similarly,

614
00:32:40,039 --> 00:32:43,240
I remember very distinctly during the Biden years when I

615
00:32:43,359 --> 00:32:47,680
was in school, the definition of what a recession changed.

616
00:32:48,079 --> 00:32:51,119
They just changed what words meant, and.

617
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,279
Speaker 5: So they also changed the definition of war too. That's

618
00:32:53,319 --> 00:32:54,599
been a fun one.

619
00:32:54,839 --> 00:32:58,599
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, what Honestly, when you think about it, Putin

620
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,079
with his special Military operation right in Ukraine, he was

621
00:33:02,119 --> 00:33:05,480
just ahead of the curve, you know, right there.

622
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 5: Was to you later there was Andrew.

623
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 6: I can't forget to remember his last name, but he

624
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,359
did a video about every war since World War Two.

625
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,240
Like the different name they came up for it, oh

626
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:18,319
is special military action was police action. It was this

627
00:33:18,359 --> 00:33:20,039
we haven't liked declared a war since World War Two,

628
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:21,480
but anyway, continue.

629
00:33:21,359 --> 00:33:26,079
Speaker 4: No, no, and so I if you could, you could,

630
00:33:26,359 --> 00:33:30,279
I guess you speak to the kind of modern instantiation

631
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,720
of of currency debasement, Like how dramatic of a problem

632
00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:38,160
is it? Is it simply the three percent a year

633
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,000
you're told to assume, like when we actually dig into this,

634
00:33:41,039 --> 00:33:41,960
like what's the real story?

635
00:33:42,759 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 6: So I think the hard part about that, And I

636
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:47,400
don't know what the industries off are off hand, but

637
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,759
when they calculate that inflation number, there's things like I

638
00:33:50,759 --> 00:33:52,640
think building materials is one of them that they don't

639
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:54,599
include in the inflation number, Like things that would make

640
00:33:54,599 --> 00:33:56,559
it look really bad they don't include. So I think

641
00:33:56,559 --> 00:33:58,759
that's a really important point. And they're they're only looking

642
00:33:58,799 --> 00:34:01,519
at year over year. They're not looking at kind of

643
00:34:01,559 --> 00:34:04,240
a long term where we're at. And I think a

644
00:34:04,279 --> 00:34:05,920
really easy example of that is I went to the

645
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,199
grocery store the other day and it was like nine

646
00:34:08,159 --> 00:34:10,719
to ninety nine for a pack of like the crap bacon,

647
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,760
Like that shouldn't be the case. You know, that was

648
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,880
two ninety nine, four years ago, right, So I think

649
00:34:17,119 --> 00:34:20,519
when you're looking at it for the regular person, it's

650
00:34:20,559 --> 00:34:23,599
how you feel in the grocery store. But if you

651
00:34:23,639 --> 00:34:25,960
want to kind of get into the economics of it,

652
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,840
the FED likes to call it quantitative easing, you know,

653
00:34:30,039 --> 00:34:32,119
QI one Q two. What that means is, hey, we

654
00:34:32,159 --> 00:34:34,960
printed more money, and the dollar in your pocket is

655
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,679
now worth less. So it's like a tax you don't

656
00:34:36,679 --> 00:34:39,480
actually pay. It just means they increase the amount of

657
00:34:39,519 --> 00:34:43,280
money in circulation, but doesn't mean they actually ever printed

658
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,159
any money. Like Romans would have loved this, that you

659
00:34:45,159 --> 00:34:47,920
could just go into computer create more ones and zeros

660
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,440
and now more money exists. So I think the actual

661
00:34:50,559 --> 00:34:53,920
problem that we're dealing with is not quite the same

662
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:56,239
as what Rome dealt with and how inflation works, because

663
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,199
we have something like the Federal Reserve, which isn't federal,

664
00:35:00,039 --> 00:35:02,239
doesn't hold any reserves, and can kind of just change

665
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:05,280
the amount of money in circulation and change the interest

666
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,639
rate whatever they feel like. So our economy is very

667
00:35:07,679 --> 00:35:09,599
controlled in a lot of ways. And I think to

668
00:35:09,679 --> 00:35:14,119
me that's the major concern is most people don't feel inflation.

669
00:35:14,519 --> 00:35:17,239
They just think things cost more, and in the grand

670
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:20,719
scheme of things, costs don't really change. It's the value

671
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:22,920
of your money going down that make you feel like

672
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,480
things cost more. So I think if you look modernly,

673
00:35:25,519 --> 00:35:28,599
that's the scary part. And even there's a story during

674
00:35:28,599 --> 00:35:31,000
the Weimar Republic of you right before World War two

675
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,920
of some are I'm sorry, right before World War two,

676
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,000
but somebody going with a wheelbarrow full of money to

677
00:35:37,039 --> 00:35:39,000
go buy a loaf of bread. By the time they

678
00:35:39,039 --> 00:35:40,800
get there, that wheelbarrow is not enough to buy the

679
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:42,960
actual loaf of bread because inflation is moving so quickly.

