RadixJournal - GameStop： The End of the American Empire

00:00:00.000 It's Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021, and welcome back to The Spencer Report.

00:00:07.700 We've bet it all on Doge.

00:00:10.400 Joining me today is Keith Woods.

00:00:12.960 Main topic, GameStop and the end of the American empire.

00:00:18.060 The stock market is in turmoil, and Reddit is to blame.

00:00:23.120 A group of alternative investors, in effect, sold the short sellers short

00:00:27.700 and took down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund.

00:00:31.520 Day trading bros are high-fiving.

00:00:34.120 The Wall Street billionaires are crying.

00:00:37.520 I care.

00:00:38.820 And the normies are scrambling to get in on the next 10x rally

00:00:42.900 of a failing company or new cryptocurrency.

00:00:46.580 But what does it all mean?

00:00:48.060 Does the current volatility and casino-like nature of the stock market

00:00:52.460 foretell dark days ahead?

00:00:54.220 More broadly, is the whole American empire and its planetary financial dominion

00:00:59.940 another GameStop?

00:01:02.340 All right, Keith, welcome back.

00:01:05.340 How have you been?

00:01:07.420 Yeah, good to be here.

00:01:08.640 I'm very optimistic.

00:01:10.240 I think I'm going to be a Dogecoin millionaire by the end of the week.

00:01:13.340 A millionaire?

00:01:13.980 I put everything I have into Dogecoin.

00:01:16.360 Oh, good.

00:01:17.000 That's responsible.

00:01:18.060 Millionaire?

00:01:18.680 I mean, aren't you already a Dogecoin millionaire?

00:01:21.920 I was expecting you to be a Dogecoin billionaire master of the universe by now.

00:01:28.360 Yeah.

00:01:28.900 So let's get the obvious out of the way.

00:01:34.140 This has been a hilarious 72 hours or so.

00:01:39.240 And it's certainly stranger than fiction.

00:01:42.500 And I think everyone has a lot of schadenfreude going on.

00:01:50.520 And I think maybe it kind of reveals who you are, how you just feel about it, just on an

00:01:56.660 immediate gut level.

00:01:58.160 Whether you are the people crying on CNBC or whether you are laughing at the people crying

00:02:04.760 on CNBC or whether you think this is a terrible thing to our well-functioning market system

00:02:12.860 or you think this is hilarious.

00:02:15.080 Now, I think it's hilarious.

00:02:16.680 I do not shed tears over the loss of Melvin Capital.

00:02:21.600 And when a billionaire is, I believe his name is Cooperman, was crying on CNBC.

00:02:26.640 You know, we had our Camelot and now it's a ruin.

00:02:30.780 And, you know, I mean, yeah, I feel some schadenfreude.

00:02:34.820 But I also can take a step back and not get lost in this thing because this is a lot of

00:02:43.540 fun.

00:02:44.580 But at the end of the day, it's a crazy pump and dump scheme in a highly volatile market.

00:02:51.780 And that is what it is.

00:02:54.640 And it might be funny, but I don't think it, you know, I've seen people get on this bandwagon

00:03:02.160 and say like, oh, well, Trump lost.

00:03:05.360 And so we're now going to destroy the system through these kinds of things and hold them

00:03:11.580 hostage.

00:03:12.020 And this is the new populist way or whatever.

00:03:15.920 And I can only just kind of roll my eyes at that stuff.

00:03:19.820 What are your thoughts?

00:03:22.580 Yeah, I mean, I like the spirit of it, obviously.

00:03:24.980 And the like, I think everyone, I mean, the only one I saw defending the hedge fund managers

00:03:29.540 all week was Ben Shapiro wrote an impassioned thread about how, you know, on free market

00:03:36.600 principles that the hedge fund managers actually benefit everyone.

00:03:40.800 Yeah, less and less people want to hear that stuff.

00:03:43.320 But yeah, I mean, I like the spirit of it.

00:03:44.860 And I mean, you know, in this particular case, I think it was kind of effective sort of guerrilla

00:03:50.660 warfare against the oligarchs.

00:03:52.080 I mean, I think what the short position on GameStop was like 140%.

00:03:57.620 Right.

00:03:58.280 But yeah, I mean, what changed yesterday, I mean, when you start seeing people talking

00:04:03.260 about we're going to inflate Dogecoin to the moon, it's like, there's a lot of people that

00:04:07.980 I think have come on board and they think it's some kind of like infinite money scheme.

00:04:12.760 Right.

00:04:12.980 And I definitely think it's limited.

00:04:14.820 I mean, it's kind of like, you know, like these people went to the poker table with the

00:04:19.500 professional poker players and they won a couple of hands and they were sitting at the

00:04:23.600 table and it's like, on the long run, you know, you're going to get burned.

00:04:26.860 Like, it's not a strategy to just sort of go from one altcoin or one stock to another

00:04:33.340 creating artificial bubbles.

00:04:34.860 I mean, and eventually, surely the big investors will just start playing both sides of this as

00:04:39.540 well.

00:04:39.760 I mean, I think there was already some of that, like some of these people that were sort

00:04:42.500 of cheering this on, like, what's that guy's name?

00:04:45.180 He's like, that Indian guy that was invested in Facebook and he's like, this ethical.

00:04:50.200 Oh, yes.

00:04:50.860 I'm forgetting his name.

00:04:52.200 He's running for governor.

00:04:53.480 Yeah.

00:04:54.060 He's running for governor.

00:04:55.260 I believe he was claiming that this is like a, yeah, like this is socialism or something.

00:05:01.240 Yeah, but at the same time, like he bought GameStop stock and tweeted about it, but he

00:05:06.220 sold it a few hours later.

00:05:07.260 So he was kind of benefiting from this pump and dump scheme by getting everyone involved.

00:05:11.500 But so, yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's kind of uniting everyone against the

00:05:15.640 oligarchs, which is a good thing. 1.00

00:05:16.960 And it's, I think it's done more than anything the last few years to expose like some of the

00:05:20.840 corrupt practices that go on and some of the ridiculous ways that like parasitic finance

00:05:26.320 capitalism makes money off people.

00:05:28.120 But in terms of like.

00:05:29.240 But they're playing in the casino.

00:05:31.140 Yeah.

00:05:31.340 Like it's not like they're.

00:05:32.540 In terms of this idea that like, oh, this is what Occupy should have done.

00:05:35.600 And this is how we bring down capitalism.

00:05:37.620 It's like, you know, I mean, it's like gambling on all coins isn't really going to destroy the

00:05:44.120 financial system.

00:05:46.380 No.

00:05:47.440 And yeah, they're just taking part in the casino themselves and kind of screwing over the

00:05:53.500 big players who live in the casino.

00:05:55.880 And maybe there is some benefit to that.

00:05:58.400 Maybe there's some little kernel of truth.

00:06:00.300 So this is what Occupy Wall Street should have done.

00:06:02.440 But no, I wouldn't get again, I support these guys like in spirit in some way.

00:06:08.320 But I mean, what they did originally and inflating the GameStop stock to screw over the people

00:06:16.420 to shorten it.

00:06:16.940 I mean, they were basically filling the role of of what the regulators should be doing

00:06:20.300 there.

00:06:21.540 Right.

00:06:22.720 That you could you could argue that I think there are a couple other levels to it.

00:06:27.500 There was some speculation that the the same people who were shorting GameStop were also

00:06:34.360 shorting Tesla.

