full
Episode 368 - Plans for 2023 and thoughts on economics
In this episode we discuss:
(00:00) episode368
(00:32) Welcome
(03:17) Topics I'll avoid in 2023
(03:50) Hot Topics
(11:03) Recent Events
(35:03) Thoughts on Economics
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Transcript
We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.
Speaker:We need to learn stuff about the world.
Speaker:We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining
Speaker:review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.
Speaker:We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:We're back 2023.
Speaker:Joe, welcome back for another year.
Speaker:Evening all is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast where we're gonna
Speaker:talk about news and politics and sex and religion and other stuff as well.
Speaker:I think during the course of the year, cause I'm getting a bit
Speaker:sick of religion, to tell you the truth, Joe, I'm done with it.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:I think I'm, I think I'm over religious nutters, crazy religious
Speaker:privilege takeover of the liberal party by the Christians.
Speaker:I, I think I'm done with religion and I'm just gonna give it a break for a while.
Speaker:Mostly.
Speaker:What do you think about?
Speaker:Well, as long as nothing major crops up.
Speaker:Yeah, time got a feeling.
Speaker:Just gonna be more of the same with religious Ns.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:2023.
Speaker:Let's not sure what's gonna happen this year, but welcome back.
Speaker:If you're in the chat room, say hello and we'll try and incorporate your comments.
Speaker:Might be a bit of a shorter episode cuz I haven't prepared as well as I normally
Speaker:do still, you know, holiday mode.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Still on holiday mode.
Speaker:I mean the country does shut down from the Melbourne Cup all the
Speaker:way through to Australia Day.
Speaker:We haven't quite reached Australia Day yet.
Speaker:So, Shay how you going Shay?
Speaker:She's in the chat room, , So, yeah, a few little, well, if you're new to the
Speaker:podcast we talk about news and politics and sex and religion predominantly in
Speaker:Australia, but also around the world.
Speaker:And normally we just jump into the topics pretty quickly.
Speaker:Hello, Mel, in the chat room as well.
Speaker:This time we'll be a little bit self-indulgent, talk about a few other
Speaker:things before we get into the topics.
Speaker:If you don't like the sound of that on your podcast app, it could have
Speaker:chapters and you might be able to look at the chapters and skip this
Speaker:intro section and get into the meat of things if that's what you want to do.
Speaker:But meanwhile we'll continue with a bit of chit chat, which a couple of things.
Speaker:I'm changing the website.
Speaker:, I'm saving money , and also experimenting.
Speaker:So what I've actually done to dear listener is I've created a, a little
Speaker:second podcast to experiment with, and it's called I F V G Evergreen.
Speaker:So if you . Look in your podcast app and search for I F G Evergreen.
Speaker:You'll see four or five episodes that are already in there.
Speaker:And essentially I'm gonna take the content from this podcast that's
Speaker:sort of evergreen and would appeal to an international audience and on
Speaker:discreet topics and see how that goes.
Speaker:And if that podcast is stable under this new system, which is a bit
Speaker:cheaper, I'll probably move the main podcast across to that system as well.
Speaker:And the website will change and various things.
Speaker:So playing around with that and we'll see how it goes.
Speaker:So I f Fiji Evergreen and we'll be adding stuff to that over time.
Speaker:Just looking, as I said over the next year 2023, just got in my notes here.
Speaker:As I was just saying before, religious instruction and chaplains, I'm
Speaker:going to steer clear of them for a while cause I see stuff in the
Speaker:rationalist and other things and.
Speaker:I've sort of, I'm over it.
Speaker:Liberal party Christian demise, I think I've said what I need to say.
Speaker:Unfair China bashing and hypocritical USA foreign policy.
Speaker:I've given that a good bash.
Speaker:I'm gonna try and give it a rest media bias and propaganda
Speaker:again, try and give it a rest.
Speaker:So things that I think we might be talking about over this year in particular
Speaker:would be the voice is gonna come up, Joe, and there's gonna be a referendum
Speaker:or something like that over the voice.
Speaker:It's gonna be lots of debate.
Speaker:It's gonna get quite bitter.
Speaker:I happen to have sounds, sounds like a game show, doesn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I happen to have an uncomfortable position for most of the people
Speaker:who probably followed this podcast.
Speaker:So, we'll see how that goes.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:What the heck?
Speaker:I have a different position on that one, and I did read Marcia
Speaker:Langton's article in the Saturday paper, and she didn't convince me.
Speaker:And it's not because I don't think there's enough detail.
Speaker:I think there is enough detail out there.
Speaker:It's just the basic premise that I disagree with.
Speaker:But we'll probably have quite a few arguments with people over the voice.
Speaker:And dear listener, if you want to argue with me and convince me, otherwise, feel
Speaker:free to make contact and join a debate.
Speaker:I think we'll be talking a lot about climate change and solutions.
Speaker:I think we're gonna spend a lot of time on economics, the history of
Speaker:economics and modern thinking about economics, because a couple of things
Speaker:I get into discussions, Joe, at dinner parties and at Christmas get togethers.
Speaker:Don't believe that.
Speaker:And it's, I'm now attending a lot of 60th birthday parties.
Speaker:That's the stage of life on that.
Speaker:And I get into arguments with boomers.
Speaker:mm-hmm.
Speaker:about house pricing and about the privileged sort of era
Speaker:that baby boomers have enjoyed.
Speaker:And, and I get this whole thing about how they've worked hard for what
Speaker:they get and when mortgages were 14%.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the young people of today are just lazy and they want it all and they're not
Speaker:prepared to wait and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:So, I think a lot of it in terms of convincing people is they've
Speaker:got a misguided view of history, of economics, particularly of capitalism
Speaker:over the last, well, since the industrial revolution, what's of
Speaker:stuff's been swept under the carpet.
Speaker:So I think part of making an argument about what we should be doing
Speaker:in terms of moving forward to an economic system that's better than
Speaker:the current one is closely examining that maybe capitalism hasn't been
Speaker:that great for a lot of people.
Speaker:And it's come to the end of its run.
Speaker:So I think sh just talking about the history of it will be important as a
Speaker:means of describing, cuz people will talk about the glory days of Ronald
Speaker:Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and stuff.
Speaker:And you've just gotta say, hang on a minute.
Speaker:They weren't glory days at all.
Speaker:This is actually what happened.
Speaker:Yeah, I remember the minus strike in England.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and the riots.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And we're seeing strikes now in England with the railway Oh, the rail.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And and there's a different atmosphere in the response to it.
Speaker:I think where there's sympathy for the strikers.
Speaker:It seems to me.
Speaker:I was listening to a friend's podcast and they were complaining about the media.
Speaker:And I think it was supposedly left wing media asking the rare workers
Speaker:union boss how he felt about interfering with people's lives
Speaker:because they were striking so often.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And, and he was, it was, you know, don't you feel sorry for the average
Speaker:person who's just trying to go to work?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And he's saying, you know, I completely reject your premise.