680
00:35:43,199 --> 00:35:45,079
When you kind of get to that point from inflation

681
00:35:45,199 --> 00:35:48,800
to hyperinflation, somebody can't keep up, and that starts to

682
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,079
become a real problem. And I think the way we

683
00:35:51,159 --> 00:35:54,760
do it now is more covert and almost more criminal

684
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,519
in a lot of ways, because people don't feel it.

685
00:35:56,519 --> 00:35:58,559
It's not a physical coin in their hand that they

686
00:35:58,559 --> 00:36:01,480
can see is getting some or they can see the

687
00:36:01,519 --> 00:36:05,079
silver and bronze content is changing. It's something that they

688
00:36:05,119 --> 00:36:06,800
just go to the store and things cost more, and

689
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,480
all of a sudden, their salary that they're getting can't

690
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:11,920
pay for it. So I think that's modernly. The real

691
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,400
problem is most people don't understand because they're so far

692
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:15,559
removed from the process.

693
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and this is something it's always interesting to

694
00:36:20,039 --> 00:36:24,000
speak with with older people about this. You know, I

695
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,960
had a buddy over last night who's you know, got

696
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,559
an economics degree, very financially literate, and he was talking about,

697
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,079
you know, conversation he had with his grandfather, right, someone

698
00:36:33,159 --> 00:36:35,960
in their mid eighties from kind of you know, rural Virginia.

699
00:36:37,039 --> 00:36:39,239
Not I mean, not to say a dumb person at all,

700
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,559
but not really like a finance guy, to put it mildly, right,

701
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:46,880
And in that conversation, you know, it came up that like, oh,

702
00:36:47,239 --> 00:36:50,800
you know, some social acquaintance you know, is making six

703
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,440
figures a year. And he was floored. He's like, oh my, this,

704
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:57,840
this guy's a superstar. He's amazing. You know, this is

705
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,280
like a record setting event at some point, and we'll

706
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,880
be making that kind of money, and especially if you

707
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,719
live in an urban center. And look, that's still decent money,

708
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:12,599
but that is not at all what it was twenty

709
00:37:12,679 --> 00:37:17,079
years ago, let alone ten. Right, And again the combination

710
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:22,039
is for wage earners, you are behind the curve, right,

711
00:37:22,079 --> 00:37:25,320
you were hoping that your wages keep pace with inflation.

712
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,519
We'll kind of understand that, not really because again, how

713
00:37:29,519 --> 00:37:36,119
that number is derived, and so proportionally you are getting poorer.

714
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:41,360
You have the secondary condition, which is if every dollar

715
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:46,000
at every moment is becoming less valuable, the incentives to

716
00:37:46,119 --> 00:37:50,360
hold on to cash are almost none. So it creates

717
00:37:51,079 --> 00:37:56,079
asset inflation because even if someone doesn't need the asset itself, well,

718
00:37:56,119 --> 00:37:57,760
they need somewhere to park their money.

719
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,639
Speaker 6: Are they're going to buy land or something that actually

720
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,519
inflates in value and not a whole currency.

721
00:38:03,519 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 4: Exactly, which creates a large demand for assets, some of

722
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,239
which people need to live. So it's sort of this

723
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,719
double edged sword where they kind of get you coming

724
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:15,199
and going.

725
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,039
Speaker 6: Well, you even look at somebody like Bill Gates and

726
00:38:18,039 --> 00:38:20,239
he's putting most of his money into farmland because that's

727
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:23,360
going to hold value and it's something that is going

728
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,039
to produce more money for him because you've got to

729
00:38:25,079 --> 00:38:27,159
feed people, right. So I think that's one of the

730
00:38:27,159 --> 00:38:29,000
major issues is you look at where are rich people

731
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:30,719
putting their money right now, and they're not putting it

732
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,519
in currency. They're putting it in things that are physical

733
00:38:33,599 --> 00:38:36,599
things that if the economy crashes, they'll be totally fine.

734
00:38:36,639 --> 00:38:38,840
It's the rest of us that have our money and

735
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,880
dollars and everything else. You know, Obviously, I don't put

736
00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:43,880
every dollar I have into gold, but we do buy gold,

737
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:45,880
right because that is something that has been a store

738
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,679
of value for a really long time, and if the

739
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:51,239
economy does crash, we have something of value. And I

740
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:53,719
think there is something to be said about that gold

741
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:55,280
price is the way, I don't know if you've watched

742
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:57,519
this at all, the way they've been going up over

743
00:38:57,559 --> 00:38:58,239
the last.

744
00:38:58,079 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 5: Not even couple years.

745
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:03,639
Speaker 6: It's the last year has been insane that the value

746
00:39:03,679 --> 00:39:07,119
pronounce I think is it's over close to five thousand dollars,

747
00:39:07,159 --> 00:39:08,800
and they're saying, hey, by the end of twenty twenty six,

748
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:10,800
it could be over six thousand dollars an ounce, which

749
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,559
is insane. So I think, to me, that's the real

750
00:39:13,599 --> 00:39:16,760
indicator of how things are going is how quickly are

751
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:21,559
people putting their money into physical assets versus actual US

752
00:39:21,679 --> 00:39:24,599
dollars or money markets or things like that. And for

753
00:39:24,639 --> 00:39:28,519
the regular people, you know, I think a good example

754
00:39:28,559 --> 00:39:33,079
too of looking at incomes across the country. In the US,

755
00:39:33,159 --> 00:39:36,599
they've they've started to put in these laws of higher

756
00:39:36,639 --> 00:39:39,679
minimum wages, which are a little insane. Where I think

757
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:41,960
here in New Jersey, I think by twenty twenty seven

758
00:39:42,039 --> 00:39:45,440
we're supposed to be at like around twenty dollars an hour,

759
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,360
which for an entry level job, businesses can't afford that.

