Speaker 1: And it's a bit confusing. So his opponents claim it's chaos,
but it isn't. I mean, he's closed the border, he's
got the Twerff discussions going, and so far, so good
in terms of economic growth and inflation. And you know
he's doing the necessary that he can to reduce crime.
He's got NATO now scrambling out way beyond what their
previous target was on military expenses.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you
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Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival Network. Special guest today been on the show before.
One of the great minds of our time. You may
or may not be familiar with them, Lord Conrad Black, author.
He's written more books than I can keep track of.
He's got a new one out, The Political and Strategic
History of the World, Volume two. From Caesar's to the
Peace of Westphalia and Louis the fourteenth, and wow, it
just came out earlier in the month, last month, May sixth,
And well, Lord Black, it's great to have you back on.
I want to talk about the book, but first your
assessment of Trump two point zero or as I would
call it Trump GPT.
Speaker 1: But what did GPT said as in chat GPT AI.
Oh yeah, okay, you know you're getting a bit technical. Look,
I think he's off. He shows every sign of having
an extremely successful cham I would say, I mean he's
attacked on all the fronts at once. He knows he's
only got one turn, but he doesn't have.
Speaker 4: The baggage of a Laine duct because you know, he
can elect a vice president or every once after him,
or at least put them forward as a candidate.
Speaker 1: And it's a bit confusing. So his opponents claim it's chaos,
but it isn't. I mean, he's closed the border, he's
got the Tower of discussions going, and so far, so
good in terms of economic growth and inflation, and you know,
he's doing the necessary that he can to reduce crime.
He's got NATO now scrambling out way beyond what their
previous target was on military expenses. He started out seven
years ago, complaining that they weren't with a few exceptions,
spending the two percent they pledged, and they're now all
claiming they're going to three and a half percent. And
he's there was not a word spoken by any serious
person about peace in the Ukraine until he came, and
now they haven't got it yet, at least it's under discussion.
And you know, he's doing everything the president can to
tear down woke, stop all the you know, the d
inclusive with nonsense. I mean, let's have meritocracy. Let's just
have the best people for every position. What their skin color,
religion is. Nobody cares about that. It's just who knew
are the best people for that position. And you know,
it's all sensible. And he's he's starting to try and
shape up education, abolishing the department and putting it in
the States and in effect encouraging non union schools. And
I mean, he's just doing everything he said. He's doing
it all at once. And I assume that the big
bill is going to pass in a few weeks and
that'll be a that'll be a tremendous achievement, because if
you read it, it's it's an extraordinarily comprehensive law. I mean,
just read the headings of it. It touches all the
policy areas he promised them. So I look at so far,
it's looking very good.
Speaker 3: So the deep state, you've been a victim of the
deep state yourself. We didn't call it that back then,
but clearly that was it. And with Doge, which I
believe Doge, even though a musk is gone, Doge is
now embedded in the government and it's an AI venture
to monitor all operations of the government, including the Pentagon. Eventually,
were you at all surprised at the type of things
we were spending money on in us AI d which
which I've known it was.
Speaker 1: Ready to fear the words, So it didn't surprise me
that much. But in a way I I used to
be confirmed. I mean some of it, some of it
was probably caricatured a bit unfairly, but some of it
was obviously just you know, it's just it was what
are you you know? It was throwing money out of
the window. It was nonsense. Yeah, well, look in a
budget of trillions of dollars for a country of a
third of a billion, you're going to get a lot
of waste money. But even at that it was a
very interesting revelation. Now, they tried for a time to
say that Mosque was running the country, Trump was poppaitive Moss.
You remember all this, they try everything, it's all none
of it is ever true. So you know they're they're
they're like the child trying wolf and there's no wolf.
R in the public's a bit tired of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well I was.
Speaker 3: I was impressed by the spending and the subsidization of
of media and he was getting money.
Speaker 1: Politteral then do you see which is NANTA American Network? Yeah,
I mean some of the programming is good, but they're used. Honest,
it's as bad as you know your network.
Speaker 5: BBC was getting money.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm going to company owned by the British government.
