Speaker 1: Welcome back. Our guest is Steve Bonta. He's a publisher
Speaker 1: of The New American. It's a magazine from the John
Speaker 1: Burs Society. And we were just talking off air, and
Speaker 1: he's lived in Argentina, so he can tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. He's also most recently lived in
Speaker 1: China as well. He's the author of a book Inside
Speaker 1: the United Nations and a lot of articles for The
Speaker 1: New American. As a matter of fact, it was one
Speaker 1: that I wanted to get to today before he came
Speaker 1: on that I didn't have a chance to. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that, and that is the UN trying to establish
Speaker 1: a tax, a global tax on shipping and the name
Speaker 1: of the climate mcguffin, and so we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: as well. But he also contacted me because we want
Speaker 1: to talk about gold and money. That's also very topical
Speaker 1: right now. So thank you for joining us. Steve, happy
Speaker 1: to be here. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 1: Since I was just talking about Argentina and beef and
Speaker 1: things like that. It gives your take on what's having
Speaker 1: lived in Argentina, give us your take on what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the thing about Argentina I lived there
Speaker 2: as a teenager, way back during before the Falklands War
Speaker 2: and the military junta days. Wow, Argentina is not like well,
Speaker 2: the whole southern corn Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile in particular.
Speaker 2: It's really quite different from what most Americans think Latin
Speaker 2: America is like. And most people think of Latin America,
Speaker 2: they think of, you know, men with sombreros and donkeys
Speaker 2: and you know, to tortillas and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: We think in terms of Mexican and maybe maybe Caribbean, American,
Speaker 2: Puerto Rico and southern South America. Argentina in particular is
Speaker 2: a lot more like Europe. In fact, Argentina culturally is
Speaker 2: more Italian than Spanish. There are more people of Italian
Speaker 2: ancestry than Spanish ancestry, and the current president, Favier Miley
Speaker 2: and excuse me, is one of them. And when I
Speaker 2: arrived in Argentina in nineteen seventy nine, I was really
Speaker 2: shocked at how well educated the people were. It's a
Speaker 2: very bookish society. People love to play chess for example.
Speaker 2: Not to put too fine a point, you know, they
Speaker 2: have their problems too, but they are very well educated
Speaker 2: and in those days kind of mostly mal educated and
Speaker 2: you know pironas and supporters of the socialism and so forth.
Speaker 2: But Malay is a different animal altogether. He's remark a
Speaker 2: very very bright guy and extremely articulate. You know, anyone
Speaker 2: who knows Spanish listening to him talk, he's very persuasive.
Speaker 2: He's really a silver tongued individual, and as is his
Speaker 2: his mentor, an Argentine economist named Alberto bene Gas Lench.
Speaker 2: You can find lectures by him on YouTube as well.
Speaker 2: And these are both men a very sound understanding of
Speaker 2: free market economics and the principles of libertarianism generally, you know,
Speaker 2: not the non aggression principle, all the rest of this stuff,
Speaker 2: and so so. Malay is a multi talented individual, very
Speaker 2: much in the Argentine mole. He's accomplished, i believe, a
Speaker 2: rock guitarist and a semi professional soccer player football player
Speaker 2: at one point, and this kind of thing, and mostly
Speaker 2: self educated as an economist as well as a successful
Speaker 2: talk show host. Kind of a Russian limb ball type
Speaker 2: figure from this company. And now obviously he's the president
Speaker 2: of Argentina. Argentina is of all of the Latin American
Speaker 2: countries probably has the government most similar to ours, at
Speaker 2: least on paper. So the Argentine When Argentina first became
Speaker 2: independent of Spain, it was ruled for several decades by
Speaker 2: a series of what they caught called caldijos, which were
Speaker 2: military dictators, culminating in a guy named General Rosas, who
Speaker 2: was a really horrific dictator, ran a true police state.
Speaker 2: This was in the eighteen fifties, and when Rosas finally fell,
Speaker 2: he was replaced a group of men quite similar to
Speaker 2: the American Founders, called themselves the Generation of eighteen thirty
Speaker 2: eight came forward and some of them had studied in
Speaker 2: Europe and in the United States, had traveled abroad, studied
Speaker 2: the systems of government of the countries, including the US Constitution,
Speaker 2: and they attempted to craft a constitution similar to ours.
Speaker 2: Argentina is a federal republic, just like the United States
Speaker 2: is it consists of provinces rather than states, but it's
Speaker 2: very much a federal type arrangement. And unfortunately, unlike the U, well,
Speaker 2: I mean maybe similar to us that that you know,
Speaker 2: their constitution has been has been reformed with scare quotes
Speaker 2: a number of times, and so this has enabled the
Speaker 2: rise of you know, of the left. You know. Obviously, Argentina,
Speaker 2: as Melay never tires of pointing out, you know, was
Speaker 2: once one of the world's most powerful countries. In fact,
Speaker 2: if you were a European ground down by the yoke
Speaker 2: of European feudalism, you know, a peasant yearning to be
Speaker 2: free and have and have you know, some some sort
Speaker 2: of opportunity life. There were two prime destinations in the
Speaker 2: late nineteenth century. One was, of course, the US, and
Speaker 2: the other was Argentina. And Argentina, like the US, was,
Speaker 2: was and remains a melting pot, very amenable to immigration,
Speaker 2: and at one time was very very a place where
Speaker 2: a man could basically go and do as he pleased
Speaker 2: and you know, and prosper or fail according to his
Speaker 2: own efforts. And obviously all that and that led to
Speaker 2: a state of affairs where by the early twentieth century
Speaker 2: Argentina was one of the top five or so richest
Speaker 2: countries in the world. And the expression in English as
Speaker 2: rich as an Argentine was a common expression back in
Speaker 2: the roaring twenties. And all that, all that's changed, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And so Argentina has since undergone almost a century of socialism.
Speaker 2: They call it Perhanism, but it's it's it's a species
Speaker 2: of collectivism and with just horrific results. When I was
Speaker 2: there more than forty years ago, living there, I've been
Speaker 2: back since. But you know, when I was actually living there,
Speaker 2: the inflation rate was running at you know, fifty hundred
Speaker 2: percent per month and this kind of thing, and no
Speaker 2: one under those circumstances could save money. You know, the
Speaker 2: moment you got paid anything you need immediately had to
Speaker 2: buy land, or buy gold, silver, any type of actual assets,
Speaker 2: because the idea of actually putting in a savings account
Speaker 2: or anything like that was not to be thought of.
Speaker 2: So this is the way the Argentine economies evolved. And
Speaker 2: then Malay comes along and says, have you had enough?
Speaker 2: And the younger generation in Argentina, kind of similar to
Speaker 2: the way our gen z is shaping up here, has said,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't want this anymore. You know, this
Speaker 2: may have worked for our parents and our grandparents and
Speaker 2: the great grandparents, but this isn't what we want. We
Speaker 2: want opportunity. We want to be able to, you know,
Speaker 2: to actually enjoy the fruit fruits of our labors. And
Speaker 2: so I think Malay is is right headed, and you know,
Speaker 2: but now he's encountering he's in a situation where he's
Speaker 2: no longer living in the world of theory. He's living
Speaker 2: in the pragmatic, rough and tumble world of politics where
Speaker 2: the reality is. And this may be may or may
Speaker 2: not be reinforced by this weekend's elections national congressional elections.
Speaker 2: Is that he you know, he's kind of a lone man.
Speaker 2: The Pirunas still dominate the Congress and they use it
Speaker 2: to this, to thwart most of most of his agenda.
