Kind: captions
Language: en
we have never found any evidence of any
human civilization that didn't have
money money predates written language
money is as old as belief in God as like
people staring into the stars and
wondering what's out there I think of
course there are Chinese spies in the US
government there are Russian spies even
our allies in 1951 Alan Turing wenton on
a lecture tour of the UK where he was
arguing that super intelligent AGI was
months away uh he was wrong
Graham Moore welcome to the show thank
you so much for having me Tom I'm really
excited to have you you've written a
fascinating book about a period in time
that I'm obsessed with which is World
War II uh the book The Wealth of Shadows
is about how economics were used to
break the back of the Nazi war machine I
think there are fascinating parallels to
what's going on today especially in
Ukraine and Russia and I'm curious how
did the US end up beating the Nazis
before they ever fired a shot I think
that the US ended up beating the Nazis
long before firing a shot thanks to a
largely unheralded group of economists
working under the offices of the US
Treasury Department and that's what the
book is really about I think in starting
in 1939 even after Germany had invaded
Poland there was there was this period
where the United States was not just
neutral in what we considered sort of
this European dispute but the United
States was assiduously neutral I mean
sort of passionately neutral I talk
about this in the book but in 1939 even
after the invasion of
Poland there was polling done
and 12% of Americans wanted to get
involved in what they called the
European dispute the percentage of
Americans who wanted to get involved
militarily was 2% it was politically
toxic for the Roosevelt administration
to not just wage any kind of war against
the Nazis but to even do anything that
vaguely looked like what they were doing
was Waging War against the Nazis what
year was that poll taken 39 so they
already know about concentration camps
at this point they know the horrific
conditions and yet it was still that
unpopular that's absolutely right um and
I when I found those numbers I was
shocked by how small they were um it was
really the common feeling was this is a
European thing okay Germany invaded
Poland it's complicated yes
Czechoslovakia it's complicated they're
not okay the UK is going to war okay
France is going to war but this is their
problem this is not our problem this is
not our problem this is not our problem
and yet there was this group of
economists and even sort of largely
amateur economists working for the
treasury Department who this book is
about and these people said no were the
US had passed a Neutrality Act so doing
anything to uh help the British against
the Nazis or to help the French against
the Nazis was illegal I mean it was
counter to government policy and these
people at treasury said no we're not
doing that this is really bad the Nazi
threat is not going to stop it's not
going to stop at Poland it's not going
to stop at Britain it's not going to
stop at France this is going to keep
happening why were they so confident
about that because a number of things so
one of the things that I think they had
done and that we've certainly been able
to prove since is that they' done
analysis of the German war operation and
what they found was that the entire
German economy had been restructured
around the making of war that is the
German government
um had the Nazi the Nazi government had
completely structured its natural
economy to produce one output and that
output was war everything you know is a
very kind of centrally planned economy
um they were
you know no secret that Nazi stands for
sort of I can't I can't speak German if
I try to do the German it'll be a
disaster but sort of National Socialist
Party of Germany um the politics of it
were complicated this kind of like
extreme sort of right-wing socialism mix
that was quite
statist and what
they what the Americans had done is we
sort of looked at this and said this
this isn't going to stop this is a real
threat
and the Germans couldn't stop even if
they wanted to um the German economy is
built around a couple things it's built
around one having a slave class of Jews
to perform unpaid labor um and it's
built around Conquest it's built around
taking new lands where they can acquire
new raw materials new money and frankly
more slaves and
if the Nazi war machine were to stop
conquering were to stop taking new
territory the entire the entire Nazi
economy would collapse and so they there
any idea that they're going to stop at
Czechoslovakia is ridiculous any idea
that they're going to stop at Poland is
ridiculous any idea that they're going
to stop at France is ridiculous this is
a machine built to take land and built
to take built to steal raw materials and
capture slaves and it's going to keep
doing that until one of two things
happen either they consume the entire
world or someone stops them and so what
this book is about what the wealth of
Shadows is about is about this group of
folks at treasury who said okay we're
going to be the ones to stop
them it's a really interesting Moment In
the book that you tell of an economist
who's basically looking at a spreadsheet
and says okay wait a second how did the
Germans go from utterly devastated by
the Treaty of Versa just demolished
demolished by that demolished by the
Great Depression and now all of a sudden
in the span of a very short number of
years like two uh they Roar back to life
with all the sanctions that say they
can't build this they can't build that
uh because they didn't want them to
rearm themselves and you get this
economist who looks at the spreadsheet
and goes they've created it's quite
brilliant and this is where it starts to
get very unnerving for me as somebody
who studies the economy uh the Germans
found a way basically to create a
circular economy that was completely
contained within Germany so you would
sell war bonds to your Farmers or
whatever promise them a return but to
avoid inflation tell them ah first of
all it won't pay off for a few years and
second of all even when it does I'm
going to restrict the amount that you
can take out but everybody's super