I mean, what guess the United States paying a British
government crime corporation for it's madness.
Speaker 3: But and all of these fringe I think I can't remember.
There was one conservative guy who supposedly can Oh Crystal.
He's got tens of millions of dollars from it as well.
They were an equal opportunity, but it turned into this
huge grift, and what it really demonstrated was that the
US government is one big grift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was that Bill Crystal getting tens of Bill Crystal
Yeah for Bold Rossia magazine, which is a hysterically anti
Trump magazine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh really anti. Well, I guess that's all you
needed to show. But he was getting his foundation millions
of dollars from USAID and USAID has always been a
sketchy organization, very fine line between it the State Department
and the CIA, and they kind of did the soft
power thing. But it's been exposed. Hopefully most of it
will be eliminated. You know, Congress doesn't really want to
like cut spending, though they don't really want to get
rid of all these programs. Is Trump's force of personality
and his determination is that enough to get rid of
this useless spending.
Speaker 1: He's awfully good at It reminds me of when Reagan
was pushing his tax cuts. He would wait until waivering
congressmen were in their districts on radio Phonian shows, and
then he would phone in his staff would range all this.
All of a sudden he comes on the line and says, Congressman,
now that you're speaking to your constituents, do you favor
cutting their taxes or not and a stuff like that.
I mean, he knew how to put the eat on
them and he got to step through. But look, people
didn't Reagan's opponents didn't hate and they claimed he was
dulled and a movie actor, but electable person. Here, you've
got something different. You've got an irrational dislike Trump in
some areas. But the answer, in a word, I think
is yes, you would be better placed being in the
country than I am to judge it. But my impression
is the country now feels Trump has proved his point.
They stole his election, They've showered him with these spurious indictments.
In the end, there were attempts to assassinate and presumably
not directly connected doing his political opponents, but it's somewhat
encouraged by them, by some of the outrageous things they
said about him. He came through it all with dignity,
with better humor. He's much more good humored and less
bombastic than he was in his first term. And I
think the country, the majority, feels he's earned his chance.
He won fair and square.
Speaker 5: He has a man.
Speaker 1: They'd let him, let him, let him do what he
said he did, see how it works, So I think, yeah,
I think he's going to get I think he's going
to get most of it true, and I think he'll
probably succeed. It's early to say, of course, but in
in being succeeded by the candidate he approved. Yeah, well,
pretty pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: The first person since Grover Cleveland to serve non consecutive terms.
That in itself, and there's a lot of striking parallels
between him and Grover Cleveland.
Speaker 1: He's a much more activist man than Cleveland. Cleveland was
a popular mayor of Buffalo and governor of New York.
I mean, Trump is the first person in the history
of the office of president to be elected to it
without ever having previously sought an elective officer held a
high military command. He turned celebrity into the president's and
it was an amazing thing. That's why everyone thought it
was a joke and he came down the escalator, but
it wasn't a joke.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty remarkable that he actually pulled it off,
that he was able to do it. I mean, like
you say, with a zero political experience, but a lot
of experience with politicians.
Speaker 5: And the public.
Speaker 1: I mean, he knew the public and he look he
was like an African lion chasing wilde beast. You know,
he sort of singled it out and then but after it,
but he changed parties seven times and thirteen years. He
was looking for his chance, you know, and then he
got it. And then not only I mean it's two
great innovations I think were translating celebrity into the highest office.
And I mean you sometimes had had people who were
celebrities becoming governance or something, but not present. And secondly,
once he was there, he used sort of Dwight Eisenhower,
Richard Nixon, Ronald Brigg and Republican capitalism and fastened it
right on top of disadvantage districts and using the tax
system incentive by his job creation in those districts, and
ate heavily into these democratic chiefdoms, these voting blocks, and
that it was relied upon since Roosevelt, like.
Speaker 3: Like the Teamsters, I mean, they didn't support him, but
they didn't endorse Harris either, because they would they know
they would have had a revolution among all the rank and.
Speaker 1: File supported and it's just the executive had to be neutraent.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they couldn't do it.