Speaker 2: So has been very very rough slog for him, and
Speaker 2: whether he'll succeed is still an open question. I mean
Speaker 2: when I see these right now, he's been, he's been,
Speaker 2: he's been, uh, you know, barnstorming all around the country
Speaker 2: to rapturous crowds in many towns and cities that have
Speaker 2: never had an Argentine present president visit them before, because
Speaker 2: he wants he wants to make gains in Congress and
Speaker 2: this weekend's congressional elections. But I see these videos and
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, one person could step out of the
Speaker 2: crowd of a pistol and this would all be done with,
Speaker 2: you know, So it's well.
Speaker 1: It's a very cautionary tale for us because if they
Speaker 1: started with a constitution and aspirations of freedom looking at America,
Speaker 1: and then you look at what happened with the Parinistas
Speaker 1: and all the rest of this stuff. A large part
Speaker 1: of that, I think is the cult of personality. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've never lived there, so I don't
Speaker 1: know the pulse of the people. But when I look
Speaker 1: at how infatuated they were with Juan and Avita Perone
Speaker 1: and how that you know, played out through them, that
Speaker 1: this whole idea of people getting attacked to an individual
Speaker 1: or to a party rather than to a set of principles.
Speaker 1: And I look at that and say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't really reverse course. And in a sense, Javier
Speaker 1: Malai comes in with a very charismatic personality as well.
Speaker 1: It's a different type of personality as you point out,
Speaker 1: you know, his rock star aspects and his you know,
Speaker 1: sharp tongue that he's got, you know, throwing out not
Speaker 1: only debating points but also insults to people, and the
Speaker 1: hair that he is, his trademark, and all the rest
Speaker 1: of his stuff. So in a sense, you still have
Speaker 1: the Argentine people, I think influenced great deals. Everybody is
Speaker 1: as we are here in America by personalities that are there,
Speaker 1: and if they can have a situation where they're their
Speaker 1: free society can be overthrown and you wind up with
Speaker 1: a paranistas and you wind up with people being disappeared,
Speaker 1: put into helicopters and flown out and dropped into the ocean.
Speaker 1: If you're a political dissident, that can happen anywhere, it
Speaker 1: can happen here as well, can it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean it has happened here in the
Speaker 2: sense of her own was the same generation as FDR,
Speaker 2: and FDR's the stamp of his personality still remains in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. I mean, he FDR was the you know,
Speaker 2: the pivotal twentieth century figure in American politics in which
Speaker 2: he basically came out, he seized the tiller of the
Speaker 2: ship of state and said hard left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 2: And from now on, you know, everything is going to
Speaker 2: emanate from the federal government. The federal government. There is
Speaker 2: no problem that cannot be solved by the creator, you know,
Speaker 2: creative application of federal government force that was the premise
Speaker 2: of the New Deal, and these other lesser figures, you know,
Speaker 2: Lindon Johnson and more recently, you know, Clinton and Obama
Speaker 2: and even you know Joe Biden and so forth, are
Speaker 2: just really pale shadows, but they're they're swimming in his wake.
Speaker 2: And the state of affairs where Washington, d C. Is
Speaker 2: wholly owned by the Democratic Party, which embodies that philosophy,
Speaker 2: I think, more completely than the Republicans, although they're certainly
Speaker 2: not perfect either. You know, it's really a part is
Speaker 2: an issue as such. But but all of that which
Speaker 2: which which Trump is now purporting to fight against and overturn,
Speaker 2: and you know, it is the legacy of the culture
Speaker 2: personality of FDR and his the man who followed him, Truman,
Speaker 2: as well to some extent, right, you know, that had
Speaker 2: that effect. But they they permanently altered, well up till now,
Speaker 2: permanently altered the direction of the ship of state. And
Speaker 2: it's proving a very rough slog indeed, to change people's
Speaker 2: minds and say, well, you know, we need to get
Speaker 2: back to the idea that the federal government is the
Speaker 2: creation and not the creator, that it is to be
Speaker 2: subordinate to the states. And they in turn to the
Speaker 2: people and the Constitution, all this type of thing. It's
Speaker 2: a very tough sell now. So you know, I had
Speaker 2: a very interesting interview that's the same thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, I had a very interesting interview last week with
Speaker 1: a guy who just wrote a new biography of FDRU,
Speaker 1: and very very interesting. His point of view was that
Speaker 1: even though you had the Democrats who wanted to go
Speaker 1: to the same place at FDR, you still had a
Speaker 1: lot of opposition within the Democrat Party to a lot
Speaker 1: of these extreme, radical authoritarian tactics that FDR was doing.
Speaker 1: They said, we don't want to do it that way.
Speaker 1: There was a clear understanding in early twentieth century America,
Speaker 1: just like we saw with alcohol prohibition. You know, they
Speaker 1: wanted alcohol prohbition, but they didn't do something like our
Speaker 1: drug war. They said, we've got to have a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: And so you had people, even though they wanted to
Speaker 1: go to the same place that FDR did in terms
Speaker 1: of government control and government you know, taking over and
Speaker 1: running everything, they said, we're worried about that tactic, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's packing the Supreme Court or various other things
Speaker 1: that he was doing. And that's what I think is
Speaker 1: sadly lacking on both the left and the right in
Speaker 1: America today. And I go back and I look at FDR.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you familiar with the work of
Speaker 1: Strauss and how a fourth turning the book that is there,
Speaker 1: but I see it. To me, I see that we're
Speaker 1: in another fourth turning right now, as they predicted. And
Speaker 1: you know, we have these fourth turning presidents Lincoln and FDR.
Speaker 1: And now I think Trump is in that mole who
Speaker 1: want to go very quickly. Accelerationists. They want to create
Speaker 1: chaos and they don't care what means are used as
Speaker 1: long as they get their desired end. And I think
Speaker 1: we're seeing the problem right now. And I think we're
Speaker 1: going to see this is that even if we agree
Speaker 1: on the goal of where they want to go, and
Speaker 1: do agree with the Trump on many of the goals
Speaker 1: of where he wants to go, very concerned about the
Speaker 1: means that he's using because it's going to set very
Speaker 1: very dangerous precedents that will come back to haunt us.
Speaker 2: I think, well, and this is you know, the problem
Speaker 2: with permitting the radical I hate to use the word
Speaker 2: radical left, but you know, these radical utopian reformists they're
Speaker 2: they're all collectivists by disposition, allowing them enough leeway until
Speaker 2: you get to the point that Argentina was in by
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, where they control the judiciary, they control
Speaker 2: all the local governments, they control the police force, everything
Speaker 2: else is And the same was true. And by the
Speaker 2: time that Allende came to power in Chile in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, or when Fujimori came to power in Peru
Speaker 2: in the in the nineteen nineties, in all those cases,
Speaker 2: and the radical left had progressed to the point where
Speaker 2: they were militarized. Where they were you know, they're kind
Speaker 2: of going where Antifa would like to go. But hasn't
Speaker 2: We weren't quite that there yet. The question becomes, how
Speaker 2: do you solve that problem when you're so far gone
Speaker 2: that there's no longer any appeal to the law, because
Speaker 2: you know, the judiciary is all corrupted, and you know
Speaker 2: the police can't be relied upon and all this type
Speaker 2: of thing, And so this this creates a well nigh
Speaker 2: insoluble problem. We said, well, the only the only thing
Speaker 2: to do is to do what Pinochet did in Chile
Speaker 2: and Fujimori did in Peru. And the military Junta Galtieri
Speaker 2: and people like that did in Argentina, and that as
Speaker 2: you win and use extraordinary force and you try to
Speaker 2: clean house. And I'm very much afraid that we're approaching
Speaker 2: that point in the United States, because we've already gotten
Speaker 2: the point where the law is so twisted that you
Speaker 2: know that it does they don't do much if if
Speaker 2: if you go out and wearing the banner of Antifa
Speaker 2: or Black Lives Matter or something like that, and uh,
Speaker 2: and you know, and vandalized stores, assault, even kill people,
Speaker 2: and this sort of thing. You know, the law gives
Speaker 2: you a slap on the wrist, but heaven't forfend if
Speaker 2: you defend yourself against someone that you know has happened
Speaker 2: in Kenosha right here in Wisconsin a few a few
Speaker 2: years ago. And this type of thing where where you know,
Speaker 2: where you get the point where where the law and
Speaker 2: the judiciary can no longer be relied upon it. It
Speaker 2: gets to the point. And this is what revolutionaries, of
Speaker 2: course know. They understand that if they can destabilize things
Speaker 2: to a certain point, the only possible remedy is some
Speaker 2: sort of a crack down from above, and then that
Speaker 2: generates the pretexts that you see, you see they are fascist,
Speaker 2: just like we're saying, you know, and that gives them more, more,
Speaker 2: more and more impetus. And that's kind of what's happening
Speaker 2: now where the Trump administration has the situation where the
Speaker 2: cores of a number of our major cities are completely
Speaker 2: out of control, and the local magistrates don't want to
Speaker 2: do anything about it because they're they're they're in they're
Speaker 2: in sympathy within because they perceive that that crime creates
Speaker 2: creates a rationale for more government. I mean, some level
Speaker 2: of venal politicians like crime and like civil unrest because
Speaker 2: it creates a need for them and their services. And
Speaker 2: so that's the reason that that places like Chicago and
Speaker 2: Memphis and Portland in LA and New York of course
Speaker 2: you know, their local you know, constabularys are saying, oh,
Speaker 2: we're not going to crack now, you know, and so forth,
Speaker 2: and so what are you going to do it? It's
Speaker 2: a very difficult problem.