760
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,320
And what starts to happen is you push businesses then

761
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:55,079
have to either use AI to replace people or go

762
00:39:55,119 --> 00:39:57,000
outside of the US in order hire people to actually

763
00:39:57,039 --> 00:39:59,800
run a business. You know, I remember, I'll be forty

764
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:02,920
in year. When I got my first job out of college,

765
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:04,599
I was making like seven to twenty an hour or

766
00:40:04,639 --> 00:40:07,639
something like that, And it just shows you how inflated

767
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:09,960
rates are now that that twenty bucks an hour really

768
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,199
isn't worth much, and you start to have give business

769
00:40:12,199 --> 00:40:14,840
as a decision of do I hire more people or

770
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,079
do I find ways to automate or not use them

771
00:40:18,119 --> 00:40:21,000
because I can't afford them. So it's once again the

772
00:40:21,039 --> 00:40:24,079
middle to lower classes are the ones that suffer by

773
00:40:24,079 --> 00:40:27,199
inflation because businesses have to run and businesses have to

774
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,119
try to figure out how to make a profit well.

775
00:40:30,159 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 4: And honestly, it's an interesting parallel to the to the

776
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,519
Roman example, because we have our own solution for cheap labor,

777
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,920
and it is to legal immigrants, right, and you know

778
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,440
those systems are similarly exploitative, right, I wouldn't particularly want

779
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,360
to be, you know, an illegal from Honduras, you know,

780
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,400
working in a meat packing plant, probably not getting paid

781
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:57,480
or treated particularly well. But again, in times of inflation,

782
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:02,400
and when you have this mass store of cheap labor, right,

783
00:41:03,599 --> 00:41:07,000
even if it's not morally correct, it's an understandable conclusion

784
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:09,360
someone would reach. You can sort of map it out.

785
00:41:10,119 --> 00:41:12,599
And I think that it's another thing that sort of

786
00:41:12,639 --> 00:41:15,559
tilts the sort of the balance of power, if we

787
00:41:15,599 --> 00:41:21,199
could say that away from someone who's primary asset is

788
00:41:21,199 --> 00:41:25,239
their labor, right, someone who makes money through that, well,

789
00:41:25,599 --> 00:41:29,559
they are competing against the world. The wages for which

790
00:41:29,639 --> 00:41:35,440
they are working are decreasing in value. And yeah, sure

791
00:41:35,519 --> 00:41:38,199
that hits everyone to a certain degree, right, things are

792
00:41:38,199 --> 00:41:43,360
more expensive, But if you are primarily you make money

793
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:48,960
from money, you get hit less because your debt. And

794
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:53,239
you know, I'm by no means the most financially literate person,

795
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:56,079
but I'm sure you're aware just being around rich people

796
00:41:56,119 --> 00:41:58,840
that they use debt in ways that you and I cannot.

797
00:42:00,119 --> 00:42:05,000
Debt is easier to repay, their money is in inflating assets,

798
00:42:05,559 --> 00:42:09,880
and so those are not necessarily problems for that class

799
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,079
in the same way they are for you and I. Yes,

800
00:42:12,159 --> 00:42:14,480
the feature not a bug from that perspective.

801
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,119
Speaker 6: Well, I think that is the really difficult part, right

802
00:42:18,159 --> 00:42:20,599
because and I guess the tough part of that is

803
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:22,559
like it's not like I hate rich people, right, but

804
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:27,840
I think at the same time, it hits small businesses

805
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,599
I think the most because those small businesses and small businesses,

806
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:34,920
I believe is like anything. There's like thirty thousand of

807
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:36,440
them in the country, so there is a lot of

808
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,760
small businesses out there. Those are the ones that suffer

809
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,960
the most because they can't pay that entry level work

810
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,039
that they want to pay. It's kind of the larger

811
00:42:43,079 --> 00:42:45,960
conglomerate multinationals that it doesn't it actually makes the money,

812
00:42:46,039 --> 00:42:48,239
right because they'll figure out how to go to China

813
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:50,800
or you know, go to other places where their money

814
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:53,639
is worth more. So I think the struggle of it

815
00:42:53,679 --> 00:42:56,880
is it continues to hurt the minimum tower, middle to

816
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:01,000
lower class a lot more because they're work can be

817
00:43:01,039 --> 00:43:05,239
replaced much easier, they're not as specialized, and that kind

818
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:08,400
of you know, creates a problem that cascades and if

819
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:10,719
you look at for a lot of us, we don't

820
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:12,639
have the type of discretionary income we be able to

821
00:43:12,639 --> 00:43:14,800
trade in debt like people with a large amount of

822
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,239
capital can do. They're kind of you know, the going

823
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:20,559
from paycheck to paycheck a lot of times. So it

824
00:43:20,599 --> 00:43:23,239
does hurt your regular person a lot more.