Speaker:This, this is about the working rights of everybody.
Speaker:This is about a fair pay for everybody.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And yeah, we we're going to upset people.
Speaker:That's kind of the point of a strike.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And I think there's more sympathy for that viewpoint Yes.
Speaker:Now than there was in the eighties.
Speaker:Let's face it, Arthur Garel probably wasn't a good poster B for for any
Speaker:movement was it, was was Arthur Scargill.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, and then Neil Kook, Maggie, what for in the Commons?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:In the chat room, they're already going off.
Speaker:Good on your Mel and John and Allison.
Speaker:And Yep.
Speaker:So keep your comments coming.
Speaker:And John's made the point that nurses are on strike as well.
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:Junior doctors as well.
Speaker:Were on strike.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I saw an interview about that.
Speaker:Barristers were on strike not so long ago.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like criminal law, legal aid, barristers, or on strike.
Speaker:So, yeah, so it's aif.
Speaker:I see.
Speaker:New South Wales and Victoria premiers have got together and demanded money from
Speaker:the government for Medicare over here.
Speaker:Have they?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Asking for more, right.
Speaker:750 million I think.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Was in the budget.
Speaker:Haven't heard that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so there was questions as to whether that would be focused purely
Speaker:on trying to get bulk billing back in.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, and other people saying, well, actually no, we need more
Speaker:support workers rather than gps.
Speaker:A and if GPS get a pay rise, actually studies show that they're
Speaker:just more likely to take time off rather than work more hours, right?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:The other thing I saw, I think was that New South Wales was looking at getting
Speaker:rid of stamp chief for first time buyers or something, something like that, which
Speaker:was gonna be a big hit to their budget, but was effectively just gonna add the
Speaker:stamp duty, the price to the price.
Speaker:Wasn't there something about you could get rid of stamped
Speaker:duty, but you pay more land tax?
Speaker:Wasn't one of the states doing that?
Speaker:Well, I don't think that's what was being proposed.
Speaker:I think they're just gonna get rid of it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Without introducing Atlantic.
Speaker:So, so yeah.
Speaker:That sort of stuff's going on.
Speaker:So yeah, a different, different mindset, I think where people are recognizing because
Speaker:there is good information out there now about how basically, wages have not kept.
Speaker:Up with profits and people can just look at the figures and look at the
Speaker:charts and see that profits have been increasing steadily for the
Speaker:last 40 years and wages haven't.
Speaker:And people are starting to get jack of it.
Speaker:So particularly when you get a crunch with a po, with you know,
Speaker:a gas bill or whatever mm-hmm.
Speaker:heating your home that you can't pay.
Speaker:So that's all gonna get interesting over the year.
Speaker:What else have I got here?
Speaker:So, yeah, economics is gonna be a big one.
Speaker:Probably human nature, how we think about things.
Speaker:The fact that we are a social animal.
Speaker:I'll be attacking libertarians.
Speaker:I think libertarians are like cats.
Speaker:I think, Joe.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They just take advantage of everything that's there with no idea of how
Speaker:much they're being looked after.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, they like to think they're independent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:and maybe a bit about philosophy as well.
Speaker:So I'll put a note in the show notes about a link to Good Reads where
Speaker:I've got a list of all the books I've read in the last seven years.
Speaker:And if you want to come on the podcast and when you read one of those books
Speaker:and we talk about it, let me know.
Speaker:So, have a look at that in the show notes.
Speaker:Cause I wanna talk about books because I think, yeah, articles
Speaker:and news is a bit of fast food.
Speaker:The real meaty stuff is in books.
Speaker:So that's sort of what I'm thinking of this year.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Recent events, it's been almost a month.
Speaker:It's the longest break I've ever had.
Speaker:So let's quickly run through some of the things that have been happening.
Speaker:Robo Debt, Royal Commission.
Speaker:It's been going on Twitter, showing excerpts from it, and.
Speaker:Really good royal commissioner and good council assisting, and they're
Speaker:just getting stuck into these public servants who are arriving unprepared.
Speaker:And they've presented statements, but without attaching copies of the
Speaker:emails that they're referring to.
Speaker:So they're saying in their statements, oh, I sent an email
Speaker:which said blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And the commissioner says, well, show me that email.
Speaker:And why didn't you attach it to your statement?
Speaker:Did you think I was just going to believe what you said?
Speaker:I need to look at the actual letter that you say you sent,
Speaker:or that you say you received.
Speaker:And really pretty harsh language with these people saying, I can't believe
Speaker:somebody who was as smart as you thought it was okay to present a really
Speaker:pathetic statement like you have.
Speaker:So they're getting stuck into people.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:Really good to see people being held to account.
Speaker:And I've got a lot of confidence in that Royal Commissioner.
Speaker:So she's doing well.
Speaker:Yes, there's the link.
Speaker:Thanks Joe.
Speaker:Brazilian coup just the other day looked remarkably like January 6th.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, no.
Speaker:So it wasn't a coup and they were just going out for a perfectly
Speaker:legitimate walk in the the, the parliament grounds, isn't it?
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:And also Cougar Presidential Palace.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean if you don't have the military involved, it's not a coup I guess, but,
Speaker:well I guess maybe it can be, but it's just never gonna be successful unless you
Speaker:get the military involved saying There was one difference though, Joe, in that
Speaker:they've already got busloads of people who were arrested that day and Oh, you go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there was a great tweet by somebody who said, gee, I never knew that you
Speaker:could actually ar arrest co participants on the day they commit the offense.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:. So yeah, they've already got a whole bunch of 'em arrested.
Speaker:And so, well, and maybe it was because they didn't have a president that refused
Speaker:to call in the Army until the last minute.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Say that again.
Speaker:Oh Trump was dying.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Why didn't DC call in the National Guard?
Speaker:And apparently I think it was down to the president call in the National Guard.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's something basically that required him to do it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, Don says if it was done on a poultry farm, it would be a chicken coup.
Speaker:Boom.
Speaker:Boom.
Speaker:No, thank you Dawn.
Speaker:Alright.
Speaker:Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy took an inordinate number of votes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Basically, the Republicans had the numbers in Congress to appoint, but
Speaker:they were split amongst themselves.
Speaker:, all it required was agreement amongst the Republicans.
Speaker:Couldn't do it.
Speaker:And yeah, I, I, listening to a friend's podcast and they were
Speaker:saying basically that, that sums up the Republican party these days.
Speaker:There are so many of them that are just out for Yeah, what's in it for me?
Speaker:Not even working on the party lines.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They've really become quite dysfunctional.
Speaker:Pretty clear indication of US politics there.
Speaker:What's this podcast you're listening to?
Speaker:You say Friends podcast.
Speaker:What's it called?
Speaker:You wanna give 'em a plug?
Speaker:It is called Fallacious Trump.