Speaker 1: And I think that's coming that push is coming from
Speaker 1: the right. Also, I've said for the longest time in
Speaker 1: terms of this fourth turning, I said, you come back
Speaker 1: and you're like previous three fourth turnings, we've had in
Speaker 1: the US have been you know, the Depression, World War II,
Speaker 1: part of that, the Civil war war. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I said, you know, I think we're probably
Speaker 1: going to have all three of these things at once.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to have a depression. I think
Speaker 1: we're going to also have a civil war, revolutionary war,
Speaker 1: and a world war. And it seems like all of
Speaker 1: our global leaders are, regardless of what political party they're in,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether they're left or right, they all seem
Speaker 1: to be pushing us in this direction.
Speaker 2: I wish I could say, no, you're wrong, and here's why.
Speaker 2: But I mean, obviously anything can happen. No one can
Speaker 2: see the future, but I tend to I would not
Speaker 2: be at all surprised. Yeah, if that that scenario unfolds
Speaker 2: over the next five to ten years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well let's bring back to the farmers. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you think have you paid attention
Speaker 1: to what's going on? I mean a lot of what
Speaker 1: they're saying is and we have seen this when we
Speaker 1: saw things with the eggs for example, you know they
Speaker 1: go through with a pc R procedure and say, well,
Speaker 1: we got one chicken here that tested positive, So we're
Speaker 1: going to kill all five million of them here at
Speaker 1: this location. That type of thing, it was kind of
Speaker 1: a government imposed thing began under Biden, but it continued
Speaker 1: under Trump's USDA until Brooke Rawlins said, now, our solution
Speaker 1: is that you vaccinate all the chickens with mRNA and
Speaker 1: other animals at this NMRNA vaccine. So the question is,
Speaker 1: you know, we have so many different issues. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the issues with beef stuff is the consolidation
Speaker 1: of it. Part of that is the government mandated centralized
Speaker 1: processing meat processing places that are there. You know, what
Speaker 1: do we do from a market perspective? I mean, certainly
Speaker 1: Trump and Bessent are not even focused on what's going
Speaker 1: on with the farms. And it's a surprise because we
Speaker 1: saw what happened in the first Trump administration when he
Speaker 1: started messing with China and trade and tariffs and things
Speaker 1: like that. They immediately retaliated against agriculture and the government
Speaker 1: was slow to act at that point in time to
Speaker 1: repair the damage that they had inflicted. And they're being
Speaker 1: very very slow to do it. Now, what do you
Speaker 1: think is going on with that?
Speaker 2: Well? In generalities, first of all, I mean the problem
Speaker 2: is we tend to elect urban people as presidents. Obviously
Speaker 2: Trump being no exception. He's an East Coast urbanite. He's
Speaker 2: now a Florida urbanite, and were as formerly he was
Speaker 2: a you know, a New York urbanite. But but those people,
Speaker 2: and I can say this without without prejudice, because I
Speaker 2: grew up in rural western Pennsylvania on a farm. So
Speaker 2: I've lived in Nebraska as well, worked in a small
Speaker 2: cattle bank in a Nebraska cattle town.
Speaker 1: For some of you, so well, you've had quite a background.
Speaker 2: I've been around, you know, but I can tell you this.
Speaker 2: I mean, the the contrast and culture between I live
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin now, by the way, which is a farming state,
Speaker 2: primarily you know, dairy farms. But but but but the
Speaker 2: contrast and the mentality of you know, the man of
Speaker 2: the earth, the farmer and the urbanite is very stark.
Speaker 2: And urbanites tend to view the economy primarily in in
Speaker 2: financial terms. You know, the secret to to economic success
Speaker 2: is making sure, you know, keeping an eye on the
Speaker 2: money supply and proper you know, monetary policy and all
Speaker 2: that type of thing. Because of course, you know, all
Speaker 2: the big cities are where the banking and the financed
Speaker 2: takes place. That's that's their primary raizone deetra is to
Speaker 2: be you know, enablers of international trade and finance and
Speaker 2: banking and all that sort of thing. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve is is actually the Federal Reserve Bank
Speaker 2: of New York is where all the action is as
Speaker 2: far as monetary policy concerned. So that's that's the lens
Speaker 2: through which someone like Trump is going to tend to
Speaker 2: see the world and not really have a grasp of farming.
Speaker 2: I mean, I happen to think that you know, casey
Speaker 2: uh Ezra Taff Benson some other good you know secretaries
Speaker 2: of agriculture, that we shouldn't even have a Department of Agriculture.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 2: I don't see that as being part of the constitutional
Speaker 2: purview of the federal government, and that that that's kind
Speaker 2: of an extra constitutional heresy that goes back also more
Speaker 2: than one hundred years well before FDR. You know, the
Speaker 2: the the the Department Agriculture was already you know, had
Speaker 2: it kind of had a finger in the in the
Speaker 2: pie and was was was influencing the but it was
Speaker 2: meddling with the market mechanisms as far as you know,
Speaker 2: the price of crops were concerned in this kind of thing. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I tend to be a Jeffersonian
Speaker 2: in the sense that that I think that an ideal
Speaker 2: republic is first and foremost, you know, agrarian, not you know,
Speaker 2: I think manufacturing and finance and all those things are fine,
Speaker 2: but but it's all predicated on a strong agrarian you.
Speaker 1: Know, absolutely, yeah, I absolutely agree. Yeah, he believed that
Speaker 1: an agraian society was essential to maintain our liberty and
Speaker 1: our form of government. And I agree with him. You know,
Speaker 1: when you look at our civil war, for example, I've
Speaker 1: mentioned many many times that Italy had a civil war
Speaker 1: at exactly the same time, and well, they didn't have slaves,
Speaker 1: but it was about the consolid the consolidation and centralization
Speaker 1: of power, creating a nation state when in the past
Speaker 1: they had had a relatively decentralized agrarian you know, Italy,
Speaker 1: they wanted to create a nation state and it was
Speaker 1: driven by a lot of manufacturing and urban interest that
Speaker 1: we're involved in that and so that's what we see
Speaker 1: happening over and over again. Jefferson said, as you're talking
Speaker 1: about how it's always focused on finances and other things.
Speaker 1: They said to cities are a threat to the health,
Speaker 1: the wealth, and the liberty of man. I think nothing
Speaker 1: has changed with that. It's it's just in the nature
Speaker 1: of the way that people live, you know. Well, here,
Speaker 1: here's the thing.