825
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,599
Speaker 4: Well. And to that point because again, like I have

826
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:30,599
nothing against rich people, which people are an important part

827
00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:33,800
of society. And I mean you see this in Rome, right,

828
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:37,280
that there were certain expectations placed on the wealthy.

829
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:37,480
Speaker 3: Right.

830
00:43:37,559 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 4: Okay, sure, you know, maybe you put on a game,

831
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,400
you put on a you know, an elaborate set of games.

832
00:43:42,519 --> 00:43:44,440
You know that the bread and circuses, right, just to

833
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:47,639
seem cool to your friends. But I mean, you know

834
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,679
that's at least something mildly pro social to do with

835
00:43:50,760 --> 00:43:52,599
your wealth. So there's, you know, something to be said

836
00:43:52,599 --> 00:43:55,360
for it. But one of the things that I've been

837
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,920
really interested in as someone who has been kind of

838
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,960
digging through the Epstein files, and I problem, I promise

839
00:44:04,039 --> 00:44:06,199
this connects more than it might initially see.

840
00:44:06,679 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 5: It probably connects more and you think it does.

841
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 4: But go ahead, is is that effectively the the rules

842
00:44:13,039 --> 00:44:15,360
that you and I were taught in high school or

843
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,639
how this system works, you know, what are the rules

844
00:44:18,639 --> 00:44:21,599
of the game that It's not true at all? Right,

845
00:44:21,639 --> 00:44:25,679
it's a completely different operation. And you know, regardless of

846
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:31,639
your individual particular take or interpretation of Epstein, the conclusion

847
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:36,679
to me was, oh, okay, this is how government works, right,

848
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,559
this we were watching sort of the sausage being made.

849
00:44:40,079 --> 00:44:43,199
And a particular figure I've been tracking through the Epstein

850
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:48,199
files is Pete Mandelson, right, this kind of British version

851
00:44:48,199 --> 00:44:52,119
of a swamp creature. Right. And obviously you know there's

852
00:44:52,159 --> 00:44:57,199
salacious stuff in there, you know, he's incriminating photos. But

853
00:44:57,239 --> 00:45:00,000
what's particularly interesting about this is what he was at

854
00:45:00,079 --> 00:45:04,119
actually up to with Epstein, the kind of business side, right,

855
00:45:04,159 --> 00:45:08,519
not the personal stuff, which was basically massive insider trading,

856
00:45:09,039 --> 00:45:16,119
specifically as regards you know, the sale of British gold

857
00:45:16,159 --> 00:45:22,159
reserves and you know the the Greek bailout right, where

858
00:45:22,199 --> 00:45:27,400
these massive events, which were incredibly destructive were basically treated

859
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,360
as sort of an opportunity to make some side cash. Right,

860
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:36,320
those kind of massive course corrections in the world economy

861
00:45:37,079 --> 00:45:41,679
were effectively by the man making the decision used at

862
00:45:41,679 --> 00:45:46,559
an opportunity to enrich themselves personally. Yes, and I think

863
00:45:46,599 --> 00:45:49,639
that was sort of an interesting or sort of revelatory

864
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,000
bit of information. It's like, oh, Okay, So all the

865
00:45:53,039 --> 00:45:55,360
stuff about why we needed to do this, why it

866
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,800
was a good idea to sell off, you know, these

867
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,119
gold reserves or to bail out Grease, It's like, well,

868
00:46:00,159 --> 00:46:02,280
those may or may not have been true, but also

869
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,639
you were making a lot of money from that decision.

870
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:08,039
So I don't necessarily believe you when you tell me

871
00:46:08,519 --> 00:46:10,719
this is why we had to do it. And so

872
00:46:11,039 --> 00:46:14,559
I'm curious, would you look at either Epstein or other

873
00:46:14,639 --> 00:46:18,639
kind of you know, major decisions like that, how much

874
00:46:18,679 --> 00:46:21,840
emphasis do you place on just the kind of naked

875
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:22,519
fraud of it.

876
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,519
Speaker 6: Well, I guess the struggle for me is I'm somebody

877
00:46:25,559 --> 00:46:27,400
that I look at the front side of what you're

878
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:29,960
being told and I never believe it's what you're being told.

879
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,760
And this kind of comes from, you know, the things

880
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:34,800
I study on my other channel, which is hidden forces

881
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:39,639
in history. And if you even look at the you know,

882
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,360
kind of break up under Martin Luther when kind of

883
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,320
the Protestant churches come out. The one of the big

884
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:50,360
changes that happens there is you have Pope Leo the Tenth,

885
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,599
who's a Medici pope, and he comes up with this

886
00:46:53,679 --> 00:46:56,719
strategy because Saint Peter's has been unfinished for many years.