Speaker 3: So uh looking ahead, So the tariff's been highly controversial,
it's going to throw the country into a depression, and
this and that.
Speaker 5: And what's really happening here.
Speaker 1: Well, look, the US couldn't go on with a trade
deficit of over a trillion dollars. And essentially that started
not at that scale, but the idea of a trade
deficit started during the Cold War, when the United States
gave greater access than it normally would to a number
of countries as an incentive to them not to waffle
into the Communist block in the Soviet Block. It was
a legitimate thing to do during the Cold War. But
you know, the Cold War ended suddenly and very satisfactorily,
but a lot of these things that needn't have continue
you did continue. And that just grew and grew, and
we were all, all of us in the West were
hosed out of our underclothing by the Chinese. We all
bought into this line. We just treated the nicely. They'd
be one of my y you know. Now, Look, it's
not like Nazi German area in the Soviet Union. It's
not that evil a regime. But they know Chinese aren't
threatening to go to war with us, but they but
on the other hand, they were they were picking their
pockets and it's got to stop down there. So you know,
there's no reason for the United States to have a
trade deficit of that size. And it was just a
strictly commercial version of NATO free loading on America's back.
I mean, NATO most of it got the brilliant idea
that the United States was like a great Saint Bernard dog,
you know, that it would do the work and take
the risks, and the Europeans and Canadians would hold the
leash and give the orders. Well, that's not how alliance work,
you know. So you know Trump is disabused of that.
But what the critics didn't see is that trade is
only I think twenty one percent of American GDP, so
exports are less than half of that. And you know
that's that's a manageable amount of money to take a
partial hit on. And the foreigners basically they're eating the
tariffs and replying with higher tariffs themselves. Well that they can't.
You know, that's that's not a defense that's going to
work for it. In the end, you'll get everything produced
in the US except a few raw materials that they
don't have. And and so you know, one hundred and
thirty or so countries are lined up to make deals.
Not one of them think they're going to get a
better deal in the one they had, you know, two
months ago. So you know obviously it's going to be
a gain for you. So we talk about the trade deals.
By the way, on that, I must say, one thing
I objected to is he never should have treated Canada
the way he doesn't have. And I told him this
person he doesn't have a legitimate grievance of hindon.
Speaker 3: No, because outside of energy, we run a surplus.
Speaker 5: With that's right.
Speaker 1: In the end, you take a lot of it, you
resell at a higher price you'd get it from a
statue price. And you know we're a fair trading country.
I mean, you do have a very big grievance with Mexico,
but Tenna is a fair trading country.
Speaker 3: Well, I think as the personal animosity towards your former
minister and current, because I.
Speaker 1: Don't think he mins the present guy from when he's
told me. I have my debts about him, but the
current has been very careful with the Trump I think personally, yeah,
they're together at west now. But is g said and well, it.
Speaker 3: Was like a big fire hose and you guys were there,
so you'd hit by it. But yeah, I didn't think
that was right. But on the other hand, looking so,
one thing I want to talk about, and you probably
have more knowledge of this than I do, but it
seems to me like the only thing the only people
less productive than Harvard tenured Harvard professors are diplomat and
there we charge them with negotiating all these trade agreements
and it turns into this multi decade grift where they're
meeting at the finest resorts in the world, dining at
Michelin Star restaurants. The Bordeaux is flowing, and the incentive
is to not get anything done. Now, all of a sudden,
I think AI plays a role in this as well.
The heat's on and the diplomats are out of it.
It's the economic it's not even the economists.
Speaker 5: That are involved. Well here, you've got to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's totally different the way these agreements are
getting negotiated. And I think there's a prototype agreement and
it's like, you know, sign you know, they say to
the other side, to the other country, sign hard, press hard.
You're making three copies, you know, just sign here.
Speaker 5: This is the deal.
Speaker 1: That's what he says. He's doing is issuing a statement,
and this is the deal. If you don't like the deal,
it's fun. But if you want to deal, here's the deal. Now,
in some countries you might not be able to do that.