excited because they see their net worth
going up even though in reality they're
not being allowed to spend it and the
only way that they can keep the
inflation from going crazy since they
don't have economic output that they're
selling because it's all internal is to
your point we have to go to the next
conquest and on and on and on and that
toogy is what I worry about today and so
when you look at how they used economics
they um tried to cut Germany off from
the international money supply
uh they went to Brazil and tried to buy
up all the iron and cotton to make sure
they couldn't make bullets and uniforms
so they're doing all of these economic
things but what does that tell us about
what's likely going on today when we
look at how we're positioning ourselves
against Russia with Ukraine technically
we're not in the fight but we're doing
these economic things what's your read
on that so it's a great question and my
read is that that the set of techniques
that the United States and the European
Union have been using against Russia
these past few years are essentially the
modern versions of a set of techniques
developed by this group of people at
treasury in 1939 this was a set of
techniques that we now call economic
Warfare that really was developed in the
late 30s and early 40s I don't think it
had I would argue it hadn't really that
economic Warfare hadn't really been
tried before this um people sanctions
existed but sanctions are a very small
part um of I think the economic Warfare
package that's presently being used and
it was certainly being used in the 30s
and 40s um because as just as you're
saying I think a big part of of the
anti-nazi economic Warfare of 39 40 and
41 and of what the US and the EU are
doing against the Russian government
today is trying to
sever trying to sever those economies
from the rest of the world um the
problem
is uh both the German economists in the
30s and the Russian economists in the
last decade prepared for this um and I
think we can see I mean one of the other
Eerie corar between the late 30s and now
is so you were just talking about this
period in the mid-30s where the German
brilliant German economists sort of
rebuilt the German economy from nothing
after
you know Germany had it's no secret that
they were kind of doomed to Decades of
poverty thanks to these crushing
sanctions uh these crushing debts after
the war um you know Germany in the early
30s was this economic Backwater by
3839 they' built the largest military in
the world in just as you said only a few
years how did they do it it was pretty
brilliant um
and I suppose it doesn't need clarifying
that brilliant evil um because as I said
you know the the slave class was an
important part of that operation it
doesn't it doesn't work without
essentially these work camps of of of
forced
labor they but as you're saying they
develop this complicated Bond system to
effectively make it look kind of funnel
more and more of what was effectively
German GDP into the military than it
looked like they were doing the term GDP
didn't quite exist yet and actually we
get into that in the book it was sort of
being invented around the same time but
um basically a significant percentage of
of everyone's labor and everyone's money
was getting in Germany was getting put
into the war machine than it then
appeared to be going to it um but at the
same time you know everyone was putting
their money in the banks the banks were
sort of to simplified the banks were
secretly funneling that money to the
German military but it looked like
everyone would check their bank deposit
books and they had all this money in the
bank and they were making all these
returns and Banks were offering 4% 5%
returns in these checking accounts which
looked for Germany at the time was was
wildly High it looked great everyone was
sort of looking everyone thought they
were getting rich only just as you
pointed out there was one trick they
couldn't withdraw the money um the
German government had passed a set of
laws such that you know it was it was it
was against the law to withdraw too much
money from your checking account but
then again why would you because leaving
the money there made it grow and you
kept getting these statements that made
it look like it was growing um in a
sense that it was some bizarre
combination of like Ponzi scheme and
kind of wild military
expansion um but at the same time the
Germans knew that with a coming War they
were going to they needed to create this
autarchic system they needed to sever
the German economy from the west of the
world because they were going to soon
enough they were going to go to war with
the rest of Europe and the rest of the
world they were going to then not be
able to trade with those countries um
they needed
to they knew that they weren't going to
be able to trade in dollars very soon
they weren't going to be able to trade
in Sterling very soon they weren't going
to be able to trade in franks very soon
when they started going to war with the
countries producing those currencies so
they began this process of trying to
sort of sever themselves from the global
economy now if you look at the last 10
years um you can certainly see a set of
Russian economists doing the exact same
thing um you can see
them understanding that they don't need
to keep well they've done a couple of
other things they kept pretty
significant the Russians I guess in
contrast to the Germans I should clarify
have kept quite extensive dollar
reserves um and at the same time they
have something even more valuable which
is they have oil reserves um which
allows them to acquire dollars or other
currencies on the global market and kind
of keep trading with enough of the world
that even if the US shuts them off and
says we're not going to trade with you
anymore even if the sh them off and says
we're not going to trade with you
anymore um other places will um and so
you see a kind of preparation what you
find is that in both the 30s and in the
last decade is that the economists were
planning for the war many years before
the military
was what I find most interesting about
your book is there's this sense of
um we have uh moral agenda and we're
going to weaponize money as a way to get