Speaker:Fallacious Trump?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So they go through logical fallacy using Donald Trump quotes.
Speaker:They are okay.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Prince Harry and the media.
Speaker:So, Jeremy Clarkson was that guy who used to compare a motoring show, and
Speaker:he's got an article in some newspaper.
Speaker:And Jeremy Clarkson is well known for being aist.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But it mildly yes.
Speaker:But in his article, this is what he wrote.
Speaker:Megan, though is a different story.
Speaker:I hate her.
Speaker:Not like I hate Nicholas Sturgeon or Rose West.
Speaker:I hate her on a cellular, cellular level at night, on unable to sleep as I lie
Speaker:there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she's made to parade
Speaker:naked through the streets of every town in Britain, while the crowds chant shame
Speaker:and throw lumps of excrement at her.
Speaker:So this is a call back to Game of Thrones, right?
Speaker:There's a very, very obvious scene in Game of Thrones.
Speaker:Is it?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Haven't seen that.
Speaker:Where the queen is paraded naked through the town.
Speaker:Ah, right.
Speaker:To, with everyone shouting, shame at her.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's not so bad as it sounds.
Speaker:I I don't in that sense, I mean, don't forget, this is the guy who advocated
Speaker:having armed police snipers at every box junction, so that if somebody was going
Speaker:into a, a crossing before there was a clear exit, the police would shoot the
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So everything's a bit tongue in cheek.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Still you, you, you'd have to be an idiot to actually listen to what he says.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And take it seriously.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, certainly the media though, has undoubtedly had it in for Harry and
Speaker:Megan and it just really seems to be an orchestrated vendetta against them and.
Speaker:Certainly the royalists, yes.
Speaker:Because they're saying badly things about the royal family.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and there are questions about
Speaker:Megan and whether she has, she wanted all the privileges and none of the pay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And none of the, the work that went along with being a, a royal.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There'd be plenty of royals like that, surely.
Speaker:Well, no, I think that they come in, they realize how hard work it
Speaker:is and they knuckle down, whereas what's Prince, what's Prince
Speaker:Edward done in the last 60 years?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What I'm, I'm sure, and I won't ask, what has Prince Andrew done?
Speaker:You know, you've got a guy like Prince Andrew who's basically been left
Speaker:alone despite pretty Tory record.
Speaker:It just seems like.
Speaker:Terrible vendetta by News Corp who just showing their true colors.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Shai in the chat room says not just Royalists I thought it was Charles that
Speaker:was going to help us become a republic.
Speaker:It's actually Harry, it's going to bring it down.
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:Not convinced that this labor party is up for anything of any substance.
Speaker:I think they're gonna tinker at the edges on some, on some easy stuff, but I
Speaker:don't think they're up for real change.
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:Well, of course not only Harry, there was always the speculation about
Speaker:the major, whatever his name was.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Charles is probably not his dad.
Speaker:Yes, he looks a lot like the, but.
Speaker:Is that right?
Speaker:Bodyguard?
Speaker:That was a butler.
Speaker:It was a, yeah, it might have been a bodyguard.
Speaker:It was.
Speaker:It was an acquaintance.
Speaker:Anyway, yeah.
Speaker:And then of course, there's that guy over here who claims that he's
Speaker:Charles and Camilla's real son.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's all very toing.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And it's so obvious that we should be rid of this group as, as the, the theoretical
Speaker:head of our, what, what I'm surprised at is that people think this is a new thing.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:The rules have been fucking around forever.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:It's part of the job description.
Speaker:Well, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We can't get rid of them.
Speaker:There's, there's so many obvious things that should be done
Speaker:that we just can't budge on.
Speaker:'em.
Speaker:Maybe when the Beamers give us another 10 years, when they, you know, the
Speaker:Beamers really disappear as a voting force, maybe things will get done.
Speaker:That might be what, it's what's, I don't know.
Speaker:It's, I think it's not so much the behavior of the royals, but just the,
Speaker:just the, the dying off of the boomers.
Speaker:. Oh.
Speaker:And when you hold up Donald Trump as your possible options mm-hmm.
Speaker:Land.
Speaker:Well, Australia isn't though.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:It's an option.
Speaker:You start going, well, so what, what do we have instead?
Speaker:Here's our options.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Lots of countries have got duly.
Speaker:What's an ideal system where they've got a, who knows?
Speaker:Just, just a, yeah.
Speaker:It's not that hard, but we, you know, we, we are nowhere near it it seems.
Speaker:What else have we got here?
Speaker:Things that have happened.
Speaker:So China basically ripped at the bandaid and said, we are done with zero covid
Speaker:and let's just have a quick hard hit.
Speaker:And Australia demanded that Chinese travelers have infection clearance.
Speaker:Certificates before traveling.
Speaker:Like just, you know, COVID is running rampant through America,
Speaker:Europe, all sorts of countries.
Speaker:And Australia had to decide to pick on China and say, oh, we want special
Speaker:entry requirements from you guys.
Speaker:Just, oh, it's cuz they got a different type of covid.
Speaker:Well, no they don't.
Speaker:That's the whole point.
Speaker:Nothing's been shown to be different.
Speaker:It's just our government being stupid again.
Speaker:Raise Lisa.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Julian Assange.
Speaker:Albanese made noises saying it's been long enough and sort of indicating Is
Speaker:that since he's been Prime minister?
Speaker:Yes, because I know he didn't before.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Saying I think it's been enough.
Speaker:Other than saying we are working behind the scenes, nothing else held out there.
Speaker:But there was a glimmer of hope for Julian Assange.
Speaker:He basically has to persuade the Americans to drop it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:But, and that's gonna be the hard bit.
Speaker:It shouldn't, they're an ally.
Speaker:It shouldn't be that hard.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But do they consider us an ally or a vessel?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, well start, you know, start doing some retaliatory action.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:Kick 'em outta Darwin, you know, stop buying some of
Speaker:their crappy military hardware.
Speaker:In fact, the submarines, I think it's, it's done with the submarines
Speaker:because they've basically admitted they just can't build them.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So I think, I think that's, but apparently we're buying high miles now.
Speaker:Is that the missile or the plane?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I dunno enough about them yet.
Speaker:Rocket launchers.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. So apparently highly mobile rocket launchers that they've been using in.
Speaker:Ukraine, but they only gave the short distance missiles to Ukraine.
Speaker:Sorry, rockets.
Speaker:Cause they're not missiles.
Speaker:Because they were worried about escalating the war in Ukraine.
Speaker:But we would be given the long range ones, which would allow us to effectively
Speaker:launch out to two or 300 kilometers.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What's the difference between the rocket and missile o
Speaker:missile Oley guided Ah, okay.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Kevin Rudd is gonna be our ambassador in the us Yeah.
Speaker:That uh, so ambassadors, a US seems to be a cushy posting because Joe
Speaker:Hockey was given that, wasn't he?