Speaker 2: About agrarianism is that number one, it delivers the best
Speaker 2: possible standard of living. I mean, you know, Rome was
Speaker 2: never had it better than when they were in agrarian
Speaker 2: republic for example, And the same could be said mutatus
Speaker 2: mutandus of the medieval Italian republics and so forth and
Speaker 2: so on, although many of them were also they were
Speaker 2: based on you know, trade and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 2: But but the thing is that agrarianism is not conducive
Speaker 2: to domination.
Speaker 1: That's right. You're self sufficient, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: But finance is I mean, I mean the basis, yeah,
Speaker 2: the basis for you know, call it imperialism or whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, that that kind of thing
Speaker 2: being you know, a superpower is finance. You have to
Speaker 2: have robust finances and a robust banking system and all this.
Speaker 2: That's very much, of course in sync with the Hamiltonian
Speaker 2: vision of America. But but you know, I mean America
Speaker 2: did just fine for all of the decades that it
Speaker 2: wasn't a superpower, you know, a world in girding power.
Speaker 2: And you know, the the idea, and this isn't as
Speaker 2: much implicit in the policies and rhetoric of the Trump
Speaker 2: administration as it was in all of his predecessors going
Speaker 2: back to the early twentieth century. The idea is that
Speaker 2: America is a superpower and must remain a superpower. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: we're the you know, the phrases like, you know, we're
Speaker 2: the indispensable nation. All this kind of thing, well kind
Speaker 2: of kind of feed into that. But I mean, and
Speaker 2: and and and here's an interesting thing, you know, speaking
Speaker 2: of Argentina as well. I mean, Argentina, interestingly enough, has
Speaker 2: never been a great military power.
Speaker 1: They've never they've never made Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Falkon Wars was was it was an exception of this
Speaker 2: interesting his there too, the wind of that right now.
Speaker 2: But uh, but but by and large, Argentina has been
Speaker 2: very content, you know, with its its dominion there in
Speaker 2: southern South America has all that all that needs and
Speaker 2: and and feels no need though it certainly has the resources,
Speaker 2: I mean, resource wise, it's just as blessed as the
Speaker 2: United States, they could become a superpower if they wanted to.
Speaker 2: They just they just don't want that. And uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and and so the United States, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's heresy to say this, but but I
Speaker 2: wrote an article a while ago for the magazine questioning
Speaker 2: the very premise, you know, should should America be a superpower?
Speaker 2: Is this really what the founders envisioned? Is that is
Speaker 2: that we want? And and obviously it depends what you mean
Speaker 2: by by superpower. You mean, well, you know, the greatest
Speaker 2: country on earth, the place that everybody wants to go
Speaker 2: to live and all that. Okay, well, I suppose, but
Speaker 2: if you meet it in the sense that we mean
Speaker 2: it today, you know, the uh, the dominatrix of the world,
Speaker 2: so to speak, that's that is something very much counter
Speaker 2: to what to what the founders wanted. And and so
Speaker 2: going back to our agrarian roots, you know, like, wow,
Speaker 2: what's his name? That the financial that the financial wizard
Speaker 2: who now lives in Singapore. I can't think of his name,
Speaker 2: but he's he's said a lot in recent years. He
Speaker 2: thinks that that the future of wealth is actually going
Speaker 2: to be in farming, after this whole fourth turning thing,
Speaker 2: get you get through this?
Speaker 1: Well, Bill Gates kind of thinks that, doesn't he I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, I mean he's bought a lot of land.
Speaker 1: Even though he doesn't want to have agricultural farming, he
Speaker 1: wants to manufacture food, he still has bought a lot
Speaker 1: of land. And I think he realizes that's the fallback
Speaker 1: position maybe after they destroy the food supply and everybody
Speaker 1: is fed up. Just right there with beyond me, I
Speaker 1: was just talking about how their stock that hit a
Speaker 1: high of two hundred and forty dollars is now less
Speaker 1: than a dollar. So after all of that, people turned
Speaker 1: back to the farm. And so he's kind of hedging
Speaker 1: his bets by getting farm land. Yeah. Yeah, And why not?
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, because that's they call it real
Speaker 2: estate for a reason, that there's a certain, you know,
Speaker 2: tangible reality about owning land and and developing it for
Speaker 2: farming or whatever, you know. Uh and so, and I
Speaker 2: think we've we've sort of become divorced from that in
Speaker 2: our in our relentless quest too for ascendency over nature,
Speaker 2: which you know, it is understandable, you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: good that we have things like the polio vaccine and
Speaker 2: all the rest of that. Nowadays, you know, we have
Speaker 2: modern medicine and and maybe that life is not quite
Speaker 2: so hobsy in as it once was. So it's understandable
Speaker 2: that we that we that we want to subdue nature,
Speaker 2: you know, the more brutish aspects of nature. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, you know, you don't want to throw
Speaker 2: the baby out with the bath and say, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to live entirely in this technocratic society, completely
Speaker 2: divorced from from from the need to get our hands dirty,
Speaker 2: you know, Micro's style or anything like that, you know.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, yeah, a virtual reality, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: not a reality at all. Well, you were talking about, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of American exceptionalism and how we
Speaker 1: are indispensable and how we have to be you know,
Speaker 1: it has to be packed Americana and so forth, and
Speaker 1: how financial issues are so much a part of that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so of course when we look at the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve and what is happening with gold. But give us
Speaker 1: your take on that. That is, of course the superpower
Speaker 1: that underlies the American empire, and that is the ability
Speaker 1: to conjure money up out of nowhere, and they may
Speaker 1: be at the end of their.
Speaker 2: Use it and force every real's right because it's the
Speaker 2: world reserve currency, that's the real rough and that's the reason.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was, I was. I was talking with
Speaker 2: with an economist the other day on this. You know,
Speaker 2: why is it that Argentina when they print a lot
Speaker 2: of money, all they get is horrendous inflation, whereas we
Speaker 2: do the same thing and somehow it never has that
Speaker 2: same effect. Well, the answer is that we enjoy a
Speaker 2: luxury that the Argentine Central Bank does not. Namely, we
Speaker 2: can export. You know, we can print lots of money.
Speaker 2: We can we can create lots of debt x N
Speaker 2: a hillo and and people will come and buy it
Speaker 2: because you know, uh pursuance the so the Breton Woods
Speaker 2: Agreement and just the way the world works now everything
Speaker 2: is denominated in dollars and there's a unique demand for
Speaker 2: US dollars that doesn't exist for Argentine pesos or even
Speaker 2: euros or Japanese yen or something like that. So so,
Speaker 2: you know, so we've managed to insulate ourselves to some extent,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the inflation has been shipped abroad.
Speaker 2: But what's happening now. I mean, inflation is a very
Speaker 2: it's a little more complex than simply okay, you know,
Speaker 2: we you double the money supply and prices and prices
Speaker 2: double that kind of thing. It's not as simple as that,
Speaker 2: it's much it's more diffuse. And and this is the
Speaker 2: reason and that a lot of economists, you know, not
Speaker 2: just modern monetary theorists, but a lot of economists, Keynesians
Speaker 2: all reject the idea that inflation is ultimately a monetary
Speaker 2: phenomenon that's caused in effect by governments and banks printing money,
Speaker 2: because it's hard to see, you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: the prices price rises versus you know, the money supply.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's it's very complex. It's hard to perceive.