this done and before reading your book I
would have agreed with the sentiment of
when you look at a government you should
say look it's hard to get things done
because there's this managerial class
it's bureaucrats pushing paper and they
bog things down but reading your book I
would say this is a contentious
statement but the idea of a deep state
is wiser way to look at it because there
are people in the government working at
intentional cross-purposes to the State
admission of the president of the
national Declaration of
neutrality um you have in your book
again the book is based on a true story
that's right one of the true stories is
that the guy running the treasury um
Department that's in charge of of this
war effort is also a Russian spy
and so I was like whoa it it gave this
sense of the government is not a bunch
of bumbling bureaucrats the government
is actually made up of people with
competing ideologies that are going to
war with each other inside the
government itself to pull historical
events in a given Direction and then
that sets the stage for we are maybe not
at maximum division cuz we're not not in
a civil war and we know we've had one so
there there is worse places to be than
where we are now well but we are at a
time of very heightened division which
tells me within the government there
will be massive Division and then we
have our former presidents stating hey
there's a very bad thing happening
inside the government which is that they
were pulling in directions that I did
not want them pulling in and so I look
at divided sentiment over Russia Ukraine
I look at your book and say I mean
I look at your book and I say there is a
very complicated thing happening in
terms of what I'll round to the Deep
State and so what do you think becomes
the outcome of this reality of how
governments operate in today's
context I I feel like in some ways
you're you're burying the lead here
because I feel like you're saying that
the book has sold you Tom on bureaucrats
and I'm proud to say that I'm finally I
could be the one to to prove the value
of bureaucrats the world over I
think yes I think it I
don't yes the word deep state is a
loaded term but I think it is absolutely
true that what this book gets into is
that in 3940 41 42 throughout the war
there were different groups of
competing teams of people within the US
government with very different aims from
what the government's kind of stated
goal was and what the president was
saying they were doing so on one side
you
have while the government while the
Rosevelt Administration is saying we're
neutral we're neutral we're neutral to
anyone who will listen we're going to go
speech after speech every night about
how neutral we are there's this at the
same time there's this group at treasury
who saying yeah yeah secretly what we're
going to do is we're going to wage war
against the Nazis and we're going to do
it because the Nazis are evil and this
is the right thing to do and the war is
going to come to our doorstep one
day one day whether we like it or not
this is going to be our problem and
we're not just going to sit here and
watch it happen um we're going to take
the fight to them and we're not soldiers
we're not we're not spies we're
economists and so we're going to kind of
invent this concept of economic Warfare
and try and kind of Kick the legs out
from underneath the German economy um at
the same time this team at treasury is
doing that there was
uh another team at the state department
on the other side which is to say that
there is a team of at best fascist
sympathizers in the state department at
worst I would
say out andout Nazis I mean there were
the state department was kind of Rife
with people who
were openly supporting the Germans and
the Italians against not just the
British and French but against the
Americans um and so you had
another like another deep State
operation at State sort of saying no no
we're not neutral because we should be
joining the Nazis we should be on their
side and we're going to start we're not
just going to kind of try
and we're going to do whatever we can to
kick the legs out from any kind of pro-
British or pro- French operation that
that the Roosevelt administration is
doing because eventually the Roosevelt
administration is going to wake up one
day and realize that like we should be
on the side of the access those are the
right that's the right side to be on
here um so in a way you find mind
um kind of it's like multiple deep
States right you have sort of multiple
competing forces within the government
with mutually exclusive and incompatible
goals um you have a a government very
much at war with
itself and I might argue um
that's not a flaw it's a feature I think
that
we the government's big the American
government's really big even in 1939 the
American government is really big
and
one there's a reason we have human
beings in those jobs and it's because
they're making moral decisions they're
making ethical decisions and
there this is certainly a period where
you had a bunch of people working for
the government who are saying we don't
care what our sort of official policy is
we're just going to do what we believe
is the right thing and I guess the emot
the I guess the ethically complicated
thing is you look back on this and say
okay you know in the book our guys at
treasury who were doing this are the
heroes because they were doing it on the
right side the guys at the state
department are the villains of the book
because they were doing it on what I
think we can inarguably say was the
wrong side but they were both making the
same calculation which is the
government's policy is wrong so we're
just going to pursue what we think is
the right thing to do one way or another
and you know to help with the
consequences um would they be the first
or the last government Bure rats to ever
do such a thing obviously not um
and it's funny it's like in some ways do
we only have the ability to evaluate the
morality of that
postao like where who does it turn out
was on the right side of that dispute in
this case it was the treasury Department
and I mean the state Department's
Behavior was a lot has been written
about this but
it's like worse than horrible