Speaker:He was, yes.
Speaker:That's an ballsy decision.
Speaker:Kevin Rud is such a loose cannon.
Speaker:He'd be a nightmare to work for an absolute nightmare.
Speaker:I'm surprised we didn't send him to Beijing actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Ah.
Speaker:So anyway, on some things he could be really good and on other
Speaker:things he could be really bad.
Speaker:That's a really ballsy decision.
Speaker:That one, maybe Albanese just wanted him out of Australia.
Speaker:Finance wise, a lot of mortgages that were sort of entered into in
Speaker:the early covid times are now coming up for the end of their sort of
Speaker:fixed, cheap honeymoon rates and are now gonna be on the variable rates.
Speaker:That will be interesting to see how that affects people, whether they
Speaker:will, I'm hearing a lot of people want to get out of them, really.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, there's already been news articles about that.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So we'll see what happens with property prices.
Speaker:Seems to me that they haven't really fallen that much in Brisbane.
Speaker:People are just hanging on, was giving some shit to friends in Melbourne.
Speaker:Saying, yeah.
Speaker:Why if everything's so great in Melbourne, why are you all moving up here?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, turns out I was wrong.
Speaker:It's New South Wales that have moved up.
Speaker:11% increase in population in the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:In the last 12 months.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Makes sense.
Speaker:Apparently Melbourne's gonna be the biggest city in not too distant.
Speaker:Yeah, possibly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And did you catch up with the stuff about that guy, Andrew Tate?
Speaker:The credit Thunberg?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:So the Greta Thunberg thing is a complete bullshit.
Speaker:There, there was an argument with her, but that didn't lead to his arrest.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So for those who didn't see it this Andrew Tate is some sort of, he's a kickboxer or
Speaker:martial arts guy, former Kickboxer who.
Speaker:He's American, British, so I think he was born in the uk, grew up in America.
Speaker:He's very misogynistic, I think is the best way of putting it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:In the dictionary definition of misogynist, there is
Speaker:a picture of Andrew Tate.
Speaker:He moved to Romania to run his business and yeah, he's, he's done well.
Speaker:I mean, he's worth millions.
Speaker:He's got very expensive luxury cars and apartment in Dubai.
Speaker:Very big social media presence very popular on social media, so
Speaker:obviously earning lots through there.
Speaker:And, and also it seems, has a lot of fans amongst young men.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Who think he's great, unfortunately, like he's as an audience.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Freak.
Speaker:I, I saw a comment today that when he gets away with being a dick,
Speaker:because he's relatively good looking.
Speaker:He's physically fit and he's worth a lot of money.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:A and he has all these basement dwelling slobs looking up to him
Speaker:thinking that they can treat women in the same way and get away with it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And they don't have the attributes that he has.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And it turns out that they don't have them under control in some
Speaker:slave type arrangement, which apparently he might have had as well.
Speaker:So it's been alleged that he was doing what I believe pimps have done for years
Speaker:is get women to fall in love with you and then turn 'em into sex workers.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So there have been allegations that he's been luring women into
Speaker:his Eastern European home then locking them up and forcing them
Speaker:to perform on camera for his view.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, John's made a comment, which is about to be debunked, I think.
Speaker:Yes, because because this guy comes out and he, he did this sort of TikTok
Speaker:thing or whatever, basically having a go at Greta Thunberg and, and saying
Speaker:how he is got all his big sports cars with huge emissions and if she gives
Speaker:him her email address, he'll write to her and ex explain it all to her.
Speaker:And she said, oh yes, please write to me.
Speaker:My email is small dick energy ghetto life.com or something like that.
Speaker:So, which was obviously a a sort of a reference to the, to the idea that
Speaker:men with sports cars are making up compensating for having small penises.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, he then responded with a really lame video.
Speaker:Just incredibly lame, actually trying to recapture some of the high ground.
Speaker:But as part of that, he had a pizza box where he was grabbing
Speaker:a slice of pizza from it.
Speaker:And the story was that the Romanian officials saw the branding on the pizza
Speaker:box, realized that he was in Romania, and then decided they could arrest him because
Speaker:they were looking for him and they wanted him on these sort of sex slavery charges.
Speaker:But Joe, that's probably not the case.
Speaker:I mean, they probably, I mean, in his house and they knew where that was.
Speaker:They've already said that.
Speaker:It wasn't how they realized he was in the country.
Speaker:Yeah, so, well, it makes a good story.
Speaker:It wasn't actually true, but still there.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Anyway definitely Garth Humberg and her Twitter management had
Speaker:a lot of fun with that one.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah, she certainly owned him on that one.
Speaker:Now Trump tax returns finally gotta look at those.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And to be honest, little lots come out of it so far except really
Speaker:revealing how little money he made in many years, which surprises nobody.
Speaker:Well, no.
Speaker:How much tax write off he claimed for many years.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So, so already the tax corporation has been found guilty in New York of
Speaker:over-inflating the value of properties when trying to get, borrow money and
Speaker:underinflating or undervaluing their property when having to pay tax.
Speaker:When having tax.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the question is whether this is the same for his personal tax returns.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Anyway, they'll be going through that.
Speaker:He started selling NFTs Joe.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Amir, wasn't it $99 each?
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:And and if you buy 40 some, 42 of them, you get to have dinner
Speaker:with him if you can feel like it.
Speaker:Here's the pitch.
Speaker:I've got it here.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Hang on.
Speaker:Hello everyone.
Speaker:This is Donald Trump.
Speaker:Hopefully your favorite president of all time.
Speaker:Better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an
Speaker:important announcement to make.
Speaker:I'm doing my first official Donald J.
Speaker:Trump n f t collection right here and right now they're called
Speaker:Trump Digital Trading Cards.
Speaker:These cards feature some of the really incredible artwork
Speaker:pertaining to my life and my career.
Speaker:It's been very exciting.
Speaker:You can collect your Trump digital cards just like a baseball
Speaker:card or other collectibles.
Speaker:Here's one of the best parts.
Speaker:Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing
Speaker:prizes, like dinner with me.
Speaker:I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we have or
Speaker:golf with you and a group of your friends at one of my beautiful golf
Speaker:courses and they are beautiful.
Speaker:What, what's the old what's the old joke?
Speaker:What you say.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, First prize is a week for one, or sorry, is a in wherever.
Speaker:Second prize is two weeks wherever.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:First prize is a week and no second prize is one week.
Speaker:How's Okay.
Speaker:Second prize is two weeks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:First prize is one week.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:. It's like that with Donald Trump.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:The irony is when I was a kid growing up, we had Trump collectible cards.
Speaker:Did you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was called Top Trumps and it was Car Facts.
Speaker:And so you were, you were going, oh look, this car goes
Speaker:faster or This one's got better.
Speaker:It's got a larger engine, or whatever it was.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So you it was, it was all about cars.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:You still got anything?