887
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:58,760
It started under Julius the Second, but he wants to

888
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:01,119
do this massive upgrade of it. So he has to

889
00:47:01,119 --> 00:47:02,679
come up with a way to make money. And what

890
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:05,840
does he do. He sells indulgences and that's what indulgences were,

891
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,519
basically these tickets out of purgatory, and that was one

892
00:47:08,559 --> 00:47:11,360
of the major things that was a motivating factor for

893
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,920
Martin Luther's ninety five Thesiss. So if you look at

894
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,400
kind of the power behind power, these are often the

895
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:20,440
things that we don't talk about and throughout history, a

896
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,119
lot of times it's banking interests, a lot of times

897
00:47:24,199 --> 00:47:28,360
it's geopolitical interests of a particular person, not of a

898
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:31,000
particular country. So I think if you look at that,

899
00:47:31,079 --> 00:47:33,519
I'm always interested, well, what's the real story, right? Because

900
00:47:33,519 --> 00:47:36,239
they want you watching this hand. What's this hand doing?

901
00:47:36,559 --> 00:47:38,760
And I think that's the thing you really have to consider.

902
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:42,000
Because even Mike Ben's has been talking about the Epstein

903
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,440
network and kind of the monetary side of it a lot.

904
00:47:44,519 --> 00:47:46,920
You know, people hear about, you know, the sex scandals

905
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,639
and everything else, and that's kind of I guess some

906
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:51,480
of it's a distraction. But at the same time, if

907
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,880
some of it is actually a currency that Epstein used, right,

908
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,679
because he could get you to do a deal because

909
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:00,199
you wouldn't want your information out there, right, I think

910
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:02,239
that's something to take a look at even.

911
00:48:02,559 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 4: Well, and honestly, yeah, like one other element I think

912
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,000
about this, and this is sort of dark to say,

913
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,440
but like it's also a phenomenal way to get access

914
00:48:11,519 --> 00:48:14,239
to people. Like we go back to Bill Gates and

915
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,639
by the way, I have to give Bill Gates credit

916
00:48:17,119 --> 00:48:20,079
or in their emails being such a piece of work

917
00:48:20,159 --> 00:48:24,840
that you make Jeffrey Epstein look sympathetic, you know, by comparison. Yeah,

918
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:26,639
you know, you read the background and of course there's

919
00:48:26,639 --> 00:48:29,119
the salacious stuff about him, you know, trying to dose

920
00:48:29,159 --> 00:48:31,519
his wife and all that stuff. You realized that these

921
00:48:31,519 --> 00:48:36,079
guys together are basically going on like jet setting, like

922
00:48:36,119 --> 00:48:39,760
sex tourism trips, and like, you know, okay, that's not

923
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:44,760
really something I'm into, but like he was a party guy, right,

924
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:47,280
And that's the phenomenal way to meet people and also

925
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:51,760
ingratiate yourself when you're giving them access to something that

926
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,440
is rare and difficult to access a little.

927
00:48:55,199 --> 00:48:57,119
Speaker 6: Bit in that sense, even makes the point of like,

928
00:48:57,159 --> 00:48:59,880
can you imagine, like some of these guys would likely

929
00:49:00,159 --> 00:49:02,280
be very good at making friends, and somehow they're getting

930
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,000
some of the most beautiful women on the planet. Right,

931
00:49:04,039 --> 00:49:06,320
So I think if you threaten somebody, you're gonna take

932
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:07,719
that away from them. Well, all of a sudden, you

933
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:10,199
get the political or economic decision you want in your favor.

934
00:49:10,519 --> 00:49:13,079
So I think it is really not that I think

935
00:49:13,119 --> 00:49:14,880
Epstein is a great guy, but like what he was

936
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,760
doing is deviously ingenious, right, He's to kind of get

937
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:20,199
access to the circles, you know, he's kind of like

938
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,360
the guy bringing the drugs to the party, and he's

939
00:49:22,519 --> 00:49:24,280
he's able to get what he wants. And I think

940
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,360
that's a really kind of interesting way to mess with

941
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:29,559
world politics certainly.

942
00:49:29,639 --> 00:49:31,239
Speaker 4: But sorry I interrupted you, Jeremy.

943
00:49:32,559 --> 00:49:33,559
Speaker 5: I don't remember where I was going.

944
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:38,199
Speaker 4: This is wonderful podcasting, right, just like three levels deep

945
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,719
of interruption. Uh, but we.

946
00:49:41,079 --> 00:49:42,639
Speaker 5: Got pretty far off the points, so I don't know

947
00:49:42,639 --> 00:49:43,039
where I am.

948
00:49:43,119 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 3: Now.

949
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 4: Do you remember an hour ago when we were talking

950
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,840
about Rome? But in all seriousness, right, we were talking

951
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:53,360
about that sort of these hidden forces in history, right

952
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,000
where the stated narrative sort of what it says on

953
00:49:56,039 --> 00:49:59,320
the ten and what's actually going on are two completely

954
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,400
different things. And I mean it does again sort of

955
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:06,400
go back to what we were speaking earlier about the

956
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,519
kind of foundational myths, you know, something like Virgil, which

957
00:50:09,519 --> 00:50:11,639
obviously it has a great deal of artistic merit. You know,

958
00:50:11,639 --> 00:50:13,440
it is part of the Western canon for a reason.

959
00:50:14,679 --> 00:50:17,679
But you know he didn't just write that to write that, right,

960
00:50:17,679 --> 00:50:20,280
there was there was another way. Yeah, there's a.