if you're being burdened by a bunch of
high interest debt you going to want to
do something to mitigate that with an
impending presidential election and
financial uncertainty causing stress for
just about everybody you have to have a
strategy to weather this period so if it
gets to the point where you're
struggling you should consider your
options like refinancing your home with
American financing where you can close
your loan in as little as 10 days on
average American financing customers
save
$854 per month the equ equivalent to
receiving a $10,000 annual raise which
is real money you can invest to build
your wealth and reach your financial
goals or just get out from under the
struggle this is an opportunity to
regain control of your finances and it
costs absolutely nothing to see how much
American financing can save you just
call 800
852210 again that's 800
852210 or go to americanfinancing.net
impact if you know me you know I am
obsessed with optimizing my sleep I go
to bed at 9:00 p.m. every night and let
my body wake up naturally so no alarms I
am always looking for ways to improve my
sleep quality and that's why I'm excited
about eight sleeps pod 4 ultra this
isn't just any sleep Tech it cools Heats
and even elevates automatically it's
clinically proven to give you up to one
more hour of quality sleep every night
and getting as much sleep as humanly
possible is the way to cognitively
optimize now my wife Lisa and I are
temperature opposites so we're excited
about the Pod 4 ultra's personalized
Heating and Cooling features head to
8sleep.com
impact and use code impact to get
$350 off your pod 4 ultra they currently
ship to the US Canada the UK Europe and
Australia okay so let's start teasing
some of these ideas out as um guiding
principles so I think a lot of times
people will argue a concept at what I
call the level of the tea uh my will be
very familiar with the story so the
biggest fight my wife and I ever got in
was over a cup of tea uh two hours into
a screaming match I finally go there's
no way this is about a cup of tea what
is this really about uh so we vowed
never to argue about the Tea again and
so what we found is that you're really
arguing about beliefs or values or you
might have what I call as a collision of
based assumptions where you just both
have a belief about the way the world
works that is completely different um
and unless you lay those out you're
going to just argue past each other so
taking this argument to the level of um
values I think will be very interesting
so for instance do you think it is um
morally just to lie to the American
people to get a desired global economic
outcome uh this is a question
for um so in many ways it's it's a great
question this is why this is why I like
historical fiction I mean we sort of
talk about this why am I writing why am
I writing novels about this and not
non-fiction and it's because I want to
be able to tease out exactly the moral
question you're asking from the
perspective of the from the inner lives
the inner thoughts of the actual human
being beings in actual history who are
facing these very questions because
they're not simple ones um I think the
answer
is yes of course it's the right thing to
do
um it helps that in the specific cases
of government officials lying to pursue
the outcomes they wanted economic or
military in this book it sure helps that
they were on the right side um it sure
helps that when Roosevelt himself much
less the rest of his administration was
saying we're neutral we're neutral we're
neutral um did Roosevelt know what the
people in his Treasury Department were
doing not exactly but I think we have
good evidence that and the book s of
gets into this that you know they were
they were the the people at treasury
were basically sent Henry morgantha who
was the treasury secretary who was the
president's dear friend to his office to
sort of say to Roosevelt hey look I know
we're neutral
but I've got some guys back at the
office they're going to do some stuff
May you don't want to hear about that
stuff and you know Roosevelt basically
put his hands over his ears and said n n
n n n I'm not listening you didn't say
that don't as long as it never shows up
in the
newspaper I never need to hear about it
again and you guys do what you need to
do to get the job
done was he lying to the American people
when he then claimed that the United
States was perfectly neutral in this
matter of European dispute yeah
absolutely he was lying to the American
people people when he said that was it
the right thing to
do it sure helps that the Nazis were the
worst right that I think we can all
agree it helps that you and I can both
sit here today and without making a ton
of assumptions I think I can say that we
were both in perfect agreement that he
was on the right side of that dispute
right that these these lies were being
told for just outcomes defeating the
Nazis was a just outcome that we can all
look back and certainly support and if
it takes a couple lies to do that okay
um
if you know look then the moral question
becomes all right so then where do you
draw that bright line because anyone
who's ever lied to anyone ever can say
no no no but I was doing it for the
greater good you don't understand I had
to lie because it was in your best
interest to be lied to after the fact
you know you can lie to your family you
can lie to your co-workers you can lie
to anyone and say no no no no I was just
protecting you from the worst or I was
just I was doing it because if you
believed this then you would do
something that made this all work out
for the better of us so I think that's
in some ways this is a moral
question this is a Shakespearean
question right more than an economic
question this is a kind of what do we
believe as people in the
world
about what are the ethics that guide our
Behavior towards each other what sort of
Little White Lies are acceptable where
is that line crossed can we
only um you know are we do we want to be
perfect effective altruists or perfect
utilitarians and believe that only
outcomes matter it doesn't matter how
you get there the only thing that
matters is the effect of your actions or
do we want to
believe frankly in a more Christian