00:06:35.440 Tesla has gone up 10x on basically speculation and that this was kind of like there was it

00:06:42.100 was almost a bigger scheme.

00:06:43.640 That's an interesting conspiracy theory, I guess.

00:06:47.380 But I think there's another level to it in the sense that they were also buying up AMC,

00:06:53.860 which was getting shorted because movie theaters are obviously basically out of business during

00:07:00.920 the pandemic.

00:07:01.980 And these, you know, all these big movies keep getting delayed and they have no cash flow.

00:07:08.060 GameStop, I think there was there is a kind of populist element to it in the sense that,

00:07:13.380 you know, GameStop is like an old I don't know.

00:07:17.260 It's not not quite a 90s business, but it's definitely a 2000s business of you.

00:07:22.800 I mean, I've never been to one.

00:07:24.120 There actually is one not too far away.

00:07:27.080 But, you know, you go in and you buy a gaming system or you buy games and you you know,

00:07:33.980 it's kind of like one of those businesses where you kind of feel a part of it.

00:07:37.440 It's like, oh, I love to go to my GameStop.

00:07:39.620 And and same with AMC movie theaters, you know, I mean, every there is a communal element

00:07:46.860 to a movie theater.

00:07:48.200 You go there and have popcorn and get on have a date and whatever.

00:07:52.300 And it's like big Wall Street is trying to destroy these kind of like homey chains and

00:08:00.380 and engage in just like the wild extreme speculation of companies that have no cash flow, but all

00:08:06.940 investment, you know, in Silicon Valley or investing in other hedge funds or whatever.

00:08:11.740 And it was almost like the little chain kind of punching back against, you know, Wall Street.

00:08:17.440 I thought there was a little interesting element to that.

00:08:21.400 But, you know, I don't know what to say.

00:08:23.960 It is illegal to conspire with a bunch of people and say, we are going to go buy this stock

00:08:33.220 all at once and through that market mechanism, push up the price and then we are going to sell it.

00:08:39.560 Like that is illegal.

00:08:40.820 That's pumping and dumping.

00:08:43.220 And they they were doing that with a kind of a company they liked and which kind of evoked

00:08:49.860 Gamergate as well.

00:08:51.300 The fact that they were defending this gaming platform, you know.

00:08:54.440 So but yeah, I mean, that's it is what it is.

00:08:59.160 It's just now done on Reddit and it's not done in a boiler room with a bunch of sharks,

00:09:05.120 you know, on Wall Street who want to make their first million and they're going to do it by pumping

00:09:10.120 it up.

00:09:10.440 And remember, whenever you pump it up, it goes down.

00:09:13.720 I mean, there's like an equal and opposite reaction.

00:09:16.000 So, you know, there are people as Jordan Belfort himself said when he was interviewed recently,

00:09:22.800 I just tweeted it out.

00:09:24.160 I mean, there are people who are going to hear about this now.

00:09:27.700 Like there's your normie on Twitter or Facebook that hears about this and goes and buys into

00:09:33.720 this and they are probably gets good because no one is really buying game stock because they

00:09:42.520 think that it is a great investment that they need to hold on to and that it's business model

00:09:48.940 is sound.

00:09:49.480 I mean, they are playing a game and that game will end and it will be bad.

00:09:55.500 It will likely be bad for all the people who got who get in now and get in after it's,

00:10:01.720 you know, made a splash in the media, etc.

00:10:04.240 Yeah.

00:10:04.740 Well, I think it was that $4 last year at one point and it started short when this kind of

00:10:11.440 celebrity investor came in and was put on the board.

00:10:15.540 But yeah, like I heard someone talk about, you said like the amount of shortening that

00:10:21.180 was done on it would suggest that investors were kind of gambling on it, going out of

00:10:26.020 business this year, that it was probably going to be facing bankruptcy.

00:10:28.840 I mean, I think GameStop lost something like half a billion dollars last year.

00:10:32.380 So, I mean, like the, you know, what's the true price of the GameStop stock?

00:10:36.960 You know, if it was like $6 for most of last year and, you know, then it was kind of inflated

00:10:42.900 to over $20 when this sort of celebrity investor came in, that's when it was heavily shorted.

00:10:48.400 So, I mean, like the true price of that stock probably is like under $10.

00:10:52.620 So, you'd imagine eventually it's going to kind of reach an equilibrium and fall back to that.

00:10:57.820 So, all of the people that have inflated it up to whatever it's at now, you know, $180 or $300,

00:11:04.480 who knows what it's at now, but eventually they will get burned.

00:11:07.920 Like that's kind of a certainty at this point.

00:11:10.480 Yeah.

00:11:11.980 So, you know, so much for that.

00:11:15.500 I am interested in what's going to happen because I think there's a tremendous amount of euphoria

00:11:21.860 right now and, you know, stick it to the big guy.

00:11:25.640 This is a populist result, a revolt.

00:11:28.460 This is how we change the system.

00:11:30.040 This is socialism, you know, buy Dogecoin, buy GameStop and with your hundred bucks and

00:11:35.820 you'll have a thousand in no time and so on.

00:11:39.680 I think there's a lot of euphoria and I am curious.

00:11:42.280 I would imagine that in the next 72 hours or maybe a week later or a month later, there's

00:11:48.740 going to be a tremendous amount of depression.

00:11:51.660 And I think people should watch out for that.

00:11:54.040 I mean, we do not obviously give stock advice on this program, but, you know, if you've already,

00:12:02.940 if you've heard, just keep this in mind, if you've heard of it, it's already over, you

00:12:07.880 know?

00:12:08.080 Yeah.

00:12:08.580 I mean, like to be fair, a lot of people were, you know, they did say they were

00:12:12.180 just buying it to basically screw over these hedge funds like Melvin.

00:12:15.760 They weren't doing it to make money.

00:12:17.000 They were just trying to keep the stock ice so they could screw over these companies.

00:12:20.280 But yeah, I mean, that's one thing.

00:12:22.120 But yeah, there does seem to be people.

00:12:23.480 I mean, I heard people saying like buy, buy GME and hold it forever as if that was like

00:12:29.420 a key to like infinite money.

00:12:31.680 So there did, it does seem to be like catching people now that, uh, that don't really get

00:12:35.680 the shot and think this is like a way to kind of next to Wall Street.

00:12:40.560 Right.

00:12:41.000 The other thing about this that I think is interesting is that we had major stock market

00:12:51.080 downturns at the beginning of the pandemic, which was not terribly surprising.

00:12:57.780 I mean, they, by about February and early March, you know, people in the know, at least

00:13:04.900 we're taking it seriously now.

00:13:06.500 And I, and I think one of the impulses for Trump to engage in this kind of Corona virus

00:13:12.680 denial for as long as he did was that he, he did grasp kind of intuitively that this

00:13:19.200 was going to send the stock market down.

00:13:20.760 Then that sends his own chances down, um, because those, you know, presidential elections

00:13:26.720 and the stock market are correlated in interesting ways.

00:13:30.160 Um, and, but the stock market kind of got it together.

00:13:34.540 I think people realized by, you know, June or so that we're all not going to die, that

00:13:41.360 this is going to be a very detriment.

00:13:43.360 It's going to be a detrimental thing, of course, but, um, we need to start looking out, you know,

00:13:48.680 for the future when things come back and, you know, a stock market is a forward looking

00:13:53.880 mechanism.