961
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:21,760
Speaker 6: Purpose to it, and even if you want to I

962
00:50:21,800 --> 00:50:24,320
think a great example of this too is the Holy

963
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:28,360
Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth. The way he actually becomes

964
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:31,679
Holy Roman Emperor, there would be these seven prince electors

965
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:33,599
that would basically decide who the next Holy Rome emper

966
00:50:33,679 --> 00:50:36,159
is going to be. So Charles the Fifth has this

967
00:50:36,199 --> 00:50:39,239
guy behind him. His name is Yokan Johann Fuga or

968
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,880
Jacob Fuga, and Jacob Fuga is he starts as a

969
00:50:43,039 --> 00:50:46,400
kind of like mercantilist, but becomes becomes more of a

970
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:50,519
banker lending money. Well, he actually bribes the seven prince electors,

971
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,320
gets Charles the Fifth elected, and then every strange decision

972
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,559
you don't understand in Charles the Fifth's life was something

973
00:50:57,599 --> 00:51:00,360
that was a benefit to Jakob Fuga, And I think

974
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:02,599
that's the thing to understand when you look at power

975
00:51:02,639 --> 00:51:05,920
behind the power and you don't understand why a politician's

976
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,760
doing what they're doing, you need to know who's behind them.

977
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:10,639
And I think that's what it really comes down to,

978
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:14,280
like who put them there. One of my favorite writers

979
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,519
you see since passed on is a guy named Jim Mars,

980
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:21,400
And Jim Mars would say about George W. Bush when

981
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:22,519
you look at kind of like how did you get

982
00:51:22,559 --> 00:51:24,400
an office? He said, In Texas, we have a saying

983
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,679
called the post turtle, where somebody's trying to play a

984
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:28,679
joke and they put a turtle on top of a

985
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:30,440
fence post, and you say, like how'd they get there?

986
00:51:30,639 --> 00:51:32,800
He said, George Bush was a post turtle. You don't

987
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:34,039
know how he got there, but you just want to

988
00:51:34,039 --> 00:51:36,079
help the creature down. And I think when you look

989
00:51:36,119 --> 00:51:38,280
at politicians, a lot of times you get these people

990
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:41,159
that aren't the best of us because they're more easily corruptible,

991
00:51:41,159 --> 00:51:43,840
that get in a position because they have people behind

992
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:45,360
them that want to use them as the means to

993
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:45,920
their own end.

994
00:51:47,199 --> 00:51:52,880
Speaker 4: Well, perhaps the most pertinent example recently, in my mind

995
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:57,199
is the rise of President Obama. Right, this guy who

996
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:01,800
appears out of nowhere, bemingly out of nowhere, with no

997
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:06,159
real history, you know, sort of parachuted into this role,

998
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:10,280
and you know, as an Illinois State senator, he's giving

999
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:12,840
a you know, a keynote speech at the DNC. You know,

1000
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:16,199
even before he you know, went past that, you're like, wait,

1001
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:17,639
I'm sorry that cut.

1002
00:52:17,559 --> 00:52:19,199
Speaker 5: Out for a little bit you did, but we got

1003
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:19,599
you back.

1004
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 4: Cool, Cool, I'll edit that out. I might edit that out.

1005
00:52:23,159 --> 00:52:25,920
But point is again, right, it's the post turtle phenomenon.

1006
00:52:26,079 --> 00:52:29,039
It's like, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense

1007
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:34,239
on first viewing. Another great example is my favorite figure

1008
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:39,039
in American politics, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who again

1009
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,599
is just kind of an unfortunate woman on multiple levels,

1010
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:46,719
who seemingly right, should have no chance in a city

1011
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:50,719
like Chicago. And then you realize, oh, wait, she was

1012
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,599
friends with or she was sort of handpicked by the

1013
00:52:53,679 --> 00:52:58,119
Obama DJ. Right, they basically dropped her in to you know,

1014
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:00,880
play some games they wanted to play. And once you

1015
00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:04,400
know that, you're like, oh, this makes sense because on

1016
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,000
first viewing, you're like, who would vote for this woman.

1017
00:53:07,079 --> 00:53:10,559
She seems to be, even by the standards of Chicago politicians,

1018
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:15,679
not particularly bright, not particularly charismatic, and plainly corrupt. And

1019
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:17,679
then you have that bit of information and you're like, oh,

1020
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:21,679
okay again. It's that gap between how you were told

1021
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:25,840
the system works, the sort of schoolhouse Rock version, and

1022
00:53:27,079 --> 00:53:30,239
how human nature interacts with these sort of you know,

1023
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:31,920
complicated systems.

1024
00:53:32,079 --> 00:53:34,039
Speaker 6: Well, and that's why I think always finding the funding

1025
00:53:34,079 --> 00:53:37,159
behind somebody is always the more interesting part. You even

1026
00:53:37,159 --> 00:53:39,800
look at a lot of these nonprofits, there's a form

1027
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:41,039
that they have to fill out every year called a

1028
00:53:41,039 --> 00:53:43,519
Form nine ninety, and that's kind of fun to see, well,

1029
00:53:43,519 --> 00:53:46,559
who's giving the money to this nonprofit because it really

1030
00:53:46,679 --> 00:53:49,760
kind of explains your world a lot more than you

1031
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:52,000
would understand. And I think if you look at kind

1032
00:53:52,039 --> 00:53:54,599
of understanding your world is you want to know the

1033
00:53:54,639 --> 00:53:58,320
forces behind things because what you're seeing really is play acting,

1034
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:00,800
really following the money and really going.