morality where we're saying no no no
intentions matter it matters what I was
trying to do and if I know that I'm
lying to you
that's bad one way or another um so I
think in these cases in the cases that
the wealth of Shadows gets
into these characters were right to lie
uh but that's really easy for me to say
because it worked and if it hadn't
worked or if we were looking back and
saying oh no it turned out they were on
the wrong side um is that more it
doesn't work out quite so well does it
and you know in this we get into the the
case of a character who is a real person
who you were just saying was effectively
applying that same logic um to justify
being a Soviet spy which which he was at
the same time that he was sort of lying
to the American people on behalf of the
Treasury Department to defeat the Nazis
he was also lying to the treasury
Department on behalf of the Soviets
because he believed that he believed
correctly that the Soviets were valuable
allies against the Nazis for United
States and the Roosevelt administration
was holding
them too much at arms length you know
these were operation one from his
perspective was defeat the Nazis let's
work ever more closely with the Soviets
to do that and you know we can deal with
that we can deal with an American
American Soviet problems later um but so
you know you can kind of see within the
book that the logic of no no no it's
okay I'm just going to lie to the people
around me this one time because it's in
the best interest for
everyone if you're making that sort of
utilitarian argument that what matters
is ends and not
means you better be really sure about
what those ends are going to
be yes uh and my the thing that worries
me is that no one is ever going to be
sure that they're on the right side of
history and the the wonderful thing
about setting your book at World War II
is not only is it a fascina time period
but there's moral Clarity I would say
and you don't have to do a lot of
calculus to be like hey the people
killing people by the millions in uh
concentration camps they're the bad guys
um but this begs so many questions about
how you should approach something like
this um so what I want to drill into is
okay if we know that we're putting a
moral question on the table about
whether you should be lying to people if
this is a judeo-christian ethic like
intentions matter and so lying in and of
itself is a problem whether this is
purely utilitarian no as long as we get
to the end of um stopping Nazis and
saving lives uh we're good and we can do
anything we want including uh drop
nuclear bombs on uh Hiroshima Nagasaki
like that's fine because you know we
ended up saving so many lives by doing
that okay the question becomes who gets
to make who gets to run that moral
calculus ought it be done by vote by
decree what's the right answer there and
then who gets to decide what lies to
tell I mean certainly when you're
talking about a government as discussed
the government's really big right and I
think people make the argument right we
don't we don't there's a reason we don't
live in a perfectly representative
democracy right we we elect we elect
leaders they appoint lots of people most
of the government is appointed Not
Elected they are in theory appointed by
the people who are elected and they're
going to make many thousands of
decisions tens of thousands of decisions
hundreds of thousands of decisions every
day that affect your life and that
affects my life and they're not going to
explain themselves to us as they make
all those decisions every single day um
some of those decisions will be
relatively minor some of those decisions
are going to be dropping nuclear weapons
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and we
understand that for the government to
work work they it's functionally
impossible for them
to what reach out to polling and say hey
should we drop a nuclear weapon on the
city at the tail end of a war they can't
ask that question right so on some
level what I it's on on some level what
I would argue that elections are is
um you is making decisions
about the people whose thought processes
and judgment
and character and do is this someone
when you're voting for someone you're
saying is this someone I trust to make
it a bunch of decisions that I'm never
going to know about because it's
certainly the case that I think that
anyone in government will say this that
half of the important decisions are the
decisions that we as Citizens don't know
about and and you and I see this in our
own lives right even taking this out of
the context of government like we you
make things I make
things half of three qus of the really
important decisions that go into how to
make the things that we make aren't
necessarily things that the audience is
going to know about or hear about
they're not there for that decision-
making right they're they're on the
outside of it and they just see the
outcome and they weren't there for all
the meetings that kind of went into that
process right and that's certainly the
case with government so I think it's
um um
I mean the United States famously saw
this with with George W bush right who
ran on a platform of non-intervention
was sort of his a big campaign plank for
him was non-intervention in foreign
affairs and we're not going to be sort
of policemen of the world I think he
said in in a speech at one point and
then sure enough what was the sort of
defining defining decision of the George
W Bush Administration was the invasion
of Iraq uh the exact opposite of the
very thing he had campaigned on Now One
could make the argument that well what
happened is the world changed and
September 11th happened and he was he
was responding to new information and
new events as it was coming in and I'm
not sitting here trying to defend the
invasion of Iraq because I won't but
the what we find there is that the most
so that's a presidential Administration
in which what I think anyone would argue
is the mo in which the most significant
the most significant decision that was
made was quite public
and was totally contrary to what the
election had been about it was it was
something had happened and the George W
Bush Administration made a de
collectively and collectively made a set