Speaker 2: You know, some prices rise faster than others, and so
Speaker 2: forth and so on. So but but the reality is
Speaker 2: that inflation is caused by printing money. Inflation is not
Speaker 2: possible except under the circum under conditions of a fiat
Speaker 2: money source. And fiat means money that's not tied to
Speaker 2: gold and silver. Funny thing is that gold and silver
Speaker 2: for all of uh, you know, all the obloquy that's
Speaker 2: been thrown at them. You know, gold was famously called
Speaker 2: a barbarous relic by by by Pains and this kind
Speaker 2: of thing. People who who believe in the advisability of
Speaker 2: returning to the gold standard are are are are derisively
Speaker 2: called gold bugs in economic parlance and so forth. In
Speaker 2: spite of all that, the fact is that that gold
Speaker 2: and silver remain real money, and then their price behaves
Speaker 2: like real money. So if you want to sort of
Speaker 2: cut through all of the complications of inflation, you know,
Speaker 2: consumer price inflation versus asset inflation, all this type of thing,
Speaker 2: you know, and and and see, well, what's really happening.
Speaker 2: You look at the price of gold and silver, and
Speaker 2: it's going through the roof because you know, but here's
Speaker 2: the interesting thing I saw on articles.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because the central banks don't buy
Speaker 1: into this canesianism, and certainly they don't buy into the
Speaker 1: modern monetary theory, which I call the magic money tree
Speaker 1: of the MMT. They're not. They're accumulating gold for their
Speaker 1: own purposes. And even if they're trying to come up
Speaker 1: with an alternative economics system financial system to ours, which
Speaker 1: has been weaponized, they are still turning to gold for credibility.
Speaker 2: Well sure, all they said, well, it's just a hedge
Speaker 2: and all this type of thing. But the reality is,
Speaker 2: and I saw it. I mean, so if you I
Speaker 2: was just attending a conference the other day down in
Speaker 2: Florida that the Mesa's Institute. And there's a lot of
Speaker 2: talk about this. And one of the one of the
Speaker 2: cardinal features of a free market, a non inflationary free
Speaker 2: market economy, is that over time, prices will tend to fall. Okay,
Speaker 2: and we saw this, for example in the United States
Speaker 2: post Civil War the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Is that prices of goods and services gradually decrease over time,
Speaker 2: and to some extent, we even see it today, although
Speaker 2: it's very much muddied by the inflationary waters. But you know,
Speaker 2: you see, for example, things like the prices of cell
Speaker 2: phones and laptops is over tend to decline over time.
Speaker 2: And here's but but here's something that never declines in prices,
Speaker 2: price supposedly, and that's houses. People love to flip houses,
Speaker 2: buy houses, investments, real estate because people, you know, the
Speaker 2: mantra goes. You know, the value is always going to
Speaker 2: go up, even if you don't do anything to improve,
Speaker 2: the value is going to go up over time. This
Speaker 2: has been our experience. Well, there's a reason for that,
Speaker 2: and the reason is that those are assets that are
Speaker 2: very close to uh, you know where where where the
Speaker 2: money spigots are, you know, and the money the money
Speaker 2: center banks, where the new money enters the economy, and
Speaker 2: so like stock prices, the prices of real estate, houses
Speaker 2: and so forth are driven up artificially by by inflationary
Speaker 2: government policy. But here's an interesting fact. Apparently the price
Speaker 2: of houses is if reckoned in terms of gold, has
Speaker 2: also been slowly declining over the years of decades. In
Speaker 2: other words, if you if you reckon things in terms
Speaker 2: of gold or and or silver, then then you see
Speaker 2: the true you know, the real economy and what we're
Speaker 2: seeing now with with with gold, you know, the skyrocketing
Speaker 2: gold and now silver prices as well. I'm kind of
Speaker 2: glad I bought silver over the last several years. Although
Speaker 2: that's a silly thing to say, though, isn't it, because
Speaker 2: you know, my silver is quote unquote worth more, But
Speaker 2: it really isn't worthless, And it would be the height
Speaker 2: of folly for me to take the silver, say, oh,
Speaker 2: now it's worth twice what it was. I'm going to
Speaker 2: sell it and get that you know, you know, and
Speaker 2: make a profit on it. I'm not making a profit
Speaker 2: because what happened is, you know, the worth of the
Speaker 2: dollar relative to real money, to silver and gold has plummeted.
Speaker 2: And that is, those are both indices of very severe inflation,
Speaker 2: even if we're not yet seeing it on the at
Speaker 2: at the grocery stores Argentina.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there were some articles saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to start looking at assets and
Speaker 1: even things like the stock markets. You know, look at
Speaker 1: them in terms of gold, and they don't look so good.
Speaker 1: You know, we've had a lot of inflation in terms
Speaker 1: of stock prices, a lot of it because of the
Speaker 1: AI bubble. But when you look at it in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, Dow Jones Industrial Average or me these
Speaker 1: other market wide metrics, it hasn't gone up as much
Speaker 1: as as gold has. I know, I've talked to Tony
Speaker 1: Ardaban in the past. We've looked at people have done
Speaker 1: experiments going back and saying, you know, how much would
Speaker 1: it cost to do certain things you know, over one
Speaker 1: hundred years, say one hundred and twenty years ago or so,
Speaker 1: before they went onto the fiat thing. If you had gold,
Speaker 1: you know, if you bought a custom soup, or you
Speaker 1: took a trip where you did this or that, and
Speaker 1: start to compare it and they find that it was
Speaker 1: pretty much comparable, just like you were saying with with
Speaker 1: real estate, that it was basically the prices were about
Speaker 1: the same if you priced it in terms of gold,
Speaker 1: although the prices have gone up significantly in terms of
Speaker 1: fiat currency.
Speaker 2: Well. And then the fact that people have this mistaken
Speaker 2: idea that think in terms of what things are worth
Speaker 2: dollar is a reflection of the intuition that people have
Speaker 2: that goes back to the days when we had sound money,
Speaker 2: you know, pre you know, the bank, the Bank Act
Speaker 2: and pre FDR and all that kind of thing, And
Speaker 2: that is the idea that that money should be both
Speaker 2: uh a something with value and also an accountancy something,
Speaker 2: a way of keeping records, whereas in a fiat money system,
Speaker 2: money no longer has value. It's just an accountancy device. Okay,
Speaker 2: the value is still there, but it's been it's been
Speaker 2: divorced from money, you know, the goal that's reflected in
Speaker 2: the behavior of gold and silver in that sense, but
Speaker 2: money itself is no longer repository for for value. And
Speaker 2: I know that some of the mesians uh will will
Speaker 2: will will criticize this the very idea of of value,
Speaker 2: you know, this kind of thing, because valuation is very subjective.
Speaker 2: But but but that's the issue, right, and so but
Speaker 2: people still think money should be valuable in some sense
Speaker 2: in sense that it once wasn't. So that's where this
Speaker 2: confusion arises from. People. I say, well, you know, how
Speaker 2: much is this worth in nineteen sixty five dollars or
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty dollars in this kind of thing? And that's
Speaker 2: all what we have now is under so called fiat money,
Speaker 2: which is really a contradiction in terms is purely and
Speaker 2: simply a system of accountancy that is fraudulent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, because you.
Speaker 2: Know it says, you know, you put a thousand of
Speaker 2: me in the bank and it's still going to be
Speaker 2: worth a thousand plus whatever interest, you know, ten years
Speaker 2: from now, twenty years from now. Of course that's not
Speaker 2: the case. Everybody knows this.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right. And so when you look at the
Speaker 1: retail trade, a lot of urban mining going on. People.