But I thought again, and this is sometimes a tactical weakness,
not exactly a weakness, but a technique that may not
always work with Trump is oversimplification. You know, he had
Nabarro saying ninety deals in ninety days. And you know,
these trade deals are horribly complicated. You're trading finishing and
putting some finish on shingles against vanadizing some metal or something.
And by the time you'll work it all that, it's
a terribly complicated thing. But so you can't do it
that fast. But I like this thing he's doing. Now
I'm saying, all right, here's our deal, take it or
leave it. But what he really means is, if you
don't like it exactly as it is, put a few
things in it and we'll see if we can accept it.
You know, so it'll act to bedite to think there's
a framework in place. But you're right, I mean, the
diplomats like everybody else sell think themselves as important as
they can, but they're all these compromises. I mean Nixon
and some of your great presidents like Nixon, who wasn't
out standing president I think. And Roosevelt, you know, he
never would let the Secretary of State do anything. He
could go and talk to the South Americans or something,
but all through World War two he never came to
those big conferences with Churchill and Stalin or anything like that.
Cardell Owl's longest serving secretary of State. But Roosevelt wouldn't
let the State Department have anything to do with foreign policy.
Speaker 3: All right, So let's talk about your book and how
it ties into this where I said, Jay, you your
work here, because it's multiple volumes, how did you like,
how'd you come up with a concept here that?
Speaker 1: Well, because of all the research I did writing biographies
of prominent people and the histories of the US and Canada.
I mean, you see behind me in the screen here,
So for example, all of Cambridge University Medieval, Ancient, Medieval,
and modern History bought some a lot of the volumes
behind me. I had to read all this stuff and
I thought, you know, this is nonsense.
Speaker 5: I mean, you.
Speaker 1: Could give you could give a good readable summary of
everything that's important here in a much smaller space. And so,
you know, not by design, but just as things worked out.
The myth existed that in order to get any grasp
of the history of the world you had to spend
twenty years reading about it. And that is not true.
I mean, it wasn't an untruth. It was just a mistake.
And so these books of mine, as you know, there
are a thousand pages pro volume, three volumes, but you've
got everything there. You've got a good index. And you know,
if you're interested in one, you know, in February, or
interest in Alexander the Great, you can read all you
need to know about them, you know, in a day
or two there, and then a few months later you
can read about you know, Queen Elizabeth the First. I mean,
whatever you want, it's all there, and it's not If
you want to go further, you can go get detailed
books into these things. But by condensing it that much
you can. There is a certain logic how how history moved.
And there is progress, I mean, there actually is progress.
If you look at where this thing began, where the
people were just plans with no real organization going around
killing their neighbors to where we are now. I mean,
obviously it's still terrible things happen in the world, but
it's a lot don't kill it next.
Speaker 3: And where we were so still killing our neighbors, but to
a bit in.
Speaker 1: Some places, but we're the larger countries are behaving and
the more civilized.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, it's it's remarkable and how complicated our
modern society is. And the amazing thing like I just
look at like the whole air traffic control system, the
fact we can fly all over the world in a
moment's notice as long as the TSA lets you through
the to the gate.
Speaker 1: And it's so compl they'd finished, you know, rummaging through
the underclothing of eighty old women.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the older you are, the more curious they
are about about your intimate areas, it seems. But you
know that the system, even though it's got problems, and
you know, government all that, but the system is the
most complicated system in the world in all likelihood. It
seems like it's easier to send a rocket into space
than it is to get a you know, a triple
seven from England to New York. But you know, somehow
we've cooperated and it's a global cooperation to make this
system work. And yeah, it's got its problems and accidents happened,
but overall, you know, it's a collective human effort that
has really distinguished us because prior to you know, the
last two generations, it was very difficult to go from
one continent to the other by plane. You had generally
you were taking ships. Maybe the last three generations, going
back to the sixties, you know, the late fifties kind
of was the birth. And you know, like you said,
things have gotten better, except our media has gotten worse.
Is because they'd specialize in just telling us how awful
everything is, when really things in many respects haven't been better.
I mean, I think the family, the interpersonal relationship, and
what technology has done. Yes, there's some definite negatives there,
but overall, the amount of knowledge that is available to
the lowliest person on the planet in the palm of
their hands, and.