1035
00:54:00,599 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 5: Behind it and seeing, you know, who benefits.

1036
00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,719
Speaker 6: I think that's the bigger story because you even look

1037
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:09,199
at you know, emperors in Rome, the Praetorian Guard was

1038
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,159
responsible for protecting the emperors in Rome, but the man

1039
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:14,199
that was in charge of the Praetorian Guard, called the

1040
00:54:14,199 --> 00:54:18,000
Praetorian Prefect, is really the most powerful man in Rome

1041
00:54:18,039 --> 00:54:22,199
because seventeen, it's somewhere around seventeen emperors actually die because

1042
00:54:22,199 --> 00:54:24,679
they're killed by the Preetorian Guard. Now that's going to

1043
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:28,880
change after Constantindi bans them in the three hundreds and

1044
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:33,480
creates something new. But it is really interesting to understand

1045
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,800
the power behind the power. I wrote a thread about

1046
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:39,880
a year ago trying to describe Obama kind of as

1047
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:42,639
the new Praetorian Prefect because that was the point in

1048
00:54:42,679 --> 00:54:45,719
time when they were trying to annoy Kamala Harris's as

1049
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:47,480
kind of the next person, because it's like she came

1050
00:54:47,519 --> 00:54:49,840
out of nowhere. Obama picked her. Okay, he said, she's fine,

1051
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:51,880
you know, now she can go on. But I think

1052
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:55,760
it's really interesting to understand, like who is the force

1053
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:58,039
behind what you're actually seeing. And if you even look

1054
00:54:58,079 --> 00:55:02,280
at the second Emperor Tiberia, this is where you're kind

1055
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,719
of like Epstein connection comes in. He's a very creepy dude.

1056
00:55:06,079 --> 00:55:08,280
At a certain point in time, he doesn't really want

1057
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,840
to rule Rome anymore. He goes off to the island

1058
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:15,719
of Capri and he has prepubescent boys nakedly swimming in

1059
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:17,880
a pool with him. He would call his little fishes

1060
00:55:18,320 --> 00:55:21,519
and his praetorium prefects. To Janus is basically ruling Rome,

1061
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:26,679
and once Tiberius catches onto this, he has Jane is killed.

1062
00:55:27,079 --> 00:55:29,519
But this is something that is really interesting when the

1063
00:55:29,519 --> 00:55:30,840
power kind of peaks its head out.

1064
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 4: So if people are interested in this sort of information.

1065
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:40,400
Junto Magazine, who I've written for before, I know the

1066
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,280
guys who started it, have a really interesting series of

1067
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:49,440
tools on Junto dash Intelligence or intel rather, I'll link

1068
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:52,960
it in the description, But in it, not only do

1069
00:55:53,039 --> 00:55:55,920
they have kind of a briefing right of what's happening,

1070
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,280
the kind of stories behind the stories, they also have

1071
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:04,199
a massive collection of different resources, whether that's like a

1072
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:10,119
scatterplot mixed with donations, FEC filings and so it's free, right.

1073
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:12,119
I'm friends with these guys. They're not paying me to

1074
00:56:12,159 --> 00:56:15,559
say it. It's a very interesting website to spend some

1075
00:56:15,599 --> 00:56:19,079
time on because one, it breaks down information that in

1076
00:56:19,119 --> 00:56:21,599
a way that someone who's not particularly intelligent can understand,

1077
00:56:21,599 --> 00:56:25,960
which I appreciate. But also because you start to see

1078
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,320
those networks, you're like, oh, these two organizations that I

1079
00:56:29,519 --> 00:56:32,679
was I would have assumed had nothing in common. Oh well,

1080
00:56:32,679 --> 00:56:34,920
they both got two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from

1081
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:37,719
the Koch Brothers. And regardless of your opinion on the

1082
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:41,119
Koch Brothers, you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense because

1083
00:56:41,159 --> 00:56:44,599
when I see those two institutions saying the same things

1084
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:47,880
or pushing the same direction. Yes, you don't have to

1085
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:50,039
go tinfoil hat. You just look, oh well, they both

1086
00:56:50,079 --> 00:56:53,480
got a fat check from the same guy, right, and

1087
00:56:53,519 --> 00:56:55,719
you it sort of mass it sort of pulls the

1088
00:56:55,760 --> 00:56:59,960
mask back from politics in that way. And you know,

1089
00:57:00,079 --> 00:57:02,599
it's one of those things that I think that framework

1090
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:06,840
is very helpful or analyzing politics, analyzing current events, because

1091
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,320
it's one of those things that it will drive you insane,

1092
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:15,719
very very easily. It's so tempting and on certain level

1093
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:18,239
satisfying to get pulled into the kind of headline game

1094
00:57:18,639 --> 00:57:20,800
right the like XYZ is mad at this and mad

1095
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:25,199
at that. But that information isn't actually particularly useful to you.