00:13:54.640 It is, you are not, you are not buying what the company did a year ago.

00:13:58.480 You're buying what it's going to do in a year or in 10 years even.

00:14:02.380 Um, so there was a lot of volatility, but then we basically reached highs again.

00:14:08.680 And, um, I mean, while we're doing this, the Dow Jones and S and P and NASDAQ and so on.

00:14:14.240 And I, I would imagine you could find this, uh, around the world are down, you know, 2%,

00:14:20.340 5% there, 3% here.

00:14:23.900 Uh, there does seem to be some major volatility and worry going on.

00:14:30.560 Um, there was a lot of volatility with a stock like Apple, which is, you know, obviously they

00:14:35.900 have a business model of, of a highly profitable business model of iPhones and other things.

00:14:43.260 Uh, so the fact that that's happening is a little bit strange.

00:14:48.120 Um, so I, I don't know.

00:14:50.760 I, this is just my, also my kind of gut instinct.

00:14:55.160 Um, things can get decoupled and the economy can be decoupled from the stock market and vice

00:15:03.800 versa.

00:15:04.640 Um, and they're, they're related of course, but they can really be disconnected, uh, in

00:15:10.380 ways, uh, particularly now where, you know, 99% of these equities are owned by financial

00:15:17.380 firms that they, they aren't really democratically allocated.

00:15:21.140 And so you have a bunch of, you know, big money banks and hedge funds who have some connection

00:15:27.760 to the fed.

00:15:28.380 They're getting that, all that money creation early and they're pumping it and to speculation.

00:15:32.280 Uh, you can really have a serious disconnect between, you know, the stock market equity

00:15:38.580 prices and, uh, the real economy, how people are actually living, but that can't really go

00:15:45.580 on forever.

00:15:46.220 And there are going to be ways that that is a massive bubble that is going to pop and

00:15:54.040 you, you, you cannot have a situation where you have major unemployment, unrest, negative

00:16:00.640 social mood, lack of consumption, et cetera, and a stock market just rising infinitely.

00:16:07.660 And I, I, I don't know, I'm, I'm getting the impression that because there's so much, there's

00:16:15.740 obviously a huge amount of negative energy and you now have, uh, you know, it's, it's

00:16:22.500 on, the stock market is again, on people's radar.

00:16:25.040 They're thinking financially.

00:16:27.080 I remember when I was actually living in New York city, uh, during the financial crisis of

00:16:33.160 2008, 2009, and there were all these signs everywhere, advertisements for the financial

00:16:38.860 times.

00:16:39.440 And it said, we're, we're living in financial times.

00:16:41.940 And I, I thought that was actually quite true.

00:16:44.220 Average people were thinking about it.

00:16:46.220 People were very angry.

00:16:47.940 Um, there was, you know, kind of a little bit of socialism in the air and, you know, let's 0.96

00:16:54.580 slaughter the, the fat cats, you know, kind of thing. 0.74

00:16:58.480 And I feel like we might be headed there now.

00:17:01.760 And I think we might be headed towards really serious volatility and a stock market crash,

00:17:09.540 uh, in the coming months.

00:17:12.160 And, you know, 2008 kind of started like this.

00:17:16.520 You had big, some big box stores going out of business.

00:17:19.680 You had weird things happening in the market.

00:17:22.820 And then by September, which is when these things usually happen, uh, you had a major bankruptcy

00:17:29.580 of a financial institution, i.e., uh, Lehman Brothers, and then just the bottom fell out

00:17:34.980 of everything.

00:17:35.920 And I just get a very, I've lived through a few of these and I get a very strong feeling

00:17:42.700 that we might be headed back into one of these things.

00:17:46.860 And in some ways it's overdue.

00:17:48.660 Uh, I mean, the, there was eight years between the dot-com bubble and the 2008 crash.

00:17:55.620 Um, you know, we're now in 2021.

00:17:58.580 Um, yeah, I, I just, I get that feeling.

00:18:03.820 There's that famous quote by Joseph Kennedy.

00:18:06.200 If the, if the shoeshine boys are giving you stock advice, it's time to get out of the 1.00

00:18:10.680 market.

00:18:10.980 So, uh, yeah, it's, it does seem like that kind of scenario again, you know, the, yeah,

00:18:16.420 I mean, it is at the point, you know, the, the, suddenly the normies are talking about

00:18:19.560 stock prices and crypto and all these kinds of things.

00:18:22.780 Um, I mean, a lot of people, yeah, a lot of, a lot of people think that some of, I called

00:18:27.740 the Bitcoin top when I was, I went on Twitter and everyone was talking about Bitcoin.

00:18:32.940 This was like back in 2018, I believe everyone was talking about Bitcoin on Twitter.

00:18:37.840 And then I, I was actually, uh, it was when I did that Dinesh D'Souza movie and I was

00:18:43.360 in, I think San Diego, or I can't remember someplace in California.

00:18:46.460 And I, I was out just eating lunch and normies were talking euphorically about Bitcoin.

00:18:52.920 There was this guy on his cell phone saying, everyone needs Bitcoin, just buy, buy more

00:18:58.040 Bitcoin.

00:18:58.500 Every single person, this is the future.

00:19:00.760 And I was like, all right, this, this is just, this reminds me completely of, um, tech

00:19:06.260 bubble housing bubble.

00:19:07.380 Like when the normies are into something, they are, that is the end of it.

00:19:12.880 Um, and I, I get that feeling again.

00:19:15.960 I mean, this is that feeling on steroids where, you know, everyone are just declaring that

00:19:21.220 it's free money.

00:19:21.820 Like we need to buy, you know, hold, stay strong, buy it now.

00:19:26.460 This is free money.

00:19:27.700 Get your, you won't, you know, the government's not going to give you two grand, but you get

00:19:31.600 it this way.

00:19:32.180 Uh, that's the way they're talking.

00:19:34.600 And that is the, that is the proverbial shoeshine boy.

00:19:39.200 Yeah.

00:19:39.640 And I mean, Trump will have played a role in it.

00:19:41.840 Like Trump undid a lot of regulation from the previous administration on wall street.

00:19:46.380 That was a response to Wade.

00:19:47.600 But, uh, I mean, like Elizabeth Warren, I saw she was getting bashed on, on Twitter

00:19:53.020 today.

00:19:53.300 I mean, I know you like to take up sometimes and, and offer kind of esoteric defenses of,

00:19:57.880 of, uh, the neoliberal types, but in Warren's defense, like she, she was making a fairly

00:20:04.140 sensible point that this is like a deeper problem of, of market regulation.

00:20:08.000 And the SEC is doing this job.

00:20:10.260 And she, she was actually the only person that was really talking about this problem,

00:20:13.640 um, in her election campaign in terms of financialization and, and the growth of, of

00:20:19.960 wall street destroying, uh, business on the high street.

00:20:23.840 Um, you know, she proposed like a second glass legal act. 1.00

00:20:27.380 I mean, one of the, one of the big problems in the U S last few years has been, there's,

00:20:31.260 there's huge job losses in the retail sector because of private equity firms, which are,

00:20:36.260 um, you know, they, they come in, I mean, there was a report in 2019 that said that they've

00:20:40.940 cost one and a half million jobs in the last 10 years, uh, because they come in basically

00:20:45.840 and, and they load these struggling businesses with debt.

00:20:48.900 Um, the actual firm invest very little money and mostly borrows it against the company.