Speaker 1: New York Times actually wrote an article about it this
Speaker 1: last week, about the rush of people to go down
Speaker 1: to the Diamond District in New York City where people
Speaker 1: will pay you for your jewelry. So people are taking
Speaker 1: gold and silver jewelry down cashing it out. One woman said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I got seven thousand dollars for this, and
Speaker 1: now I'm going to go take a vacation whatever. So
Speaker 1: she's not using it as a store value. She's just
Speaker 1: cashing it in and taking a vacation at taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the fact that she can get the vacation that's
Speaker 1: still priced in dollars. She can get that in the
Speaker 1: value of gold. But what they're doing is they're transferring
Speaker 1: out of an asset that retains its value into something
Speaker 1: that is evaporating very quickly. Makes sense if you're going
Speaker 1: to immediately consume it, and a lot of people are
Speaker 1: caught in a liquidity trap. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when we saw the plunge and gold and silver, the
Speaker 1: questions were was this last day or so? Questions are
Speaker 1: is this profit taking because it's been going straight up
Speaker 1: for quite some time, or as one person who is
Speaker 1: a former Federal Reserve governor said, I think this is
Speaker 1: indicating something's bigger than that. Then just price than taking profits.
Speaker 1: They said, this looks to me like a liquidity issue,
Speaker 1: like the type of thing that we saw back in
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty twenty when we had the lockdowns
Speaker 1: imposed on us and that type of thing. And so
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people in the financial markets
Speaker 1: are getting caught in a liquidity squeeze and they're having
Speaker 1: to liquidate gold with that. So we'll see what happens
Speaker 1: with that. But that's the key issue, and it's really
Speaker 1: a control issue. I think it's kind of interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about Bretton Woods as you as you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: when you look at what happened with Breton Woods too,
Speaker 1: Kissinger moved it to essentially the petro dollar. He kind
Speaker 1: of tied the dollar to energy using Saudi Arabia and
Speaker 1: that has now disappeared. Perhaps that's what's going on with Venezuela.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that they got more oil
Speaker 1: than Saudi we could have. I could reinstitute a petro
Speaker 1: dollar if we control that oil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's part of it, to be sure. And his
Speaker 2: neighbor Guiana turns out has a lot of oil too,
Speaker 2: So you know that whole part of the world is
Speaker 2: does Mexico and so yeah, I mean, and Argentina does too.
Speaker 2: I don't know if people don't know this, but particularly
Speaker 2: down in Patagonia, uh in Chubut Province, and in particular
Speaker 2: there's a there's a and ushawaya way down the southern
Speaker 2: tip of Argentina has now become quite quite the oil
Speaker 2: boom town.
Speaker 1: It's not so Patagonia is not just high expensive clothing, right.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I've been down therefal area. But but it's
Speaker 2: definitely it's it's it's prospering quite quite remarkably. And a
Speaker 2: lot of that is because because of the oil is
Speaker 2: found on the continental shelf off you know, off the
Speaker 2: coast of Argentina there, and so yeah, there there there's
Speaker 2: a lot of and and you can bet that that's
Speaker 2: in the back of Trump's mind, and that Beson's mind
Speaker 2: as well, when they're you know, kind of building this
Speaker 2: this new bromance with with Melas Argentina because you know,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I mean, no doubt oil is is still
Speaker 2: in spite of all of the you know, the quest
Speaker 2: for alternative energy and and and the kind of fanatical
Speaker 2: attempts to get rid to rid the world of fossil fuels,
Speaker 2: the pragmatic reality is that that oil ain't going anywhere
Speaker 2: anytime soon, so it's going to remain the main you know,
Speaker 2: stock in trade and of growth.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean China right now is trying to sort of
Speaker 2: belatedly realize that their policy of having a financial you know,
Speaker 2: bamboo curtain around China and you know, preventing the art
Speaker 2: that the Red men be from being used internationally for
Speaker 2: fear that it might become be destabilized or something like this.
Speaker 2: They're finally realizing, if we really want to compete with
Speaker 2: the United States, we have to try to internationalize, to
Speaker 2: globalize the Red men b and make it an alternative
Speaker 2: to the US dollar. But they have one major disadvantage,
Speaker 2: and that is that China has no oil. They don't
Speaker 2: none that anyone's aware of. They're completely in an oil
Speaker 2: and gas importing country from Russia and other places, and
Speaker 2: so they they're not a power player.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you go back and look at it. I mean,
Speaker 1: oil is foundational to so many of our wars, and
Speaker 1: you know, as well as to the economy. And if
Speaker 1: you go back to the nineteen thirties and the technocrats
Speaker 1: and the technocracy incorporated and so forth, they were talking
Speaker 1: about essentially getting rid of money and evaluating everything in
Speaker 1: terms of energy usage. And of course you got a
Speaker 1: lot of people who buy into that technocracy philosophy, people
Speaker 1: like Teal and Musk or around Trump and you, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And so you know, I think this whole idea that
Speaker 1: for them it makes sense to evaluate things in terms
Speaker 1: of energy, and of course the energy would be the
Speaker 1: barrel of oil still as a practical matter, So I
Speaker 1: think that's the foundation of a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: that we're seeing here.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So while we talk.
Speaker 1: About that, I mean, the UN, though, sees that their
Speaker 1: power basis is kind of using what I call mcguffin,
Speaker 1: because that goes back to what Hitchcock said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's basically just something that you put out there to
Speaker 1: control the narrative. And so their basis is to try
Speaker 1: to also control energy by restricting it, by taxing it
Speaker 1: and so forth. And you had an interesting article on
Speaker 1: The New America about the UN tax And we see
Speaker 1: something being done right by Trump here. I have been
Speaker 1: very critical most of Trump's policies, but I think one
Speaker 1: place where he has done a far better job than
Speaker 1: any of the other presidents has been on the energy
Speaker 1: issue in both the first term and now I think
Speaker 1: in the second term. It's still not perfect. There's many
Speaker 1: things that are still left out of it. But they
Speaker 1: put their foot down against this UN global tax on shipping.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so this is something that has been in
Speaker 2: the works for a number of years at the behest
Speaker 2: of the IMO, the International Maritime Organization, which is a
Speaker 2: little known UN appendage. It's part of the UN, and
Speaker 2: its job is to regulate shippings. By the way, there's
Speaker 2: a corresponding organization to regulate aviation and they're trying to
Speaker 2: do the same thing to instigate a global tax on
Speaker 2: aviation fuel as well. But that's another story. So that
Speaker 2: the shipping tax is potentially a tectonic event because it
Speaker 2: would represent, I mean, irrespective of what kind of taxes,
Speaker 2: it would be the first time that the United Nations
Speaker 2: would have independent taxing authority.
Speaker 1: And they have to have that. Yeah, well, and they
Speaker 1: have to have that to be a powerhouse. Really, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to first you got to have the ability
Speaker 1: to tax, and you have to have the ability to
Speaker 1: raise an army.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And so those are two things that politically
Speaker 2: were not palatable. Back in the mid nineteen forties when
Speaker 2: the UN and also the Breton Woods system were set up.
Speaker 2: The people who set up would have dearly liked to
Speaker 2: have proclaimed the UN a world government then, but knew
Speaker 2: that that was not feasible, and so they created an
Speaker 2: organization that could be the framework could be. It could
Speaker 2: be gradually filled out over time and turn into a
Speaker 2: world gogo. Which is why the UN looks like a government.
Speaker 2: Why it has, you know, basically a bicameral legislature you
Speaker 2: know as a Security Council and the General Assembly, and
Speaker 2: has or purports to have executive, legislative and judicial powers
Speaker 2: and all this type of thing. There's a reason for
Speaker 2: all of that, okay, But what the UN doesn't have
Speaker 2: de facto is the number one you mentioned, a military.
Speaker 2: I mean, to the extent that there's a UN military
Speaker 2: at all. It's crucially dependent on the willingness of member
Speaker 2: states and to contribute troops to serve under UN command.
Speaker 2: But they don't have the authority to levy their own troops,
Speaker 2: you know, to conscript people. They don't have their own
Speaker 2: independent military. And the same is true of taxation. All
Speaker 2: government's worth their salt you know, have the authority the
Speaker 2: power to raid to levy taxes, which the UN doesn't.