Speaker:It could be worth a fortune, Joe.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Ex pump, ex ex Pope died.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:Motherfucking Pope.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Another one's gone.
Speaker:Another one bites a dust.
Speaker:Zelensky still fighting the war in Ukraine and he was in the US and he gave a speech.
Speaker:Probably to the joint houses or Congress.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:It was Congress.
Speaker:Yeah, Congress.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Basically asking for more help and thanking them for the help they got.
Speaker:And this was Nancy Pelosi walking out afterwards.
Speaker:That was one of five speeches I've ever heard in the Congress.
Speaker:It was historic in that he and Churchill are the only two wartime presidents who
Speaker:have come here to talk about asking our help and thanking us for our participating
Speaker:help to stop the tyranny in Europe.
Speaker:It's pretty exciting.
Speaker:Happiest days.
Speaker:Days.
Speaker:There were some pause lines.
Speaker:Wasn't he wonderful?
Speaker:Was just run by idiots, Joe.
Speaker:So not one of only two presidents.
Speaker:Comparing him to Churchill and how exciting it was.
Speaker:And wasn't he wonderful.
Speaker:And what a moment.
Speaker:Occasion.
Speaker:Well, it's as close as shell ever get to Churchill.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For God's sake.
Speaker:And she's one of the most respected, most senior people in US politics.
Speaker:It's depressing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But they're all puppets.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It, it's the Illuminati who are actually running the world, you know that mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:Well, if the Illuminati means big business and in particular
Speaker:weapons manufacturers, no.
Speaker:Possibly it's then I think they're right.
Speaker:If that's who the Illuminati are, so Yeah.
Speaker:Knows the Jews.
Speaker:Come on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Caitlin Johnston says the difference between Democrats and Republicans
Speaker:is that Democrats say they want to do good things, but they're lying.
Speaker:And Republicans say they want to do bad things, and they're telling the truth.
Speaker:She's been pretty good.
Speaker:Caitlin Johnson, over the break.
Speaker:Oh, what else have we got?
Speaker:Oh, one other one.
Speaker:I said I wouldn't do much on crazy Christians, but I found this
Speaker:one and I can't resist this one.
Speaker:So, Joe, you would've heard of spelling B stuff very strong in America.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Where they get kids and they give 'em a really complicated word,
Speaker:ask 'em to spell it and you know, you become a national champion.
Speaker:Invariably, the kids who win these things these days are
Speaker:either Chinese heritage or Indian.
Speaker:It seems so.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Well, some people have taken that idea and applied it to the Bible,
Speaker:of course, because why wouldn't you?
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:Your first passage, I and my father slash Kate John 10 27 to 30.
Speaker:That is correct.
Speaker:Please recite it.
Speaker:She's got an upside desk.
Speaker:John.
Speaker:10 27 to 30 my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow
Speaker:me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.
Speaker:Neither shall anemia pluck them out of my hand.
Speaker:My father, which gave them me, is greater than all and no man is able
Speaker:to pluck them out of my father's hand.
Speaker:I and my father are one John 10.
Speaker:27 to 30.
Speaker:Kate Jesus says in that passage that I and the father are one.
Speaker:Can you speak to the significance of that?
Speaker:What's that mean?
Speaker:Well, it me, it shows that I won't subject you to the rest of that good.
Speaker:Yeah, that's the only in America file.
Speaker:Put that one away.
Speaker:John in the chat room says, who's Caitlin Johnson?
Speaker:It's Caitlin John Stone.
Speaker:If you just Google, you'll find her.
Speaker:She's got a blog and I've been quoting her for years now, John.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So my current interest beyond the National Bible be contestants is
Speaker:economics, as I mentioned earlier.
Speaker:I'm finding it fascinating, Joe.
Speaker:And it's, I've got a, I've got a feeling that economics is a little
Speaker:bit like religion in that like religion in the early days where.
Speaker:, it was sort of controlled by sort of a select group and the rest of
Speaker:us just sort of go, well, they must know what they're talking about.
Speaker:Must be right.
Speaker:But, and now there's heresy with the modern monetary theory.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:And there's faith involved in it because, you know, when it comes to currency,
Speaker:there's a strong faith element required in order for it to actually work.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And, and it's also where we've, we've been told sort of just a
Speaker:classical version of economics and it's quite possible that that's a
Speaker:very wrong, and it doesn't actually explain how economics works at all.
Speaker:And that quite mainstream economists have been missing vital information
Speaker:in explaining the economy and.
Speaker:Seems to be a bunch of people coming out now who are economists, but like heretics,
Speaker:it worries me a little bit in that I hope I'm not doing what people were doing
Speaker:with vaccines where do your own research and become an expert on vaccinations
Speaker:and suddenly you are debunking all of the mainstream sort of vaccination work.
Speaker:But I, I'm heading in that path where I'm actually, but
Speaker:at least I'm conscious of it.
Speaker:So I, yeah, I am conscious of it that okay, these new explanations might
Speaker:sound all fine and dandy and it's debunking what the commonly held view is.
Speaker:But ah, for a long time I had a bit of a suspicion about economics where if
Speaker:you really wanna compare it to a lot of the other, Fields in a university,
Speaker:they want to present themselves as a hard science, but there's a lot
Speaker:of dark art involved in it as well.
Speaker:I think, Joe, I was gonna say a lot of the soft sciences,
Speaker:social sciences are very similar.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I think they've tried to present themselves as a hard science and
Speaker:with a lot of math and formulas, but at the end of the day, I think
Speaker:they've been running a bit of a scam.
Speaker:A lot of 'em, and they haven't quite got it worked out.
Speaker:So over the course of 2023, dear listener, you and I are gonna work out economics
Speaker:and how the world's actually running.
Speaker:So, so yeah, I'm gonna run through some of the things that I've learned
Speaker:from the books over the last few weeks that I've been reading.
Speaker:But one of the things that's got me here we go.
Speaker:Mel says it's not the same.
Speaker:Vaccination is based on signs, economics is sociology at best.
Speaker:So go for it, Trevor.
Speaker:Thanks Mel.
Speaker:I will.
Speaker:. Joe, do you have any podcasts that you listen to cuz you
Speaker:really dislike the podcast?
Speaker:, have you got a Hate listen podcast?
Speaker:No, not anymore, right?
Speaker:. Oh, you had one before?
Speaker:Well, trigonometry I was listening to and yeah.
Speaker:They just went completely off the deep end, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So, and even Joe, Joe Rogan was one of those.
Speaker:He had some really great people on and he had long format conversations
Speaker:where he could get deep into the weeds with some really interesting people.
Speaker:He also had some complete dickheads on, he would get into the weeds with them.
Speaker:And I think they both, particularly around the time of lockdown, just
Speaker:went completely off the rails.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And, and just ended up having right wing ners on Yeah.
Speaker:So a bit like in the way that I actually canceled my subscription
Speaker:to the Australians, so I'm just down to the Curry mail at the moment.