00:20:54.160 And, uh, there's a huge rate of, uh, a huge rate of failure for, for these companies

00:20:58.580 to take over because it rewards kind of risky business practices and also, uh, laying

00:21:03.500 off staff and cutting costs.

00:21:04.820 And then there's all sorts of, of loopholes for these people.

00:21:07.900 Um, you know, there's something that the, the private equity managers, they only get

00:21:11.300 taxed at, at 20% that pay capital gains tax rather than the, the income tax they should

00:21:17.000 be paying.

00:21:18.040 Um, and they get these firms to pay all sorts of what they call monitoring fees, uh, which

00:21:23.100 is basically like they're, they're just paying firms direct, they're paying fees directly

00:21:26.280 to the private equity firm to, you know, to monitor the company, whatever that means.

00:21:30.660 But yeah, it's very, um, it's very sort of parasitic, these relationships.

00:21:34.780 And this just seems to be sort of expanding exponentially.

00:21:37.860 But I mean, I don't see how you really solve a problem like that without regulation, but

00:21:43.000 it just seems to be this perpetual cycle where there's a crash.

00:21:46.560 And, you know, Joseph Kennedy is, is the person that I think created the SEC and responded to

00:21:50.860 the great depression with all sorts of these, uh, regulatory moves on, on the great depression.

00:21:55.360 I think it's bigger than Elizabeth Warren because Elizabeth Warren will often, you know, she'll

00:22:02.400 lambast wall street people in Congress.

00:22:05.860 She'll bring them in and read them the right act and so on.

00:22:09.040 But her regulation seems to be about protecting retail investors.

00:22:14.920 So it's basic, it's built on the assumption that you should be able to go in and put a hundred

00:22:23.400 K of your life savings into wall street and they'll, they'll kind of prudently manage it 0.96

00:22:29.260 and it will slowly climb up every year and you'll retire.

00:22:32.920 It's a kind of, it's a, I, I, maybe this is a bit overstated.

00:22:36.820 There's a certain kind of last man quality to the way Elizabeth Warren thinks.

00:22:42.640 Um, it is very, a, it's a, from a middle-class retail perspective, as opposed to like looking

00:22:50.280 at the bigger picture, which is that what is, what is wrong with the economy that, you know,

00:22:59.300 profits on making goods are falling and collapsing.

00:23:03.240 Like real stuff is becoming very difficult to produce in this country and in, in, in the

00:23:10.500 Western world.

00:23:11.620 And, you know, we, we're creating this kind of financialized economy and something like

00:23:17.220 Silicon Valley is just a kind of new version of this.

00:23:22.140 Um, they're not really even engaging in technology production.

00:23:27.400 You know, I mean like something, something like Uber, which loses money every, or at least

00:23:33.240 it, it was a year or two ago.

00:23:35.380 Uh, I don't know if it's now profitable, but it's just loses money constantly.

00:23:39.460 They Uber, you know, whatever you want to say about it.

00:23:43.140 I mean, yeah, it's great when you're out in a city and you can catch an Uber at, you

00:23:48.640 know, midnight and it's easier, cheap, maybe cheaper than a taxi, but they're not really

00:23:54.500 creating any actual value.

00:23:57.640 They're creating value, but they're not really creating any actual good.

00:24:00.840 The technology was created on your, by other people is created by people who made the servers

00:24:05.820 or made your phone or people who wrote the code.

00:24:08.940 They are basically converting, you know, average people into gypsy cab operators. 0.99

00:24:15.880 And it's not like, there is no real technological investment and there is no real creation of

00:24:23.460 a new good.

00:24:24.840 Now there's creation of a value, I guess, arguably.

00:24:27.860 Um, but it's also something that, you know, at least a couple, you know, a year or two ago,

00:24:32.000 uh, was never making money.

00:24:34.400 It was just kind of reconfiguring things almost like arbitrage and, you know, generating a

00:24:41.620 lot of interest and, and, and, and value.

00:24:44.300 But that value was inherently speculative and, you know, it's just a kind of issue.

00:24:50.960 Now, obviously that, you know, something like Uber isn't entirely new, but it's, we're moving

00:24:56.940 to a world where these, how you're creating value is just kind of in the ether somewhere.

00:25:05.500 It's all hype and immaterial things.

00:25:11.860 And this is also based on a massive inflation of the U S dollar.

00:25:17.340 Now we haven't seen massive price inflation, or we've seen lower velocity of anything of

00:25:25.680 on everyday items in the sense that people are going out less, they're spending less cash,

00:25:30.880 you know, over the barrel, buying a sandwich or a movie ticket or what have you.

00:25:36.220 Um, but so we, we're not seeing inflation as that's usually understood in the sense of,

00:25:41.880 uh, rapid price increases like Weimar era stuff.

00:25:46.160 Um, but we have seen dramatic, incredible inflation of debt and credit with the U S dollar

00:25:53.320 and the federal reserve.

00:25:54.140 I mean, 90% of the dollars in world history were created in the past year.

00:25:59.780 I mean, that is insane.

00:26:01.920 And I, it's, it's not reaching a retail level.

00:26:07.040 And so we don't see it in, in the way that it would really bother people where, you know,

00:26:12.600 the price of groceries is going up 10% every week.

00:26:15.500 That becomes just totally unsustainable and, and, and actually absolutely chaotic.

00:26:21.620 People lose their minds in such a situation.

00:26:24.040 We haven't seen that it goes up 2% a year, that kind of thing.

00:26:27.820 Um, but in terms of just the absolute creation of money, it is incredible what is being done.

00:26:35.140 Um, and I don't know the ultimate implications of that.

00:26:39.460 There's, there's actually an interesting tweet that I saw from, um, Claire Lehman, who is the,

00:26:45.520 uh, editor of, um, Quillette.

00:26:48.760 And she asked a good question.

00:26:52.000 Um, you know, it was like, well, the dollar used to be based on gold.

00:26:58.000 So there was some kind of limit to the amount of paper you could create.

00:27:03.560 And it was ultimately backed it up, backed up by something.

00:27:07.660 Now you're not going to go out and, you know, redeem your dollars usually, but there, that's,

00:27:13.920 there's just a source of stability.

00:27:16.340 And then it became, you know, after, after FDR, but mostly after Nixon closing the gold

00:27:23.140 window, not making the dollar redeemable.

00:27:25.200 It, the dollar was kind of based on oil in a way.

00:27:29.380 So everyone needs oil.

00:27:31.500 Uh, we have this petrol, petrol economy.

00:27:33.860 Uh, the U S is in the middle East.

00:27:35.480 And so you buy oil in dollars.

00:27:37.180 That's just a built in demand for dollars.

00:27:39.840 And there's also, you know, then we kind of moved off post cold war where, you know,

00:27:45.620 America is the one big kahuna on earth. 0.94

00:27:47.940 It has economic gains that are consistent.

00:27:51.500 Um, you pay your taxes and dollars.

00:27:53.800 Um, and, and everyone wants to invest in the United States.

00:27:57.460 And so you're, it's kind of based on economic growth.

00:28:00.500 And, and I would say subtly based on, you know, geopolitical empire, but we are kind of

00:28:07.020 getting to a point where you can reasonably ask, what is this based on?

00:28:13.020 You know, I mean, there's no economic growth, you know, there's, you know, whether oil is going

00:28:20.400 to be just infinitely priced in dollars for the foreseeable future.

00:28:23.940 I don't think so.