Speaker 2: I mean, so, I mean how does it get funded? Well,
Speaker 2: primarily by again by by by donations from member states,
Speaker 2: membership fees and the like. That's been a great has
Speaker 2: curtailed the UN's ability to live up to the potential
Speaker 2: envisaged by its founders. But now if and you know,
Speaker 2: we were warning about this, I and my colleague Alex
Speaker 2: new in particular written a number of articles on this
Speaker 2: impending global tax and shipping, which has been in the
Speaker 2: making for you know, five six years. It's kind of
Speaker 2: been out there, and we fully expected that it was
Speaker 2: going to going to happen this year and that would
Speaker 2: represent the first time that the UN was able to
Speaker 2: collect to have its own revenue stream, okay, and and
Speaker 2: it won't be the last, I mean, if if it's passed.
Speaker 2: There are other ideas out there, like taxing international uh
Speaker 2: transactions of the internet tax obviously, a carbon tax of
Speaker 2: fuel as another as another major one, things like a
Speaker 2: global income tax and global property taxes for further down
Speaker 2: the road. But certainly they you know, that's they kind
Speaker 2: of hope for that as well. And in this case,
Speaker 2: you know, the what happened was that the Trump administration
Speaker 2: in a rare I have to say, a rare spasm
Speaker 2: of ideological clarity. Yeah, Trump himself said, this is an
Speaker 2: unconstitutional global tax. It's not happening, and if anyone tries
Speaker 2: to make this happen, we're going to impose, you know,
Speaker 2: severe penalties on them and so forth. And the result
Speaker 2: was that some countries, including Argentina, by the way, which
Speaker 2: earlier this year abstained from voting on the measure. They
Speaker 2: kind of tried to wiggle their way through it. They
Speaker 2: they turned into a firm no vote. And on the
Speaker 2: other hand, you know, Brazil, China and most of the
Speaker 2: EU certainly you know, Great the UK are supporters of
Speaker 2: the measure, but the but Saudi Arabia and the other
Speaker 2: major petroleum exporting countries, a lot of countries that are
Speaker 2: crucially dependent on cruise lines, like the Caribbean nations for
Speaker 2: for their for their economic well being, were all opposed
Speaker 2: to it and ended up being a very slim vote no.
Speaker 2: But it's not really no, okay. So so what they
Speaker 2: were going to basically at at this at the I
Speaker 2: m O summit in London, they were supposed to rubber
Speaker 2: stamp this thing, and another year or two it's going
Speaker 2: to start coming into effect in the UN. We'll start
Speaker 2: having all this money coming in ostensibly in the name
Speaker 2: of of of you know, of reducing carbon emissions and
Speaker 2: and and and moving forward to the net zero twenty
Speaker 2: fifth e goal and all that stuff. Okay, And instead
Speaker 2: they were they were on the verge of saying it's
Speaker 2: just not going to happen. But in the last minute
Speaker 2: active of parliamentary ledger demand, a couple of the people said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, well, here's what we'll do. We'll vote to
Speaker 2: table the thing for a year. So that's what they did, said, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're not going to make a decision right now. We're
Speaker 2: going to meet again a year from now. And of
Speaker 2: course they're hoping. It's hope that the politics will change
Speaker 2: by them. And this is what they always do. This
Speaker 2: is how the globalists operate. If once you don't succeed,
Speaker 2: you try, try, try, try, try again, until eventually you
Speaker 2: get the result that you want.
Speaker 1: So this is not going away.
Speaker 2: Who to Trump, you know, give credit where credit is due.
Speaker 1: It's like the Who's Pandemic treaty. You know, they get
Speaker 1: shut down, they keep coming back, the relentless they're going
Speaker 1: to keep having back and changing a little thing, or
Speaker 1: or maybe just bringing it up as it was, you know,
Speaker 1: for another one of these things. And it's kind of interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, because we've we've kind of seen this pattern,
Speaker 1: and of course it's a big name. Brazinski was all
Speaker 1: about this in terms of, you know, creating the Trilateral
Speaker 1: Commission and these different economic areas, creating trade groups that
Speaker 1: would essentially have some economic control over people, and then
Speaker 1: unifying those trade groups into a political entity. That's the
Speaker 1: pattern that we saw happening in Europe with the Common
Speaker 1: Market then becoming you know, going in with more and
Speaker 1: more economic control in the marketplace, and then finally coming
Speaker 1: in with the euro and things like that. Now they're
Speaker 1: moving to you know, after they establish more and more
Speaker 1: political control of people. Probably all of this push with
Speaker 1: Ukraine everything is to give them a European army, which
Speaker 1: they denied they were doing as Brexit was happening. There's
Speaker 1: reports they wanted to European army. Oh no, no, we
Speaker 1: don't want that. Now they're talking about it openly, and
Speaker 1: so we see these types of things. It's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that the UN has taken. You know, you can
Speaker 1: unify people economically, then unified them politically to create this
Speaker 1: large governing block, and then and then bring those blocks
Speaker 1: together into a world government. But in the case of
Speaker 1: the UN, they're doing it politically and now they're moving
Speaker 1: into the economic stage, kind of doing it in reverse order.
Speaker 1: Either way, it's that same goal of consolidation and centralization,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yes, and using as an entering wedge things like trade
Speaker 2: and economics in ef fact, as of course the Europeans
Speaker 2: did way back in nineteen fifties. Oh no, no, this
Speaker 2: isn't political. This is just about free trade and open borders,
Speaker 2: and obviously who can oppose such positive sounding axioms, right,
Speaker 2: But of course, as it turned out, it was about
Speaker 2: much more than that. And then they're trying to do
Speaker 2: the same thing here in the New World. They did
Speaker 2: with the FTAA of a generation ago that ultimately kind
Speaker 2: of fell apart. They tried to create, you know, a
Speaker 2: from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, you know, this free
Speaker 2: trade zone ostensibly free trade zone, and that eventually didn't
Speaker 2: work out. But they're still working on me. You know,
Speaker 2: the fact that we have a sort of a customs agreement,
Speaker 2: a trade agreement amongst the US, Canada and Mexico. There
Speaker 2: are souls out there who want to transform that into
Speaker 2: some kind of a broader you know, North American political union,
Speaker 2: and people like Mark Carney, you know, openly talk about
Speaker 2: then his predecessor, Justin Trudeau up in Canada. We are
Speaker 2: very well aware of this, and certainly some of the
Speaker 2: you know, the people in Washington as well, know that
Speaker 2: that's the real goal. You use trade and you persuade
Speaker 2: people of the advisability of having open borders and free trade,
Speaker 2: and then you work towards the political convergence.
Speaker 1: That's right. And of course I remember when Trump did
Speaker 1: said I'm going to get rid of NAFTA. We don't
Speaker 1: like NAFTA, so I'm going to do the USMC.
Speaker 2: Replace it with something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you guys were spot on at the New
Speaker 1: American and saying that, well, the USMC A is is
Speaker 1: not really fundamentally different from NAFTA. There's just been some
Speaker 1: tweaking and some other stuff. So what do you make
Speaker 1: of the fact that Trump began this administration by attacking
Speaker 1: a lot of the same agreements that he was boasting
Speaker 1: about in his first administration, coming after Mexico, coming after Canada,
Speaker 1: even accusing Canada bringing fentonal onto the country. What do
Speaker 1: you make of that? Has he changed? Does he not
Speaker 1: want to have this yeah, unification that is there with
Speaker 1: with Mexico and Canada, this's economic unification.
Speaker 2: Well, there's some evidence that his he did learn some
Speaker 2: things during his four years in the political wilderness. Obviously,
Speaker 2: certainly experiencing the you know, the brunt of lawfare and
Speaker 2: all that had an effect on him.
Speaker 1: But more than that, I.