1096
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,760
Doesn't tell you how the world works, It doesn't inform

1097
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:30,480
your decisions in any meaningful way. But if you can

1098
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:33,679
step back, look at the system, look at how money

1099
00:57:33,719 --> 00:57:37,920
and power flows. You can actually have a functional understanding

1100
00:57:38,119 --> 00:57:42,920
of this system, because that functional understanding was not explained

1101
00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:44,000
to you in Civics class.

1102
00:57:44,719 --> 00:57:46,679
Speaker 6: Well, I think that's the bigger part is history is

1103
00:57:46,679 --> 00:57:48,960
actually in the ledgers and the checkbooks and in the records.

1104
00:57:48,960 --> 00:57:51,760
It's not in you know, what people actually did, It's

1105
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:54,119
in what's behind them. If you even look at Joyus Caesar,

1106
00:57:54,519 --> 00:57:56,159
you know Caesar did a lot of the things that

1107
00:57:56,239 --> 00:58:00,440
he did is you know, he's born into a patrician family,

1108
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:02,239
so he's born into a family that has a great name,

1109
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:04,719
but his father lost all the family's money, so he's broke.

1110
00:58:05,119 --> 00:58:08,760
So his entire career there's people like Marcus Crassis that

1111
00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:10,639
are funding him. And a lot of the decisions that

1112
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,679
Caesar makes is because if I screw up here, I'm ruined.

1113
00:58:15,119 --> 00:58:17,360
And if you look at that in history, a desperate

1114
00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,519
man will make a lot of decisions that a brave

1115
00:58:20,639 --> 00:58:23,679
man might not make. And I think if you understand

1116
00:58:23,719 --> 00:58:26,719
the power behind things, you'll understand your history so much

1117
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:29,159
better than just kind of reading the history and taking

1118
00:58:29,199 --> 00:58:32,119
it at face value, well one hundred percent.

1119
00:58:32,159 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 4: And I don't want to go back into a discussion

1120
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,119
of HBO's room. But like that, that trend is sort

1121
00:58:37,159 --> 00:58:42,000
of brilliantly exemplified right when Caesar's sweating bullets and then

1122
00:58:42,039 --> 00:58:45,079
they recover the Roman treasury, like, oh great, awesome, I

1123
00:58:45,079 --> 00:58:45,840
can actually.

1124
00:58:45,639 --> 00:58:47,239
Speaker 5: Pay all I have money. We're in good shape.

1125
00:58:47,280 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 6: You know, if you look at why he goes into

1126
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:50,960
gall he goes into gall because he's broken.

1127
00:58:51,039 --> 00:58:52,039
Speaker 5: He needs to make more money.

1128
00:58:52,039 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 6: And if you conquer a bunch of land and he

1129
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:54,960
can keep a lot of the stuff there while you're

1130
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:55,960
not going to be broke anymore.

1131
00:58:56,679 --> 00:58:59,599
Speaker 4: Oh one hundred percent. So, Jeremy, we are fast approaching time.

1132
00:58:59,639 --> 00:59:04,119
This has been a really interesting discussion. Where can people find.

1133
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 6: You so they can find me, I'm at Jeremy Ryan

1134
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:10,079
slay on x. My company website is command your brand

1135
00:59:10,119 --> 00:59:12,280
dot com. And then my two channels that I have

1136
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,440
We're both on YouTube and rumble. We're Hidden Forces and

1137
00:59:15,599 --> 00:59:17,320
History and the Roman pattern.

1138
00:59:18,360 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 4: Well, thanks, man, this is a ton of fun. I'll

1139
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:22,280
have to have you on again, maybe for a more

1140
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:23,920
structured conversation.

1141
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:25,559
Speaker 5: Over the place.

1142
00:59:26,679 --> 00:59:30,199
Speaker 4: Look, man, that's what we do here. But as far

1143
00:59:30,199 --> 00:59:33,280
as my stuff, the Jay Burdon Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

1144
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:35,719
anywhere you listen to podcasts. This is what I do

1145
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:37,519
full time. If you want to support me, you can

1146
00:59:37,519 --> 00:59:40,719
throw me a few bucks a month on Patreon, Substack

1147
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:43,599
or gum road. You hit the episodes early in ad free.

1148
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:47,000
I know the ads are irritating, but as we said earlier,

1149
00:59:47,079 --> 00:59:50,280
thinks for getting expensive. So I do need to eat

1150
00:59:50,599 --> 00:59:55,239
and ten ninety nine Bacon is not making it any easier. Also,

1151
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:57,679
you can check out our sponsor, Axios Remote fitness and

1152
00:59:57,719 --> 00:59:59,239
coaching flues.

1153
00:59:59,320 --> 00:59:59,599
Speaker 3: Done.

1154
01:00:00,199 --> 01:00:02,239
Speaker 4: Lost a whole lot of weight back in the gym,

1155
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,880
certainly lost some progress there, but JD's programming is excellent.

1156
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,239
You should support him anyway because I like him and

1157
01:00:08,599 --> 01:00:10,920
he has a good product. Again, Jeremy, there's a ton

1158
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:13,239
of fun. Man, Everyone at home, keep your head out.

1159
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:31,599
Good night,