of decisions about what to do and that
set of decisions involved invading Iraq
right you
um and so I think when you're talking
about what we want the government to to
do what do we what do we want the how
honest with us do we want the government
to be how how much do we want the
government to sort of stick to their
campaign promises or elected officials
to stick to their campaign promises or
if you're asking kind of what elections
are really about in some
ways there's this kind of Base lizard
brain level on which elections are about
electing people who we think have a good
sense of judgment to respond in
productive ways to unpredictable events
as they
occur it's interesting so I don't know
that um that you can run a government
without lying I don't know but the
reality is if you believe that the
government ought to be elected officials
by an informed Republic then you have to
inform the public like they have to
actually understand the things that are
going on and if you're creating a smoke
screen which is what we're doing now
there is the world that we all think we
interact with and literally until I was
in my 40s I thought the world as I saw
it was the world and then the more that
I began to learn about money the more I
realize wait a second the world that I
thought actually isn't real and that
there is a curtain money is a fiction
it's being manipulated it's being
manipulated to my disadvantage that we
being told one thing weapons of mass
destruction just to stick on Bush for a
second uh Saddam Hussein has weapons of
mass destruction we have to invade Iraq
and I remember at the time being like
wait what does Iraq have to do with um
911 like I I was like well I guess I
just don't understand and they just kept
saying weapons of mass destruction over
and over and over and so I was like oh
okay and so you begin to realize oh what
this is is they are counting on the fact
that the public is uninformed they are
counting on the fact that the public is
manipulatable they are counting on the
fact that they have Superior your morals
to what the public would have if they
could vote in real time because if you
in in the very near future uh between
just the the way that everybody has
access to a computer the way that the
blockchain works you could with every
decision in real time say hey everybody
grab your your cell phone at home uh
you're going to be prompted to vote on
seven new things just send in your vote
and we'll do it by decree now I would
say that that is
a disaster and the reason that that
isn't going to function is because
you've got a media that is just
manipulating the living [ __ ] out of
everybody and we're being lied to left
right and center and so even though yes
you could vote in real time you would
have to clean up all the BS first and so
if there was just com you would have to
commit to complete and utter
transparency and let the chips fall
where they may if you really wanted to
do a nonrepresentative democracy which I
recognize for the people screaming in
the comments right now I understand
that's not what we have now but I'm just
saying for people who will put that
forth um as you did and said we could
never do this technically it will be
very feasible I believe in very short
order to have everybody just vote
immediately now for all the ways that
can be hacked and manipulated it's
probably Beyond a terrible idea uh but
the question becomes what would have to
be true in order for us to want a
nonrepresentative democracy where
everybody just cast their vote and I
don't know that humans are capable of
digesting the issue putting it out in a
way uh that is accurately representative
of what's going on um and not only do I
not even know if that's possible right
now it's just a bunch of lies and so the
question becomes how do you create a
functioning
government when the mechanisms that have
been proven over and over all throughout
human history are that you lie to the
public you control The Narrative this is
why whenever a dictator takes over the
first thing they do is take over the
media uh you lie to the public control
the narrative get them to believe what
you want them to believe many many many
of them will and then the denters you
just punish relentlessly this will be
fun let me defend the status quo to you
uh because it's always I always feel
like such a Bor as long as you define it
first I'm happy too um it always feels
like only boring people defend the
status quo so it's a fun it's a fun
exercise in some
ways let's let's try and take this into
the realm of of something something
really specific uh a specific question
on which the government of here in this
case I'll give an example of unelected
officials making decisions that
profoundly infect our lives without
without pulling everyone first um
interest rates you know a lot about
monetary Theory um
so no secret that the board of the
Federal Reserve all these Governors make
a set of decisions about about what
about what interest rates should be
right um
the these issue where to set interest
rates is extremely technical I know some
things about economics um I am not a
governor on the Federal Reserve board
nor should I be I don't have a degree in
economics um I I Graham want people who
know a lot more about this than I do to
be sitting on the Federal Reserve board
making these decisions if you'd asked me
a year ago whether interest rates should
have been lowered more I would have said
yes that seemed like the right thing to
do now in uh the middle of 2024 that
turns out would have been the wrong
decision and that I would actually argue
Drome Powell and Company have done a
terrifically good job of managing um the
inflationary crisis of the past few
years and I'm not going to argue that
the inflationary situation is perfect um
I'm going to argue that it's better in
the United States than it is in Europe
because I think Jerome Powell and
Company have done a better job than
anyone in the EU has done um and and I
actually think that's pretty
remarkable the so that
situation and we can have another
conversation about whether we want
governments to be managing currencies at
all but we certainly have a situation in
which they are
so you you're not going to you can't
pull a population about a question as