Speaker 5: The quality of life.
Speaker 3: You know, for the largest numbers, it's just never been better.
Speaker 5: This is true.
Speaker 1: I mean, the number of people in poverty, as I
understand that in the world was under fifteen percent. Have
still a lot of people, but that's not a big percent,
and when I was young, the number was over fifty percent,
and even countries of them particularly well governed. When I
first went to Brazil in nineteen sixty eight, it was
only a half literate country. Now it's a completely literate entry.
And the Chinese and the Indians are pulling again. Their
methods aren't appropriate to the North America, but they're pullings
and millions of people out of poverty every year, so
that certainly is progress. The lesson on that one, Kerrie,
is that if the major powers are not at war,
the amount of prosperity generated is astounding. And you can
argue about the distribution of it. Our friends and the
left say that it's unfair distribution, but the fact is
it affects everybody. The lowest groups, you know, do get richer.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, the technology that things were surrounded with, that would
have been for the noblemen way back when there wasn't
you know, the availability of these tools to really improve
your life, to help you get through life, to have
a better life. It just wasn't there. I mean, and
you think back the printing press. You know, it's a
fairly recent innovation that kind of sparked it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the tremendous impulse to the you know when this
may have been before your time, but when I was young,
there was a Dick Tracy comic strip. Oh and you
he spoke into his watch you. Yeah, like you're talking
to well not my wife has a box like that.
And and the email, I mean we sit here with
a handheld device and send emails to Russia in the air,
Argentina or Australia anywhere and get a reply back in
three minutes. I mean that would have been just science
fiction stuff up until about thirty years ago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was. I was away.
Speaker 3: I was in Spain and Thailand, and I managed to
keep my podcast going, was writing content for my website,
and I never really I mean I didn't work as much,
but I was able to basically conduct myself almost as
well as if I was just sitting here at my
desk here in Florida. So so, so, your book, your
Volumes one and two and three mentioned is on its.
Speaker 5: Way the overview.
Speaker 3: So I always like to ask people, and they've had experiences,
what did you learn from it from writing this because
writing is a process of learning. I don't think many
of you out there think about it. But when you
write something, your understanding of it really goes up, and
your knowledge of it and the way it all kind
of fits together because you're connecting dots. It's harder to
connect the dots looking forward than it is looking backward.
But what's the biggest revelation you got from really rehashing
you know, modern history here?
Speaker 1: All of history. I mean, I go back as far
as we have authentic history. I don't get in that
this is volumet one, of course, but I don't get
into law or legend, you know, I mean just stuff
that we can authenticate. But that still gets us back
to about three thousand BC. I'd say a couple of things.
One is religion never goes away. And I'm not getting
into my religious views or anyone else's here. And I
mean I think religions like sex, people should do what
works for them and avoid what doesn't and be respectful
about this and be discreet, you know, but.
Speaker 5: It never goes away.
Speaker 1: And these militant atheists who think it's just superstitious rubbish
and every day we're getting closer to a plinnitude of knowledge,
they'll never succeed because the human mind is always preoccupied
with the existence of spiritual forces and the frontiers that
are beyond our ability to reach. Even though we you know,
the advances in science and elsewhere human research and ingenuity
or astonishing and gratifying, they don't actually has had for
a long time thought obviate or vaporize the general pursuit
of a or an attempt to propitiate a divine intelligence
of some sort. That's one thing. I mean, religion is
much more sophisticated now than what than it was three
thousand years ago, but it's still there. Another family answers
with progress is real and there are a lot of
cynics around who say that it isn't and human nature
doesn't change much. I agree with that, but the fact
is just what we were talking about a few minutes ago.
I mean, if the major countries are not at war
with each other, the amount of prosperity that is generated
is it's just just look at the skylines of the
cities of world in our lifetimes. I'm not an older
than you, but when I was a young person, I'm
in Toronto right now, the tallest building in the British
Commonwealth was it was a bank building here in downtown Toronto.