00:28:24.840 It's certainly not based on gold.

00:28:27.100 Um, Bitcoin, all crypto is, is a fascinating thing, but I, it's extremely volatile.

00:28:33.560 And I, I don't think anyone really sees that as like a hard currency in this way.

00:28:38.180 So, and, you know, it's kind of like, what, where are we moving?

00:28:43.020 Like what, where is the center to this planetary financial empire?

00:28:49.500 Um, can this keep going on?

00:28:52.420 What are we, it's all based on credit.

00:28:54.920 I mean, credit is the idea of it is credo that belief.

00:28:57.760 We're all believing in this thing and it, we, we all benefit by continuing to believe

00:29:03.760 in this thing, but is America the next like game shot stop or whatever, you know, it's

00:29:10.080 being pumped up for certain reasons and it's going to be pumped down.

00:29:17.540 Yeah.

00:29:18.020 I mean, well, you definitely had something in terms of, uh, this phenomenon of, of platform

00:29:23.060 capitalism.

00:29:24.000 Like, I don't think, I don't think anyone has really figured out like the implications

00:29:28.660 of it or how to deal with it.

00:29:29.820 And I mean, a lot of those companies like Uber and Airbnb, uh, Deliveroo, all these kinds

00:29:34.800 of examples, like a lot of them have been able to make money, but basically being ahead

00:29:38.280 of, of regulations because it's such a, it's such a new model that countries didn't really

00:29:43.720 know how to deal with this stuff.

00:29:45.520 Um, but yeah, it's this, you know, I think some people have this idea of, of, you know,

00:29:51.100 like the free market idea that capitalism is going to lead to like greater and greater

00:29:55.060 production and efficiency, which you see these companies, like their main business model

00:29:58.500 is kind of skimming money through fees and licenses, uh, of people's labor and also data

00:30:04.460 collection.

00:30:05.480 There's this like sort of dual exploitation to have where like, you know, you go on Airbnb

00:30:09.880 and as you said, they're not actually offering anything except the coding of a platform and

00:30:13.900 lots of people interact on there.

00:30:15.340 And then there's this, there's skim fees off interactions between people and then steal

00:30:19.080 their data and sell it to advertising companies.

00:30:22.340 So, I mean, it's Robinhood by the way.

00:30:24.700 Right.

00:30:25.100 Which, which, which is in the news because they, they were protected by Google who erased

00:30:30.480 like a hundred thousand reviews or some crazy thing like that.

00:30:33.480 And they ceased trading on certain stocks that were being pumped up on Reddit reportedly, but

00:30:40.480 Robinhood was offering no fees transactions on, you know, equity trading and, and probably

00:30:46.840 other things.

00:30:48.140 And again, just the name of the company is Robinhood.

00:30:51.920 Like it's, it's like you're, you're stealing from the rich and you're, this is awesome.

00:30:56.020 It's, it's like Bernie Sanders stock company or whatever.

00:30:59.320 I mean, no, what they were doing, their business model was to collect massive amounts of data

00:31:05.200 by off being the Google of stock trading, by giving you a valuable information for free

00:31:11.260 or a value, a trade for free.

00:31:12.880 And they were selling that data to their client, real clients who were these bigger players

00:31:21.080 who could easily use that data to front run.

00:31:24.020 So, I mean, you can, you, you, you know, all of these guys on Reddit using Robinhood, that

00:31:29.880 data is going to go to the Melvin capitals of the world.

00:31:33.680 If not Melvin capitals itself, and they're going to like decipher trends and animal spirits

00:31:40.900 in that and make money off it.

00:31:43.640 Yeah.

00:31:44.100 And also one of their big investors was one of the funds that bailed out Melvin capitals.

00:31:49.860 So, I mean, there's an obvious conflict of interest.

00:31:51.760 I mean, what they did was incredible.

00:31:52.840 Like they just, they took a lot of people's stock at $117 or something and just forced them

00:31:58.200 to sell.

00:31:58.620 Like they sold it for them and it later went to like 350 or something.

00:32:02.720 So they, they cost people like thousands and thousands of dollars.

00:32:05.760 Like it's, it is an incredible level of corruption.

00:32:08.940 I mean, I think AOC and, and Ted Cruz were saying that they wanted to launch an investigation

00:32:14.620 into that.

00:32:15.180 So again, that's one of the positive aspects of it is that it's, it's bringing eyes onto

00:32:19.440 that.

00:32:19.920 But yeah, the, I mean, that's the thing with like, when you look at like platform capitalism,

00:32:23.820 and this is the thing where like, there's this weird kind of conflict with, with the internet

00:32:28.320 and decentralization and the direction of technology, which is like, you know,

00:32:32.600 you have these people like the very early adopters of, of crypto and so on, the libertarian

00:32:38.460 types, what do they call them? 0.64

00:32:40.380 So like cypher punk people that saw this as, as leading sort of inevitably to like a libertarian

00:32:48.380 ideal that it was going to lead to decentralization.

00:32:50.780 And like, theoretically you could have, you know, you can move everything to the blockchain.

00:32:54.840 You could have like decentralized insurance.

00:32:56.640 You could move all of financial instruments onto the blockchain.

00:33:00.200 You could, you know, you could, you could have democracy on the blockchain.

00:33:04.180 You could run a voting system on there, all these kinds of things.

00:33:07.020 But at the same time, you know, we were getting this technology that should lead to decentralization,

00:33:11.120 but it's creating all of these complex networks and the network effect is to lead to complete

00:33:16.800 monopolization.

00:33:18.360 There's mathematicians that have studied this, like complex networks where you have interactive

00:33:23.160 nodes that have, that have freedom and that have, and that, you know, growth is paired to

00:33:28.200 system that inevitably tends to win or take all.

00:33:30.700 And it's like, you know, it's just, it's this thing that everyone recognizes, which is like,

00:33:35.700 you know, no one actually cares if, if Gab or if some other Twitter alternative has a better

00:33:40.380 interface than Twitter and is faster than Twitter and has less advertising.

00:33:44.120 You're just going to go on Twitter because it's, you know, it's the biggest.

00:33:47.560 And that's how, that's pretty much how all of these things work.

00:33:49.920 Same with Airbnb, you know, you're not going to go on 10 different websites that each have

00:33:54.020 like five rooms to rent in the area.

00:33:56.520 You're going to go on the one that has like 500.

00:33:58.280 So, you know, it's this problem that, you know, as you have these sort of revolutionary

00:34:03.240 technologies that should lead to decentralization and localism and so on, it's just, it's having

00:34:10.020 the opposite effect and it's creating these new, like feudal oligarchs. 0.99

00:34:14.060 You know, you have Jeff Bezos making like $13 billion in a day last year.

00:34:18.400 What Elon Musk has worked like $200 billion now, Bezos is closed as well.

00:34:23.540 And yeah, it's just, I mean, as the market becomes globalized, this winner take all effect,

00:34:28.280 gets accelerated and gets accelerated even more by technology.

00:34:32.080 And you just have, everything is just being pulled into this gravitational center of like

00:34:36.880 the few sort of early adopter oligarchs that control these platforms.

00:34:41.980 And I don't think like our state model really is capable of addressing this.

00:34:47.560 I mean, maybe the US is, but it's like, what can any, you know, what can any state in Europe

00:34:52.200 do against companies as powerful?