complicated as where to set interest
rates people have lives people
are
um it's a really technical finicky
question right
and at the same time someone needs to
make a decision there needs to be sort
of at the end of the day one person in
the government who is making that
decision and stands up in front of a
microphone at a Podium and announces
that decision and then the world
responds to it so uh we don't know all
of the considerations that go into that
decision right we we're not in the
meetings where the Federal Reserve
Governors kind of discussed
this but we hear about the outcome and I
would I would argue that that there's a
specific example where yes the
government is by nature keeping
information from the public it's keeping
that decision-making process from the
public it's not Consulting the public
about that
decision uh but nor should
it and nor should it because the people
are not going to be able to make that
kind of well-informed
decision yeah I again I'm not the
most informed person about monetary
theory in the United States of America
but I'm not the least and had I made
that decision a year ago I would have
been wrong yeah so this now gets into um
are there some decisions that simply
shouldn't be left to anybody to make the
decision so taking monetary policy um
monetary policy I would put forth there
is a moral obligation that governments
have to not manipulate currencies the
reason I believe that is because of my
definition of money my definition of
money is that it is any one person's
ability to capture the efficacy of how
they spent their time so if I spend my
time um as a school teacher then I'm
able to capture the economics of that
and the society values it to a certain
degree and I'm able to get that now if
the government can say oh well we're
going to print more money now the
economic activity that I was able to
capture in the dollars that I generated
by being a school teacher they're now
worth less and so that will derange how
I think about my money because it's
actually wiser to spend my money
hopefully on something that holds value
but no matter what it is better to spend
your money on the thing that it can buy
today because it will buy less tomorrow
and the fact that behind the scenes we
have unelected bureaucrats that are
manipulating money that cause this
Downstream total derangement of people's
relationship to their own time and
energy
and so just to say it another way by
letting the government print money you
are letting them steal
retroactively your own efforts it's it's
literally crazy to me I cannot believe
people are not more upset about this uh
they're not upset about it because they
don't understand it and so to your point
you have a thing where people even if
they have the time like the amount of
time I've spent to understand it and to
feel like I'm sort of just clinging to
the Bottom Rung of something uh like you
talk about in your book John Maynard
kanes who as somebody who's in the
Bitcoin Community I will say they
[ __ ] hate that guy with a FY passion
and it's fascinating because reading
your book he gets into he basically
describes what I want to do as a Global
Currency literally I'm waiting for you
to say Bitcoin because it sounds exactly
like Bitcoin but he wants it to still be
manipulatable he wants people to have
control but ironically by creating this
this high level currency that no one
government had access to he thought it
would be less manipula but he still
thought the manipulation in my reading
of this was a feature and not a bug
which is why they hate him I think
that's correct I think that correct for
I think that's a correct description of
his theories he had this it's funny when
you read biographies of canes and i'
I've read a bunch they tend to skip over
his what he called bankor bankor which
is his his name for his kind of Global
Currency he was going to create at the
end of the second world war um we tend
to skip over this in histories of can's
because as you may have noticed he
failed in his attempt to create vanor it
doesn't exist it didn't exist a Global
Currency was not created at the end of
the second world war the BR and wood
system as we know today was instead the
World Bank the
IMF and so forth um he but yes as you're
saying I think one of the interesting
things to me about the conversations
that KES and his colleagues and his
enemies frankly were having around
surrounding currency manipulation and
currency Creation in the second world
war is that to me they felt I was
reading canes and I was reading his
opponents uh writing in the 30s and 40s
and going oh my gosh this could have
been written yesterday this is exactly
the same set of conversations we're
having about uh cryptocurrencies that
we're having today this is exactly the
same set of conversations that we're
having about you know do we want do we
want governments to create currencies do
we want someone else to create
currencies who is the someone else you
just talked about currencies being
manipulatable um I would argue that
unless you want a fixed quantity of
money forever which I guess is the sort
of Bitcoin argument that um that as soon
as you move past that all currencies are
they're by definition manipulatable they
they were created to be
manipulated um and so the question is
just who we want to be manipulating it
um unless you're going to make an
argument that we sort of want you know a
fixed pool the kind of Bitcoin
maximalist argument that we really want
a sort of a fixed pool of currency that
can't move up and down ever you can make
that argument but if that was the case
in 1939 the United States would not have
been able to defeat the Germans we would
not have been able to with the economics
but the Germans also wouldn't have been
able to manipulate their own currency to
create that Loop that allowed them to
rearm that's true the yes they would not
have been able to sort of do their own
currency Shenanigans and an arm in that
way though they like I mean these
counterfactuals are always a little bit
tricky right um like describing sort of
what would 1939 have been like with
Bitcoin is a really tricky problem to
solve um because on the one hand you're
like well but they didn't have computers