Speaker:But reading those was just to sort of see what other people mm-hmm.
Speaker:Are thinking.
Speaker:And there's a podcast I've been listening to, which is about this guy who who's
Speaker:supporting and promoting Bitcoin.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So I've been listening to him and you know, I, I'll listen to
Speaker:him and in my head I'll go, no Uhuh, no, not, not that either.
Speaker:And like he will come out quite often with a, a 20 or 30 word sentence with
Speaker:five concepts, and I'll disagree with nearly every single thing he says.
Speaker:I think he gets it so badly wrong.
Speaker:So I've been enjoying that, but I've been thinking, I actually
Speaker:reached out to him and said, Hey, I disagree with a lot of what you say.
Speaker:Would you like somebody to come on your podcast and just have a polite debate?
Speaker:And he hasn't responded, but . I did think part of the benefit of that
Speaker:is if you do have to say, you know, mount an argument, you really have
Speaker:to think carefully, more carefully.
Speaker:You think you know something until you actually have to explain it.
Speaker:It's easy to make assertions.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And you can easy to think in your head.
Speaker:Ah, yeah, I know that until, and you actually have to spell out the concepts.
Speaker:It's not that easy.
Speaker:So anyway some of the ideas I've got rattling around in my head are sort of
Speaker:as a response from this Bitcoin podcast, but money fascinates me as you would know
Speaker:for a long time and the origin of money.
Speaker:So one of the things I would've said to him about Bitcoin as to why it's a heap of
Speaker:shit is the thing about normal money is.
Speaker:, there's value to it because eventually you're gonna have to pay tax and the
Speaker:sovereign government in Australia is gonna say, you have to pay your tax
Speaker:and it's gotta be in Aussie dollars.
Speaker:And each country will do that where they'll require payment of your
Speaker:tax in their particular currency.
Speaker:No sovereign government is gonna say that about Bitcoin.
Speaker:And so there's no government body that's ever gonna be
Speaker:interested in propping it up.
Speaker:So it's these people think it's going to increase in value, not just as a
Speaker:medium of exchange for just swapping bits of bits of coin around to pay for
Speaker:small transaction, not as something like a bit of a convenience, but, but as an
Speaker:actual investment, I think it's going to go up, but there's nothing there
Speaker:that will actually Sort of supported from a government point of view.
Speaker:And I think people think that money came about as a means of
Speaker:assisting the barter system.
Speaker:So there's this theory in people's heads that used to be, that we'd
Speaker:have economies where I own a goat and you've got some grain and I agree
Speaker:to swap the goat for some grain.
Speaker:And we just walk around in the village continually swapping
Speaker:and bartering items directly.
Speaker:And that at some point people were using bits of valuable metal like gold, which
Speaker:eventually got converted into coins as an easy means of measuring them.
Speaker:And, and that money was introduced as a means of greasing the wheel of, of the
Speaker:barter system in, in primitive economies.
Speaker:And two things is It turns out there never really were barter economies where
Speaker:people were swapping things like that.
Speaker:In that sort of primitive stage, if I had a goat and it was too much for me to eat
Speaker:cuz I'd just killed it or I'd, you know, I'd deer, I'd hunted down or something.
Speaker:Basically I'd have a feel and then share it with you, Joe,
Speaker:and a bunch of other people.
Speaker:And that would just be a little credit in the back of everybody's mind.
Speaker:Oh, Trevor fed everybody the other day with that piece of meat.
Speaker:That was pretty good.
Speaker:So the next time they got something spare, they would
Speaker:then you know, share it with me.
Speaker:And a lot of society was based on people tallying in their heads whether
Speaker:somebody was a sharer or not a sharer.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And it wasn't a direct simultaneous exchange of goats for grain.
Speaker:There was just a buildup of credit points that you had to maintain as being
Speaker:a worthwhile member of a community.
Speaker:So, . So these societies never really ran barter type arrangements in the way
Speaker:people might think when it comes to money.
Speaker:It seems that the origin of it was in relation to early agriculture when there
Speaker:was a buildup of grain, for example, in silos, and we had palaces and kings and
Speaker:emperors sort of going back 3000 or 4,000 years, and little sort of chits would
Speaker:be issued about the grain in the silo.
Speaker:Who had belonged to who, who was owed the grain or I was gonna say promissory notes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And and these were, these were issued by the palace, two people.
Speaker:So it was a, it was more or less a an I O U that started off between the.
Speaker:The palace or the government and individuals not as
Speaker:something between individuals.
Speaker:And it had value because it was like an IU from the palace.
Speaker:It actually meant something.
Speaker:And over time people might swap these IUs between themselves and
Speaker:they might particularly need to, cuz at some stage the palace might
Speaker:say, oh, we're gonna tax everybody.
Speaker:The king needs grain to pay for some soldiers or whatever.
Speaker:And all of you guys have gotta contribute some of the grain that's in the silo.
Speaker:So start handing in your chips.
Speaker:So that was kind of the origin of money that I've come across,
Speaker:which was, and forgive them, their debts by Michael Hudson.
Speaker:So if people thinking about Bitcoin as being just like money, , it sort
Speaker:of helps to shoot down to them and say, that's, that's not what money
Speaker:was actually originally intended.
Speaker:It was part of a contract.
Speaker:It had government backing from the very beginning and your Bitcoin doesn't.
Speaker:So that's a key difference.
Speaker:Bitcoin's a pump and dump scheme.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It, yes.
Speaker:It and the, and, well, one of the reasons why I'm look, been looking at Bitcoin Dear
Speaker:listener, is just in the podcasting world, there is a a thing called Podcasting 2.0.
Speaker:They're basically creating apps now and the ability where on certain apps
Speaker:there's a Fountain app and there's a hot verse app, and there's a couple of
Speaker:other apps where if you've got money in a Bitcoin wallet, if you've got Satoshis,
Speaker:which are like one, 101000000th or, or something like that of a bitcoin,
Speaker:You could do an instant donation to a podcaster of Satoshi's on an app.
Speaker:And there's a certain element of the podcasting world
Speaker:that loves the idea of this.
Speaker:So there's a lot of talk about it.
Speaker:So that's part of the reasons why I'm interested in Bitcoin anyway.
Speaker:So that's the origin of money, not from greasing the wheels in a, making it easier
Speaker:for a barter economy, but it was really government driven from the early stages.
Speaker:And there was also Joe, a lot of debt forgiveness in the ancient
Speaker:Syrian and Babylonian empires.
Speaker:Apparently the Bible says forgive dates every seven years.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And it was a very regular thing because now these were debts that were
Speaker:owed by the commoners to the palace.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And when a new, when an old emperor died, new emperor came in very
Speaker:common to wipe out all debts.
Speaker:One of the reasons for that was that with interest, it just got
Speaker:out of hand for people where they couldn't actually pay the debt.