00:34:54.100 I mean, Australia recently, I can't remember what it was they did, but they were going to

00:34:58.320 force Google to pay some tax they hadn't paid, or they were going to enforce some regulation.

00:35:02.300 And, you know, Google just threatened that they'd stop people using Google in Australia.

00:35:06.520 And it's like, you know, like countries just have no response to it.

00:35:10.900 Yeah.

00:35:11.740 Yeah.

00:35:12.000 So, I mean, like the nation state as like the ultimate sovereign is like, it's kind of,

00:35:18.040 it's, it's being outrun by this stuff.

00:35:19.840 You know, you have, like, you, vulture funds will just like sue a country in South America

00:35:25.260 for like hundreds of billions of dollars, and it'll get enforced by an international court.

00:35:29.440 Like you've this sort of personalization of, of sovereignty.

00:35:32.560 And, you know, a lot of the models we have to try and deal with this kind of thing are just

00:35:37.080 completely outdated now, but yeah, it gets to like, I mean, what do you do with oligarchs

00:35:41.320 this powerful?

00:35:41.960 You know, they've got their wealth offshored, you know, a lot of their business model isn't

00:35:46.340 like physical stores.

00:35:47.480 It's kind of, it's in the ether, it's in the cloud.

00:35:50.140 They're not beholden to any nation state.

00:35:52.440 If someone tries to, you know, like the kind of simple answer, like tax the rich, you know,

00:35:57.360 I remember what Occupy Wall Street finally came out with a list of demands.

00:36:00.340 And it's like, leftist idealism always turns into this kind of, it runs up against this

00:36:06.420 logic of capital where it's like, well, we can take back like the tax rates of the 1950s,

00:36:10.660 but you're just going to have capital flight.

00:36:12.380 So everything is so disembedded.

00:36:14.120 It's like all of the old sort of leftist answers, like all, you know, you've old school leftists

00:36:18.460 like Corbyn or Sanders resurfaced now and then, but it's like all of, all of their answers

00:36:23.460 work fine when you have like an embedded market and, and, you know, you can't have like

00:36:28.240 capital flight within 24 hours, but you can just move to Vietnam or something.

00:36:32.040 But when everything is so global and the state is just kind of one personalized piece of

00:36:36.560 sovereignty, that's weaker than, than these centers of capital.

00:36:40.940 It's like, what, what is the answer then?

00:36:43.020 And that's, I don't think anyone has really figured that out yet.

00:36:46.820 No, I think it will only be figured out when there is an actual reset and there has to be

00:36:54.980 a new center to this. That's the only way, because they're not going to just stop doing

00:37:00.360 something because we tell them to, or Bernie Sanders is popular or something. There's going

00:37:06.340 to have to be a new reset of the financial order on a new paradigm once this one ends and

00:37:13.320 they all do it. You know, I mean, the British empire had it going there for a while, but there,

00:37:21.700 there will be something new at some point. And that, that's the only way it will change.

00:37:28.480 Yeah. I mean, I mean, at the same time, even, even when you look at something like the British 1.00

00:37:33.220 empire, I mean, there was, there was a level to which merchants were always like somewhat

00:37:39.580 subservient to a greater order, but now it's like when you have, I mean, anything from,

00:37:45.960 from 10 to 50% of the world's wealth is, is offshore. They don't even know. Um, so like

00:37:50.920 it would, it would take like a massive, like global coordinated response, but again, um,

00:37:57.000 you know, how are you going to get the world to cooperate on something like that?

00:38:00.080 Right. It's going to have to crash. Yeah. That's the only, it's going to have to crash and

00:38:05.580 be replaced. I think that's the only way. And, you know, I can support a lot of the Sanders

00:38:13.280 Corbin platform just because I have a heart, but I, I, I never think that like, it's going

00:38:22.040 to be something new. I mean, I'll sometimes see these left wing, uh, people on, on YouTube

00:38:28.560 or whatever, and they'll, they'll bash like neoliberals or whatever, as if there's like

00:38:33.660 some, they're just like a, a couple of people out there benefiting from this and they blame

00:38:39.560 everything on neoliberalism. Like they'll blame bad movies on neoliberalism and, and, and all this

00:38:45.460 kind of stuff. And I, I think it is rather short-sighted. They're, they're not seeing the

00:38:51.380 big picture and the, you know, just monumental changes that have occurred since the 1950s.

00:39:00.140 Like we're not, I mean, too, in order to go back towards, you know, something where we're

00:39:07.560 taxing their, you know, marginal income taxes at 99% at some level or, or whatever you, you

00:39:14.720 need a different world for that kind of thing to even make sense.

00:39:19.360 Yeah. I mean, you have to think like the U S and the 1950s, I mean, like the rest of the

00:39:24.180 world was like bombed to oblivion. Like where else would people want to go? You know, like

00:39:28.520 Africa in the 1950s, you know, Japan was a wasteland. Europe was a wasteland that was

00:39:33.280 reliant on, on USA to rebuild itself. So, yeah, I mean, to, to isolate a period like that and

00:39:39.060 say, well, you know, look, the, the highest rate of income tax was whatever it was, 90%

00:39:43.580 or something under Kennedy. Yeah. Like, unfortunately conditions have changed and there, there really

00:39:49.740 isn't a way to, there's, I mean, but there, you know, the right falls into the same thing,

00:39:53.600 but there isn't really a way to freeze capitalism and one. Right. And even when they, when they say

00:40:00.160 things like, I mean, again, I, I ultimately support UBI or something like that. And I obviously support

00:40:06.480 the 2k checks, but you know, you see a lot of these, the kind of liberal, like the crystal ball

00:40:12.880 types or, or, you know, these people like, Oh, we need to fight neoliberalism by giving people money

00:40:19.020 or whatever. I mean, keep in mind, um, the Steve Mnuchin supported all this stuff. Like Steve

00:40:24.360 Mnuchin was like the most, he was like our guy behind the scenes. He was like, we need more

00:40:30.440 stimulus, like 4,000 over the barrel. You know, he was, at least that was what was reported. Um,

00:40:37.240 neoliberals are not opposed to something like UBI and they're not necessarily opposed to,

00:40:43.020 you know, 2000 check, $2,000 checks. I think there's some people who are, who want

00:40:47.920 everyone stuck on this hamster wheel, working, working, working. They don't want you to be

00:40:52.300 free from that, but giving people a thousand dollars a month with UBI or 2000 stimulus,

00:40:57.440 that's not really questioning anything. You know, they could create that money and you are now

00:41:05.300 spending it in this financial world order that we could call neoliberalism if you want to,

00:41:11.860 but you're not really questioning anything. And you might actually be saving it

00:41:17.160 from collapsing by doing something like this. And so I think especially, especially when there's

00:41:24.200 such a transfer of power, uh, just with, with, with the way the systems are going in that like,

00:41:30.340 this is another thing is like increasingly no one owns anything and everything is rented.

00:41:34.280 And in the case of Uber and Airbnb, your personal property is now a means of income. You know,

00:41:39.440 your spare room isn't a spare room. It has to be turned into a way for you to generate $500 a month

00:41:44.620 or whatever. So yeah, I mean the, maybe the more short-sighted oligarchs would, would oppose that.

00:41:48.920 But I mean, in the long run, you know, you have, I mean, there was news last week, like Bill Gates

00:41:53.280 is the biggest private landowner in the U S now, which is like, it's getting into weird,

00:41:57.660 like sort of a cyberpunk like territory now with the oligarchs, like, uh, but yeah, it really is.