Speaker 2: Suspect that he's actually done something that he probably hasn't
Speaker 2: done a lot of in his adult life, and that's
Speaker 2: done some serious reading about some of these issues. This
Speaker 2: is the one, you know, the thing about moneymen, A
Speaker 2: lot of money men that they're so busy doing what
Speaker 2: they do they don't take the time to really read.
Speaker 2: And so while you know, I mean, I think a
Speaker 2: lot of Trump's instincts are spot on. You know, he's
Speaker 2: instinctively hues toward freedom and so forth, he doesn't really
Speaker 2: have a strong understanding of a lot of these issues,
Speaker 2: and he relies on his advisors and this kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and he does seem to have a different crop of
Speaker 2: advisors his first his first time around, you know, he
Speaker 2: bought in the idea, well, I need to surround myself
Speaker 2: with policy experts, and in practice that usually means people
Speaker 2: of CFR and trilateral's pedigree. And that's why we had
Speaker 2: that revolving door of Secretary of State and this kind
Speaker 2: of thing under the first Trump administration. And he's constantly
Speaker 2: feuding with his cabinet as because he'd appoint people who
Speaker 2: were basically globalist and elitists and thought differently than he did,
Speaker 2: but they were sold to him by his circle of advisors.
Speaker 2: Well you need to have, you know, your newcomer to Washington,
Speaker 2: so you need to have these these seasoned experts, you know,
Speaker 2: helping me quickly realize I don't like what they're telling
Speaker 2: me to do. And so this time around he does
Speaker 2: seem to have made wiser choices in that regard.
Speaker 1: In fact, ergunately, he's got this one, really really bad
Speaker 1: hangover Peter Navarro, who came up with those reciprocal tariffs
Speaker 1: in that chart that was just utter nonsense.
Speaker 2: And has been in prison. So he's got a chip
Speaker 2: on his shoulder. Yeah, yeah, So maybe he's trying to
Speaker 2: Scott Besant is the one guy in this Trump administration
Speaker 2: that is kind of cut from that cloth, this kind
Speaker 2: of establishment type guy, and most of the rest of
Speaker 2: them are you know, I mean, there's a lot to
Speaker 2: quibble with. Certainly there's certainly no Ron Paul or Thomas Massey.
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, and you know, you get back
Speaker 1: to Scott Bessett and where we began with Argentina. When
Speaker 1: you look at this, the beginning of his twenty billion
Speaker 1: dollars bailout to Argentina, this hasn't gone very well. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, the Paso, the Argentine Paeso has continued to
Speaker 1: go down in spite of his financial lovers that he's
Speaker 1: been pulling. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and I mean again, as much as I love
Speaker 2: Melea and Argentina, we have no you know, the president
Speaker 2: has no constitutional power to bail out other countries, even
Speaker 2: via currency. So I mean Clinton did that with Mexico
Speaker 2: back in the mid nineteen nineties and got into all
Speaker 2: kinds of trouble. He exchanged stabilization fund in his case,
Speaker 2: to just up and send money to Mexico to stabilize
Speaker 2: the Mexican treasuries and all that type of thing. Whereas
Speaker 2: you know, best and said, well, it's a currency swap.
Speaker 2: Well what does that mean. It means that we go
Speaker 2: in and buy their worthless currency with our somewhat less
Speaker 2: worthless currency. So you know, that's that's pretty much what's happened.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, we'll see. The elections in Argentina
Speaker 2: are coming up this weekend. It's circle and we'll see
Speaker 2: what happens. Mela will be president one way or the
Speaker 2: other for two more years presumably, but whether or not
Speaker 2: he has a more compliant Congress is very much in
Speaker 2: doubt at this point.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Yeah, yeah, Well, and again, I think a
Speaker 1: big part of what we're seeing happening in the backfire
Speaker 1: of Bessence policy is the de dollarization that's going on internationally,
Speaker 1: and people are walking away from the dollar because it
Speaker 1: was weaponized by Biden and continuing to be weaponized by Trump.
Speaker 1: They want a different financial system. They're moving to gold,
Speaker 1: or they're trying to establish bricks or something like that.
Speaker 1: And just to I think it is also a harbinger
Speaker 1: of the declining power of the dollar financial system that's there.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Well, absolutely, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, and this is something again, as with military power.
Speaker 2: We're loath to admit that that the state of affairs
Speaker 2: that we have all come to accept as natural for
Speaker 2: the past several generations, to wit, that the dollar is
Speaker 2: going to be forever and ever. Amen, you know, the
Speaker 2: world's dominant currency, that that that could ever change. But again,
Speaker 2: you know, the Germans thought the same up through World
Speaker 2: War One. I mean, you know, the German mark was was,
Speaker 2: you know, alongside the British pound, and we get it.
Speaker 2: You know, also adduced that the example of the British pound,
Speaker 2: which up util World War two was the world's great
Speaker 2: great currency. Where's the pound today? Where's the mark? Well,
Speaker 2: the mark doesn't even exist anymore. We know about German
Speaker 2: hyperinflation after World War One. So yeah, and here's the
Speaker 2: thing too, you know, the triggers for calamitous hyperinflation, you know,
Speaker 2: Weimar Republic style hyperinflation usually are major traumatic events like
Speaker 2: a civil war or a major military loss. And so
Speaker 2: if the other things that we talk about pass, you know,
Speaker 2: if the civil unrest continues, if the United States gets involved,
Speaker 2: you know, in some kind of major world war starting
Speaker 2: over Taiwan or Ukraine or something like that, you know,
Speaker 2: these things could all prove the death knell to dollar supremacy. Yes,
Speaker 2: because because you know, potentially, at least you know, could
Speaker 2: just absolutely detonate a bomb in the middle of our
Speaker 2: American sense of confidence and complacency about the dollar.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people see that. I
Speaker 1: think that is fundamental to a lot of this move
Speaker 1: into gold and silver away from the dollar that we're seeing.
Speaker 1: And and of course again the weaponization of this financial
Speaker 1: system that we set up. We're destroying it ourselves, even
Speaker 1: if we don't do it from within. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of issues that are coming up within, so very
Speaker 1: important that people keep their ear to the ground. And
Speaker 1: one of the great places to do that is at
Speaker 1: Thenewamerican dot com. Thank you so much, Steve for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest has been Steve Bonta, who is who is
Speaker 1: the publisher of The New American, And it's always a
Speaker 1: pleasure to have people on from JBS. And I just
Speaker 1: I want to see more stories out there about concern
Speaker 1: about the federalization of policing and other things like that,
Speaker 1: because I tell you, I'm just going back. I talked
Speaker 1: about it constantly. I said whether John Birst Society was
Speaker 1: like sixty years ahead of the rest of everybody when
Speaker 1: they talked about the dangers of the federalization of the
Speaker 1: police and the militarization of the police. You know, back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. Support your local share for whatever.
Speaker 1: That is more important than ever, I think, And we've
Speaker 1: got to be careful that we don't move into that
Speaker 1: because of a particular goal that we have. We have
Speaker 1: to be mindful of the precedents that we're setting and
Speaker 1: of the means that we're using, because those are going
Speaker 1: to be the things that are going to be used
Speaker 1: to hang us when the administration changes, as it inevitably will. Yes, well, so,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us the common man.
Speaker 1: They created common Core and dumbed down our children. They
Speaker 1: created common Past to track and control us. They're Commons
Speaker 1: project to make sure the commoners own nothing and the
Speaker 1: communist future. They see the common man as simple, unsophisticated ordinary.
Speaker 1: But each of us has worth and dignity created in
Speaker 1: the image of God. That is what we have in common.
Speaker 1: That is what they want to take away. Their most
Speaker 1: powerful weapons are isolation, deception, intimidation. They desire to know
Speaker 1: everything about us, while they hide everything from us. It's
Speaker 1: time to turn that around and expose what they want
Speaker 1: to hide. Please share the information and links you'll find
Speaker 1: at the Davidnightshow dot com. Thank you for listening, Thank
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