Speaker:So in order for the society to function, people were losing their properties and
Speaker:becoming almost slaves to other people, and it was causing regular problems.
Speaker:So throughout that history, it's a very regular occurrence of debt forgiveness
Speaker:by common people to the palace.
Speaker:Now, that didn't necessarily mean inter business debts, but
Speaker:certainly commoners and the palace would have their debts wiped out.
Speaker:So, Landon Hardbottom says, send me your useless Bitcoin and I'll store it for you.
Speaker:. Thanks Landon.
Speaker:So, so where was I?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Death forgiveness was something very common in the ancient world
Speaker:and that sort of stopped around the Greek and Roman civilizations where.
Speaker:that regular debt forgiveness stopped and sort of private property
Speaker:was held in a more exalted status.
Speaker:And that's continued on since the Greek and the Romans.
Speaker:But prior to them debt forgiveness was a, a regular occurrence.
Speaker:So, so what else have I been reading about lately?
Speaker:Of course, capitalism is a recent invention only since the Industrial
Speaker:Revolution and while we've had markets for thousands of years, just market
Speaker:is quite different to capitalism.
Speaker:There's a TV series called the Ascent of Money.
Speaker:It's quite old now, right?
Speaker:By an Irish guy.
Speaker:I think it was a BBC or Channel four documentary series.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. And it goes into the bond market, not the stock market.
Speaker:and the Dutch East India company being the first Yes.
Speaker:Traded company.
Speaker:And what a difference that made.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The, the ability to create a, a public company Yes.
Speaker:That you could buy shares in Yep.
Speaker:This, this pulling together of resources to be able to take on something that
Speaker:would be too expensive as an individual.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And then the benefits that were given to these companies where they
Speaker:were able to actually levy taxes on the Indians and things like this.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, almost like a government with their own soldiers and all
Speaker:the rest of it to go with it.
Speaker:So, so, so basically capitalism requires an unsustainable growth and this is so
Speaker:that people can repay debt and interest if you're gonna, you know, people borrow.
Speaker:On the hope and expectation of growth, which will allow them to
Speaker:repay the debt and the interest.
Speaker:And capitalism requires, you know, two to 3% per year.
Speaker:I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago a few episodes ago, 3% growth means
Speaker:doubling the size of the economy every 23 years and then doubling it again,
Speaker:and then doubling it again and again.
Speaker:At some point we won't be able to do that.
Speaker:And the problem is that GDP is not just plucked out of thin air, but it's
Speaker:connected to energy and resources.
Speaker:So it means doubling and doubling every 23 years.
Speaker:The energies and resource use or, or, or pollution.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, because pollution is also a G D P positive.
Speaker:Yes, that's right.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So, so a growth a growth that's gonna be unsustainable.
Speaker:And the question is, well how did, how did capitalism maintain this growth
Speaker:since the Industrial Revolution?
Speaker:Like, how was it able to do it for so long anyway?
Speaker:Colonialism.
Speaker:Correct?
Speaker:You said colonialism didn't you?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Yep.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So really interesting book Capital and imperialism theory, history in
Speaker:the present by TSA and PR hat patnaik.
Speaker:Difficult read deal is now like this one, the whole four weeks.
Speaker:Not easy and I'm gonna summarize it in two minutes, which is just a crime
Speaker:really, cuz the amount of detail in there.
Speaker:But essentially Companies like the East Indian Company and others.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:, well, well the UK in particular was just draining an enormous
Speaker:amount of money out of India.
Speaker:And it, it was essentially capitalism thrived because it was able to just
Speaker:subjugate the global south and not only get cheap commodities and resources from
Speaker:them, but also force them to produce the products that the UK wanted, say
Speaker:things like cash crops or, or other things so that these people then were
Speaker:unable to feed themselves because they'd been forced into growing things
Speaker:for the uk and then they were forced into being the market for UK products.
Speaker:So their artisans was, were, were forced into.
Speaker:Producing these cash crops and the companies were, the, the countries
Speaker:were then forced to then be a market for British products as well.
Speaker:So the book's quite extensive about, about how all that worked.
Speaker:So actually I'll read a bit here.
Speaker:Page 131 give you a bit of a flavor for some of it.
Speaker:Bear with me one second.
Speaker:So the transfer process at its inception was relatively transparent.
Speaker:The East India company's trade monopoly granted by the British
Speaker:Parliament, began in 1600.
Speaker:The company acquired tax revenue collecting rights
Speaker:in Bengal Province in 1765.
Speaker:And substantive drain starts precisely from that date.
Speaker:Bengal's population of about 30 million people was nearly
Speaker:four times that of Britain.
Speaker:The repac of the company, which forcibly trebled revenue collection
Speaker:over the following five years decimated one third of the population.
Speaker:In the great 1770 famine, full recovery had not taken place by 1792, and yet the
Speaker:land revenue fixed under the permanent settlement in that year in Bengal exceeded
Speaker:the British government's taxes from land in Britain, just shameless raping
Speaker:of of these countries is essentially how the UK was able to sustain.
Speaker:It's of capitalism.
Speaker:What, what's that?
Speaker:Ireland as well.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Bunch of, I listened to a history on the potato famine and it
Speaker:was literally that wasn't, that there weren't enough potatoes.
Speaker:, it was that the potatoes were all marked for export to England to be sold.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:And the Irish couldn't afford to eat.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So according to this book, I've just was reading from the, the Depression in
Speaker:the 1930s was actually sort of signified the exhaustion of the, of the growth
Speaker:in that area of subjugating colonies.
Speaker:So while they were still under subjugation, it sort of maxed
Speaker:out what they could get from these colonies at that time.
Speaker:And the Great Depression was, was kind of where capitalism
Speaker:could no longer grow from.
Speaker:Those sort of, that colonial agricultural raping and taxation,
Speaker:they, they'd maxed out on that one.
Speaker:So, so how did capitalism Continue to grow after that.
Speaker:Well, you had fiscal stimulus where governments were, were basically
Speaker:introducing money into the economy.
Speaker:So you had the New deal, which introduced money.
Speaker:You then had World War ii.
Speaker:You then had continuing US war deficits in the years following, which was a
Speaker:kit type of military keynesianism.
Speaker:So Canes is all about John Maynard Cains is about the government
Speaker:spending money to prop up economies.
Speaker:If they start to flatten, let's move off the gold standard as well.
Speaker:Yes, there was a move from the Gold standard as well.
Speaker:You had women entering the workforce, so that boosted productivity.
Speaker:Again, you had credit cards.
Speaker:You had the 1980s draining of the commons.
Speaker:Where we had public utilities sold off, sold off, privatized, all these things
Speaker:that I'm mentioning are little prods that enabled capitalism, which might have
Speaker:slowed to zero in terms of growth to grow.