00:42:06.740 But yeah. So, I mean, at the, at the same time, you know, it really isn't, it isn't a fundamental

00:42:10.740 change. If you have this kind of power shift on this unprecedented.

00:42:14.880 And I think it's actually inevitable. I think, I think UBI, something like UBI is inevitable and

00:42:20.840 that at the end of the day, the oligarchs will support it and they're going to spend that money

00:42:27.280 on Amazon and they're going to continue to rent. I mean, a lot of these technological changes,

00:42:32.920 you know, have, you know, for you in your twenties, like you probably couldn't imagine

00:42:37.980 having a record collection. It just wouldn't make sense unless you're some hipster who owns

00:42:42.700 vinyl or something like that. You know, every song is available on YouTube or Apple music

00:42:48.380 or Spotify or whatever. Um, you know, you might not need a car. Uh, you can't afford because

00:42:56.000 of the financialization of the economy, you can't afford a house because house prices have just

00:43:01.220 ballooned because no one actually buys a house in a weird way. No one even owns a house.

00:43:06.240 I mean, you're paying a mortgage. You don't really own it at some level. And, you know,

00:43:11.620 you could also make a case, you could also make a case that like, in a way like UBI is a kind of

00:43:17.740 concession to lead in that it would be, it would move people away from said demand and, you know,

00:43:25.800 universal healthcare, uh, you know, universal sort of basic services, you know, this like paradigm of

00:43:32.080 social democracy that we've had since the second world war, where, you know, just in virtue of you

00:43:36.480 being a citizen that you're entitled to all these benefits, because that does bring with it a kind

00:43:41.460 of, you know, national consciousness. Like, you know, you see, you can see all, you see like the

00:43:47.180 libertarian ideas tend to grow in, in more multicultural societies. You see like in,

00:43:51.500 in countries in Western Europe, um, blood donations were never a problem. People would

00:43:56.240 donate blood for free. And in the U S it was a big problem for them to get enough blood and plasma

00:44:00.400 there to offer financial incentives. So, you know, you see how, how having that, that kind of, um,

00:44:06.540 you know, basic sort of Norweic model of, of, uh, of social welfare in a state can lead to a kind

00:44:11.560 of social cohesion that doesn't benefit neoliberalism. And so you can see how it is a kind of concession that,

00:44:17.460 you know, instead of giving you free healthcare, free education,

00:44:19.940 cradle to grave benefits, this kind of thing that you, you just, you take your check as kind

00:44:24.460 of an atomized consumer that everyone in society gets, regardless of, of race, religion,

00:44:29.500 It makes demands on you, the state. I mean, this is, I mean, there's a massive difference between

00:44:35.000 FDR work programs where, you know, and again, you could make a libertarian argument against these

00:44:41.220 or whatever, but you know, of employing people to build roads or build, I've actually visited places

00:44:48.180 in the United States that were FDR projects that were, um, you know, kind of public lands or little

00:44:53.380 wilderness areas or hiking trails and things like that. And, you know, you are employing them for

00:45:00.160 the better, betterment of society. Um, you know, our national park system, which is actually a really

00:45:05.420 great thing was, you know, created as a, you know, not just to conserve wilderness, but, but, but also as

00:45:11.120 a kind of nationalist agenda, um, by people like Theodore Roosevelt and Madison Grant and, you know,

00:45:17.700 other people like that. I mean, fascism was a way of, of almost like forcing people to participate.

00:45:25.140 You know, it's like, we're going to make you get out there in the center of Rome and hold a dagger

00:45:31.240 above your head and declare your allegiance to the state. That, that is fascism on a basic level.

00:45:37.140 Now that you, that word is obviously overused, but at this point in civilizational decline,

00:45:43.920 it's just kind of like, yeah, give me my money, bro. You know, and buying weed and ordering shit 0.98

00:45:51.580 on Amazon and hanging out and working less, but you don't have to work as much because, you know,

00:45:58.980 McDonald's is automated and it is a, like, I, I, I think the paradigm of the last man where there

00:46:06.780 are no demands, he is absolutely content and there are no demands made on him by the state or the

00:46:13.960 family or the church or whatever. And he does not make any demands on himself. That is where we're

00:46:20.360 headed. And I don't, you know, I can, I do support UBI because I realize the like level at which people

00:46:30.080 are getting screwed over, but I'm not going to ever claim that this is like a new paradigm or like

00:46:36.740 we're saving the white race or whatever, or this is going to be so great. No, this is UBI is the next 0.97

00:46:43.940 neoliberal trick. If you want to use language like that, it's, it's the next stage of this

00:46:49.920 financialization of the economy, the end of production, the end of the state as a center

00:46:56.560 order that, you know, that you owe, you have a responsibility towards, uh, and so on. It is

00:47:03.260 generating a last man. It's generating a kind of sleeplessness. I, there's the famous scene in,

00:47:08.580 uh, uh, inception, maybe not so famous, but I thought it was one of the most

00:47:13.860 amazing scenes, um, where, you know, Cobb or the protagonist walks in and there are these just

00:47:20.440 people who are just asleep all the time. They're on this cocktail where they are just living a

00:47:28.660 amazing dream. Um, that is the kind of world that we're headed towards much more than, you know,

00:47:37.500 the, the, the way it's presented by left-wing YouTube or, you know, these people where it's

00:47:43.120 like, Oh, let's just go back to the fifties where everyone's, you know, proud to be an American and

00:47:47.780 everyone's middle-class. And, uh, we, you know, you can have a family of four or whatever. That's

00:47:53.360 not where we're headed. And, and all of these systems that are now possible, you know, UBI has

00:48:01.180 like 40 or 50% support or something. It's remarkable. Um, all these things are now possible because

00:48:07.040 they're, they're sustainable within the current paradigm. And, and I, and I would say that they're

00:48:13.140 kind of like the last gasp of this paradigm. They're not even pretending to be bourgeois anymore.

00:48:18.920 You know, it's like, we're not even pretending to say work hard. You'll get a gold watch after

00:48:23.800 you've been in the corporation for 30 years, you might have a summer home, but you'll definitely

00:48:27.360 have a car and your wife can stay home and take care of the kids and use her dishwasher. 1.00

00:48:31.420 They're not even doing that. They're now basically saying, you know, hang out with

00:48:37.060 your beds, uh, video games, masturbate, and we'll send you $2,000 instantly into your 0.95

00:48:44.620 checking account and you can buy more stuff you don't need on Amazon. 0.99

00:48:49.700 Yeah. I mean, you still, you still see sort of remnants of this in Europe anyway, which

00:48:54.360 is like, you know, you'll find like the, you know, there's like a certain type of sort

00:48:59.160 of old school person that like, they might be out of work and they'd be entitled to unemployment

00:49:03.120 benefits, but they just, it had never even crossed their mind to apply for them or like

00:49:07.000 a common complaint you'll get from people in, in, well, in Ireland anyways, like they'll

00:49:11.820 complain about all the, you know, like the immigrants that just arrived and they've got 1.00

00:49:15.540 a social house and they've got all this benefits and they've, you know, they've replying for

00:49:20.260 five different social welfare checks. And it's like, well, you know, you know, you're

00:49:24.720 probably entitled to half of that yourself. Like what, why haven't you applied for

00:49:27.560 that? But it's like, there's still that kind of, you know, there's still that way of looking

00:49:31.420 at social welfare as like, you know, this is our collective pot and it's there for the

00:49:35.060 least fortunate. And it's like a terrible thing to draw on it if you're not entitled

00:49:38.940 to it, which I mean, in some ways it's kind of, yeah, it's, it's admirable. But I mean,

00:49:45.760 it's, it's one of those things it's like, there's, there's a lot of white people I think

00:49:48.720 in the U S are probably entitled to a lot of benefits and they're just not drawn on them.