It is twenty six stories tall. Well, I mean, I'm
not saying that progress is necessarily measured in tall buildings,
but the amount of economic activity and the amount of
construction and just the building things and advancing things a
newness and when we focus on that. But we do,
as you said in a few minutes ago, we do
reduce the poverty levels very profoundly. I'm not saying we
couldn't do better. I'm not saying any system is perfect.
But the point is there is progress and very few
countries today are governed by people who think that really
the principal activity is simply to go and make war
on your neighbor and kill him and take his territory.
And that's how we start an edging.
Speaker 5: So true.
Speaker 3: You know, one of the things, and you mentioned the prosperity.
One of the things I like best about what President
Trump is doing has nothing to do with political is
the encouragement to explore and exploit resources, whether it's minerals, oil, gold, silver, copper.
Because one of the fallacies of the left is that
somehow we can have this green economy and never have
to use a jackhammer to get new metals and resources
out of the ground.
Speaker 1: I think we were afflicted in the ways by a
sort of economic snobbery that blue collar was beneath us.
So we were all going to have a service economy.
That's fine, except people in India, Thailand or something Vietnam
can produce the same service at a quarter of the costs.
So what are we going to do now? Yeah, I
mean we sort of lost tract of the fact. I
mean I never agreed with that Buchanan. I thought he
was too primitive in his views, you know, sort of
paleo conservative.
Speaker 5: Isolation but native.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I never agreed with Herman and
Kahn either. I used to go to that a few
years ago, and his idea was that we would outsource everything,
just be leisure society. That's not going to work.
Speaker 3: Maybe the robots and maybe the AI, but certainly not
to other countries because because you've got to produce something
in the end. The whole concept of the consumer economy
I've always found to be disturbing because I think we
should be producers, and the idea that we're just here
to consume and not contribute and not produce has always
been disturbing to me.
Speaker 1: Well, and The worst of it, I thought was in
the fifties and sixties, when General Motors was the greatest
corporation in the world. They had this thing called planned obsolescence.
Their cars would fall apart after twenty five thousand miles,
so you know, I mean nowadays they go for two
hundred thousand mileth I mean they all look the same.
I'd sort of like the look of cars then better,
but they were putting one over on us, and then
they lost their market to the Japanese and the Germans.
Speaker 3: The problem is that that business model is alive and
well in your kitchen and or laundry room. Because those things,
whether the Chinese components, if you get five years out
of them, you're doing great.
Speaker 5: And that is disturbing.
Speaker 3: To create demand by building inferiority into your products, charge
twice as much.
Speaker 5: I mean, I remember, he just go back like I remember.
But in my.
Speaker 3: Parents' house we had a Nordge a refrigerator that was
thirty seven years old.
Speaker 5: Norge.
Speaker 3: It was a great brand, yeah, and it made a
lot of noise even all those years later. But man
like the thing kept working and try to find something
that'll do that well. The book is the political and
Strategic History the World, Volume two, from Caesar's to the
Peace of Westphalia to Louis the fourteenth AD. And well,
it's great.
Speaker 5: Having you on.
Speaker 3: I think we go to fourteenth century to sixteen sixty one,
so we got no.
Speaker 1: Fourteen AD to sixteen fourty one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fourteen AD A pardon me, yeah, fourteen AD, which is.
Speaker 5: A long time ago.
Speaker 3: We don't even call it a D anymore, which bothers
me a lot. And BC is B and I don't
know what any of it means, but at bce the
Christian era. But one thing I do think is that
twenty twenty three that will be the reset that historians used,
because that is the time when AI really became known
to the public and used by the public. But the
book is available at Amazon and wherever fine books used
to be sold. And if you've got a question for
Lord Black or myself, shoot me an email KL at
Carrie LUTs dot com. If you go to the site
Financial Survival Network dot com, you find a link to
the book. And if you sign up to our newsletter,
I really appreciate it. Like over seventy five thousand of
you have in the past fourteen years, Hard to believe,
Lord Black, we will definitely have you back on again
when volume three hits the press, the digital press or
the printing press, whichever comes first. Really appreciate you coming on,
you know, your contributions to knowledge everything else.
Speaker 1: It's greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to carry Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,