Speaker:We then had the two thousand.com boom, and then the 2008 real estate bubbles which
Speaker:were as a result of so prime mortgages.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:In recent times we've had the Covid 19 fiscal stimulus where money governments
Speaker:have thrown money at, at corporations, and then we've had super low interest
Speaker:rates leading to asset price bubbles.
Speaker:All ways of cropping up the system so that growth can be maintained.
Speaker:And Joe, it looks to me that there's no tricks left.
Speaker:There's no more colonies that can be found.
Speaker:That's why we can mine the moon.
Speaker:Well, or Russia or China.
Speaker:That's one of the reasons why America is so keen to get their hands on China
Speaker:and start a war, because that would be another prod, another boost to
Speaker:keep capitalism going if they could access the Chinese and Russian markets.
Speaker:And with recent low interest rates, all of our assets are already overvalued.
Speaker:So, so yeah, that was an interesting concept of, okay, capitalism
Speaker:requires this unsustainable growth.
Speaker:The fact that it has been going for so long has really been as a result
Speaker:of a number of artificial tricks, some of them quite nasty when it
Speaker:comes to India and island and the colonies and that, and that essentially
Speaker:we're running out of tricks and.
Speaker:And just on the face of it, if you're talking about 3% growth every
Speaker:year, doubling an economy every 23 years, common sense tells you, you
Speaker:just can't do that continuously in a closed system like our planet is.
Speaker:So, so there's that.
Speaker:I've been reading about those concepts and the other one was
Speaker:about private banks create money.
Speaker:Joe, you heard this one?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:So, the myth is that the governments introduce money into the economy, but it's
Speaker:actually created by, by private banks.
Speaker:So bank is just sitting there and it's not that they've got a lack of money to lend.
Speaker:, it's that they have a lack of suitable clients to customers to lend money to.
Speaker:And they can just, if, if, if I go to a bank and I come up with
Speaker:a proposition where I say, give me a hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker:I've got this great business idea, they essentially just create a book
Speaker:entry where they create a hundred thousand dollars and put it in my
Speaker:account, and it becomes into existence where nothing else gets subtracted.
Speaker:From the bank's point of view, they can just generate and create
Speaker:the ledger account $100,000.
Speaker:And it's not like they, they have a corresponding ledger with the
Speaker:government where they've gotta grab that money from the government.
Speaker:They just create the ledger account.
Speaker:So, . Private banks are responsible for something like 90% of, of money
Speaker:generation, and I've gotta look into it more, but the argument
Speaker:was with quantitative easing where central banks were providing money.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was still up to the private banks to lend it out somewhere, something
Speaker:they still had to have a suitable person who wanted to borrow it.
Speaker:And a lot of the money, people were able to pay back with interest.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A lot of the money just wasn't used.
Speaker:And the few that did use it were basically existing companies that did share buybacks
Speaker:because the executives realized that this was a better way of, of getting bonuses.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:So yeah, so that's an interesting concept that private banks
Speaker:create money not the government.
Speaker:So that's the sort of doesn't any controller money?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Well, they control interest rates to an extent.
Speaker:So through the central bank, and that's the sort of blunt instrument
Speaker:of central banks is interest rates.
Speaker:And when interest rates got to zero, that was when they ran out of, out of tricks.
Speaker:And we had this quantitative easing.
Speaker:There was a study done that said was quantitative easing, did it do anything?
Speaker:And they looked at like 50 studies and funnily enough it, the studies
Speaker:were done by central banks.
Speaker:The consensus was that it was successful and where the studies were
Speaker:done by people who weren't part of the Central Bank, then the studies
Speaker:show that it just didn't do anything.
Speaker:So gotta get my head around quantitative easing and creation of money.
Speaker:But Yeah, basically most money is, is created by private banks.
Speaker:I just watched an interview with Russell Brand, who You're a masochist.
Speaker:Joe.
Speaker:Was this a hate?
Speaker:Listen, was this one of those podcasts?
Speaker:No, it was just a funny interview with I think Jonathan Ross.
Speaker:And apparently he's made a documentary on basically the money that went into
Speaker:propping up the financial institutions whilst the average person on the street
Speaker:was forced to, into austerity in the uk.
Speaker:Oh, Russell Brand did this one?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I, I dunno how watchable it will be, but certainly the
Speaker:subject matter is interesting.
Speaker:He'd be one of these guys who sometimes is right about something and is
Speaker:quite entertaining and and good.
Speaker:And then another issue is, is completely nuts.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So just trying to think of somebody else who was like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Can't think of it to mine.
Speaker:So, so yeah, that's the stuff that I'd been looking at and the ideas
Speaker:I've been thrusting around in my head.
Speaker:So, trick is to try and work out a system that would replace capitalism, because if
Speaker:you were to try and change things mm-hmm.
Speaker:, it would be through rules that are unattractive to capital
Speaker:and are attractive to labor.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:As in the working class and, and, and labor don't control parliament.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And also you know, Labor can't easily move around the world, but capital can.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:and at the whiff, at the whiff of, of laws that are unattractive to capital,
Speaker:they will exit a country and thereby precipitate a crisis which will be
Speaker:sort of self-fulfilling where go this laws and Americans will invade.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:. Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:But you know, if Australia was to try and do something funky and knew that
Speaker:somehow addressed the imbalance and, and took on capital to some extent,
Speaker:then you'd have to create laws that would prevent the the flight capital.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And how's that gonna go down with the rest of the world?
Speaker:It's just not gonna happen, is it?
Speaker:So it can be quite depressing, this whole thing, but it is interesting.
Speaker:So, Yeah, I think that's that's main things I wanted to tell you
Speaker:about that I was thinking about.
Speaker:I might make a shorter one today.
Speaker:They might all be short.
Speaker:So anyway, Joe, did you have anything pressing that you wanted
Speaker:to share with any of the listeners?
Speaker:Not that I remember, no.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, I'm gonna call it a, an early day.
Speaker:They might be shorter episodes this year.
Speaker:Dear listener.
Speaker:Have a look at I f g Evergreen.
Speaker:You'll see some podcast there where I'll put in the evergreen content.
Speaker:I'll be adding stuff over time and we'll see how that goes.
Speaker:So, not sure what next week will be.
Speaker:Oh, have a look at the show notes.
Speaker:There should be a link to good Reads and you'll see a list
Speaker:of books that I have read.
Speaker:If you wanna do a little talk on that with me part up a podcast, that would be good.
Speaker:Alright, that's all for the moment.
Speaker:Talk to you all next week.
Speaker:Bye for now, and it's a good night from him.
Speaker:Now, the problem is transforming the ghetto, therefore is a problem of power.
Speaker:A confrontation between the forces of power, demanding change, and
Speaker:the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo.
Speaker:Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.
Speaker:It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change.
Speaker:When Walter Luther defined power one day, he said, power is the ability of
Speaker:a labor union like u a W to make the most powerful corporation in the world.
Speaker:General Motors.
Speaker:Say yes when it wants to say no.