00:49:52.940 It's not something to even consider. So it's, it's almost becoming like a hindrance

00:49:56.640 for the white working class. But yeah, I mean, that is something, that's something we're

00:49:59.580 going to lose. And it's another thing that makes people more atomized and harder to organize

00:50:04.480 because like you said, you know, when everyone has their $2,000 check and they're all watching

00:50:08.680 Netflix and smoking pot, it's like, you know, on what collective interest you even organize

00:50:13.680 them around, you know, everything, it's just a further reduction of everything being to

00:50:17.380 economic units, everyone being an atomized consumer, you know, someone even conceiving of

00:50:22.380 themselves as part of a race or an ethnic group when they're in a country that's a, you

00:50:28.160 know, a hodgepodge of different groups that are all getting the $2,000 check, all buying

00:50:32.060 the same things. Yeah. It's a, it's a further, you know, it's a further step down that, that

00:50:37.340 road of atomization. But I mean, at the same time, I wouldn't, at the same time, you know,

00:50:42.260 like you said, this is kind of an inevitable process. You know, I do see like people on the

00:50:45.740 right constantly coming out against UBI, like, oh, they'll, they'll turn it off for white

00:50:49.680 people. And if you say, if you say something racist on Twitter, you'll stop getting your

00:50:53.800 check, which is like, you know, for all of the private platform and we've seen, you know,

00:50:59.920 I kind of like try and think of like major sort of, you know, like what, what major, like

00:51:04.480 alt-right figures and getting their posts delivered or something.

00:51:07.360 Exactly. Last time I checked, my PO box still works.

00:51:11.140 But yeah, I mean, it's that thing again, like it's, it's, you know, it's like, what's your

00:51:14.860 word? However, I can't use PayPal or YouTube, you know?

00:51:18.760 Right. I mean, you know, Mark Collette and Laura Taylor recently had their bank account

00:51:22.340 shut down in the UK, which is like, you know, that's a problem of a lack of, of government

00:51:27.160 interference. So, I mean, it should be an issue. It's one of those things that's like, if we're

00:51:30.360 moving to a post-industrial economy and these things are inevitable, like, you know, are you

00:51:35.320 going to just sort of scream on the sidelines about whatever, whatever the latest conspiracy

00:51:41.260 is that this is Bill Gates doing it to like, you know, starve right-wingers or something,

00:51:47.720 or are you going to try and be ahead of the curve and sort of make this an issue that you

00:51:51.380 can frame around identity? Yeah. It's, it's one of those things like you have to acknowledge

00:51:55.780 that this is kind of, you know, this is another step down the road of, of a long process that's

00:52:00.600 really bad for us. But at the same time, you know, what, what really are the options

00:52:05.240 here? Right.

00:52:06.660 And what's the alternative? Well, it's going to collapse and

00:52:12.300 something new. I mean, I, I, I, that, that is the only alternative. I mean, I'm, I, and I'm not

00:52:19.320 trying to be depressive or something by saying what I said about things like UBI. Cause I, I think

00:52:25.040 there, there is, there's also kind of like an interesting development over the past four years

00:52:29.500 or five years with, um, with Trump to a large degree, but on the alt-right where you have a lot

00:52:35.880 of people sounding like Bernie Sanders, but they, they do have a sense of identity and so on.

00:52:40.740 And I, I am throwing cold water on that to a large degree. Um, I'm not prepped because I, I see this

00:52:48.880 as kind of, I see a lot of these, you know, latest things as kind of like a late stage of this current

00:52:55.620 paradigm. And that means that we're going to have a new one maybe in our lifetime and it's going to

00:53:00.920 collapse and we'll have something new and it's going to be amazing. And I hope we can, uh, have

00:53:06.940 a say in what it looks like. So I, I'm ultimately very optimistic, but, um, I'm, you know, highly,

00:53:14.920 you know, I, I don't know, I'm not pessimistic. I'm just realistic about what all this stuff actually

00:53:19.040 is, uh, in the short term. Yeah.

00:53:22.340 But this is a great conversation. Go ahead.

00:53:25.000 I probably wouldn't be as pessimistic about the, the sort of embrace of sort of old school

00:53:29.680 economic populism among national leaders. Because I mean, what you've seen the last few

00:53:33.880 days is like everyone is, you know, you get an event like this, a black swan event, or maybe

00:53:39.240 this is a gray swan event. I'm not sure how you start the swans out again, but, and suddenly

00:53:44.380 you have like millions of people, um, turning to economic populism and getting this sort of

00:53:50.340 anti-elitist sentiment. And it's like, what's been offered on the left is so terrible because

00:53:55.140 the amount of leftists and, and like mainstream left that has been like sort of subtly counter

00:54:01.740 signaling this because, uh, you know, because the anti-semites got involved or, you know,

00:54:06.980 it wasn't like the coalition isn't gender queer enough or something. Um, you know, if you can

00:54:12.400 forecast that, that kind of collapse that is coming, it seems like the best way to be ahead

00:54:17.420 of the curve is for the right to kind of own that position. Um, that there's clearly,

00:54:22.100 there's clearly like a kind of market demand for, but the left isn't satisfying.

00:54:27.720 Yeah. This is a great conversation. I'm glad. Cause I think we went deep and, uh, but then

00:54:33.680 also went shallow, you could say, and talked about what was happening immediately. So, um,

00:54:38.020 yeah, it was a great conversation. Thanks, Keith.

00:54:47.420 Yeah. And we're both, uh, we're both approving that everyone listening and put all their money

00:54:51.920 into, into Dogecoin. Oh yeah. Or some even more esoteric or bizarre cryptocurrency that has a funny

00:55:00.660 name. I would just, just put it all on red. Yeah. All on Doge. What is Dogecoin? It's like a dog.

00:55:09.580 Is that what it is? Like, yeah. Is it a Shiba they call it? Like a Japanese Shiba is the name

00:55:16.800 of the dog. Oh, is it that famous dog? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the coin is just like a copy

00:55:23.120 of another coin, like light coin. And it was openly just started as, as a joke. Yeah. But it's like,

00:55:29.180 it has as much value as any other. But it's that famous dog that was like at a train station.

00:55:34.600 Isn't there some like story about him? They did a movie or something. I think,

00:55:38.980 I don't know. Maybe I'm conflating famous dogs.

00:55:43.220 Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, Doge is such a part of the internet now. It's just like,

00:55:47.920 yeah. Yeah. Put it, put it all in Doge. Just, just don't sue me for saying that because I'm obviously

00:55:54.980 joking. Okay. All right.

00:56:04.600 Bye.

00:56:06.500 Bye.

00:56:11.080 Bye.

00:56:12.280 Bye.

00:56:12.980 Bye.

00:56:17.280 Bye.

00:56:18.680 Bye.

00:56:29.680 Bye.

00:56:32.640 Bye.

00:56:33.640 Bye.

00:56:34.600 We'll be right back.

RadixJournal - February 02, 2021

GameStop： The End of the American Empire

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