how would it work um there's a bunch of
practical questions to solve but if
something like that did exist I mean
literally you can look at it today
because what my hypothesis in reading
your book is your book is like talking
about the Korean War during the Vietnam
war you do it to create a little bit of
distance uh so we can really talk about
the issues but really we're talking
about Russia and Ukraine like your book
as far as I can tell man whether you
intended it or not maps effectively one
to one what's going on right now we are
manipulating the US dollar by printing a
metric [ __ ] ton of it so that we can
send Aid to Ukraine without having to
ask the American people if they're here
for it or not because you just print and
it in my words steals from all of us us
because I don't have any say you dilute
my buying power which is the same as
taking some of my money literally
effectively is not different if you
inflate the currency if inflation
because there is a difference between
the amount that you inflate the money
and the actual inflation felt in the
marketplace for reasons that are
fascinating but we'll set aside uh if
you inflate if inflation hits 20% that's
the same as taking 20% of my money right
just so people understand like hey don't
fall for the trip
so they the I'm not even saying it's the
wrong answer to pay for the war in
Ukraine I am saying that it's the wrong
answer to do it without going to the
American people and saying we would like
to get into an economic war with uh
Russia via Ukraine you in or you out and
if they're like we're out then we're out
and that just is and you have to accept
uh I'll finish that sentence and I want
to plant an idea you have to accept that
there is a um there is a wide spectrum
of intellectual abilities and so some of
the voting public will not have the
ability to cognitively understand the
second and third order consequences of
what's going on they will be easily
manipulated by messaging which will be
whether people intended to or not be
tilted in a given direction that just is
what it is but hey Welcome to The Human
Condition I don't see a way around that
so if given the populace speaking up
this is a very Western perspective uh I
believe in the power of the individual
way over the power of the collective and
if those Collective individuals come
together and say this is what we want
then then that is what it is and I don't
believe morally speaking that anybody
from the top should be able to say no
I'm gonna lie to you I'm just not going
to ask I'm going to money print so I
don't have to talk to you and so that
was the vibe that I got reading the book
man and I kept wondering like are you
intending me to read it this way because
you convinced me that the Deep state is
real you convince me that the my own
government is is is at war with itself
that there are people in my own
government that are like I don't give a
[ __ ] what the public thinks I am going
to go to fight on the side of the
Ukraine or God I'm sure there are people
like I'm going to go fight on the side
of Russia I'm sure there are yeah a
thousand per. and so now I'm like whoa
okay here's the seed that I wanted to
plant there are solutions that come at a
hyper oblique angle there's a guy Nam
name b g shason you know him uh not
personally but I know him brother I
think yeah I think you'd find him
utterly fascinating so his whole thing
about the network State and he's like ah
these governments super p a not going to
work to a highly educated public uh once
you divorce money from governments
you're going to find that people no
longer Group by region they Group by
values and while I'm not sure that plays
out at that level I certainly think that
people do group by values whether they
group at nation state esque levels I
don't know oh a lot to respond to there
um on the BAGI topic I think his
argument is fascinating and super smart
I almost entirely disagree with it but I
think there's really interesting things
give me a quick rundown of what you see
his stance as oh great question um you
just did such a great summary of it um I
think the argument so so he's arguing I
take his argument he arges a lot of
different very complicated things but
one of his arguments is against
government created currencies entirely
that this is a p
a as you just said a p these are p a
institutions they don't work they're too
manipulatable and that we sort of want
um he's arguing
against that communities are human
communities are best
formed effectively electronically kind
of not based on physical location
but we'll we'll be getting sort of
networks of people groups of people
building effectively their own kind of
delocalized def
physicalized nation states people can
build their own currencies people can
build their own kind of communities
their own jobs their own
corporations what have you it's a sort
of the the nation state is going away to
be replaced by these other communities
do you think is that a reasonable
description of he's doing you're
probably better up on B's work than I am
yeah I think that that's very close the
the concept of stri governments of the
ability to Overlord on people people by
taking their money away essentially
their ability to manipulate the currency
and then um don't lock them in with your
borders and then see what happens so I'm
pretty so that's see that's a great way
of describe it um because I'm actually
largely in agreement with him on the
open borders question um I'm like my
politics tend to be quite open borders
um as are his from my understanding of
it um the bit where I disagree with that
is that um
the
age-old argument that the the government
is the entity with the um a monopoly on
the legitimate use of force a very
classic kind of argument for that's what
a government is they're the people
they're the people allowed to hurt other
people and we say it's okay that's
that's the definition of a government
that's either gosh my um your listeners
who are uh more versed in enlightenment
philosophers recently than I am will
remind me if that's rouso or lock or
Hume I'm forgetting I'm so embarrassed
in this moment drop in the comments yeah
drop it in the comments who that was but
that's a uh the idea is that that's
that