The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVEW： Brokenomics ｜ The basis of US Empire is the Petrodollar

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Brokonomics. Now, in this episode I wanted to give a special shout-out

00:00:27.520 to my American critics. But before I do, let me assure you that I am a proper MAGA-tard,

00:00:34.660 just like you. I've been on the MAGA train since very early on, maybe not the escalator or the

00:00:40.440 first debate, because if you remember the first debate in whatever it was, was that 2016, 2015,

00:00:44.980 something like that? Our man Donald, he didn't speak much in the first debate because he was

00:00:51.160 kind of studying the other guys and he was working out how to beat them. And then he came out swinging

00:00:56.540 in the second debate and i've been on the maga train since then so i like the man i like maga

00:01:03.620 i like america very much fully on board right with all of this stuff um however i do think

00:01:12.140 that the iran stuff is just bloody silly for a whole number of reasons i don't think are being

00:01:18.540 properly considered so i wanted to get my bona fides in place yes pro america pro maga that 0.90

00:01:25.680 doesn't mean that i think that this isn't bonkers for the reasons i'm going to explain and the way

00:01:32.600 i'm framing it like this right is because um you know here at lotus eaters not just lotus eaters

00:01:37.540 but a whole bunch of commentators have been um pouring cold water on this idea i mean the most

00:01:43.140 obvious of which is is tucker carlson but then because he's american he can kind of get away

00:01:46.800 with it and people people just call him i don't know what they pretend he's like a kuwaiti asset

00:01:52.560 or something like that or whatever and a whole bunch of um you know my american friends in the

00:01:57.980 in the sort of podcasting world um they're all dead against it as well but again they kind of

00:02:03.900 get away with it but what i've been noticing is those of us who um as you can tell even even though

00:02:08.860 i'm a magotard i am british as you can tell from the attractive pin and also the suave and

00:02:14.760 sophisticated accent that i deploy that probably makes you like me quite a lot um we we've been

00:02:21.420 making content um basically suggesting that this isn't great and our comment section is filling up

00:02:29.320 and it's filling up with people who are basically i mean what happened is is the merica switch has

00:02:37.400 been switched right and this is going to sound like a criticism of you chaps honestly it's not

00:02:45.020 i love the fact that you have america switch and as soon as that switch is switched you guys would

00:02:51.020 nuke the vatican like there is there is like it's it's just it's just instant it's just war right

00:02:57.100 and that's great um it shows a level of national self-confidence and solidity that is actually

00:03:06.280 quite essential for an empire you know you wouldn't want the you wouldn't want genghis 1.00

00:03:11.020 khan's horsemen to not have the the genghis switch would you you know you when the switch

00:03:17.240 is switched you want them to be raping and pillaging and and setting cities on fire without 0.71

00:03:23.440 a second thought that's the only way that empire can really work so so it's not a criticism um what

00:03:29.580 it is is is saying that when the switch is switched you've got to be careful that you don't end up 0.93

00:03:36.460 doing something that sets your own ass on fire and and that i think is what is happening right 0.88

00:03:41.140 so can we establish i like you go and and i'll explain i explain why i like you guys um because 0.98

00:03:47.880 i don't really see any difference i mean i see myself as an anglo primarily not i mean i i do

00:03:55.360 see myself as british or primarily english really but um i'm an anglo really that's that's what i

00:04:02.260 personally identify as um the anglo are a people who have existed for a very long time and i've

00:04:08.820 i've got my dna results i go back something like to basically my ancestors were walking up britain

00:04:15.020 behind the bloody ice sheet retreating whenever it was like 40 000 years ago i've been here a long

00:04:21.620 time i um i am i'm very much of these isles and these isles have produced people that have then

00:04:27.860 gone off to canada australia new zealand and america and okay fine you might be um an african

00:04:34.920 american watching this if you're if you're an american you might well you might be something

00:04:38.060 else but um if if you're um you know a standard american you're probably an anglo right or heavily

00:04:46.060 anglo um my ancestors and your ancestors not very long ago were probably you know working a medieval 0.59

00:04:54.000 field in somerset together or something like that right and i know i know some of you um you know

00:05:00.740 especially i don't want to be unkind but the lower iq ones of you can get very hung up on the whole 0.98

00:05:06.960 kind of um are we a border uh this and you know we kicked your ass in 1776 which is i mean fine i 0.96

00:05:16.680 mean that's technically wrong that was that was that was a british civil war but you know whatever 0.53

00:05:20.600 because the america did not exist until the treaty of paris so there's only ever been one war between

00:05:26.780 the british and the americans and that was the war of 1812 and we won it but yeah i'm not i'm not

00:05:31.600 focusing on that at all right to me any minor disputes that there might have been with civil

00:05:39.160 war i'm an anglo you're probably an anglo and i think that 40 000 years of commingling matters

00:05:47.240 significantly more than how we happen to end up getting on a ship or didn't get in on a ship or

00:05:53.820 the bloody mayfowl or whatever a few years ago right so i want anglos everywhere to succeed

00:06:01.000 even the australians right and and very much you guys uh and so look i want your success

00:06:09.120 nothing that i'm going to say is in any way um me uh trying to wish you ill or having you know bad

00:06:19.480 sentiment towards you chap because i think that would be insane that that would be like

00:06:24.360 me attacking my brother or something just just completely unnecessary so so have i established

00:06:29.740 clearly i want you guys to win right and in 30 years time i want the global hegemon 0.94

00:06:37.320 to be america not china or india or fucking brazil right america 0.93

00:06:46.020 just because i'm 100 behind you guys doesn't mean that i can't say that current actions 0.95

00:06:58.500 by my good pal donald well i've never met the man but if we did meet we'd get on brilliantly

00:07:04.560 we'd love each other right doesn't mean that certain key tenants of empire are not being

00:07:12.180 undermined right sorry where was i uh i was halfway through a rant and then the studio blew up i don't

00:07:17.880 know why but it did maybe it was a good rant anyway but i think i think where i had got to

00:07:23.640 uh about an hour ago is that um yeah i want a mirror to succeed i still think that this is a

00:07:30.480 bloody stupid idea right a bit more caveats and then i'll get into my full argument uh the caveats

00:07:35.860 is is that in the past old donald has shown genius for extracting himself from bad decisions 0.96

00:07:43.680 relatively quickly before they get costly and this has given rise to um you know the term taco

00:07:50.500 trump always chickens out which i think is a bit unfair i didn't like the minnesota thing i think

00:07:55.860 if any if you're going to deploy the 101st airborne anywhere it should have been minnesota

00:08:00.140 uh because you've got to get those deportations done but but no he he has extracted himself in

00:08:05.460 the past from military adventures like the 12 day war last time the issue is right is that i look at

00:08:11.040 it like if you've got a good mate and i and i'm going to call him here mr america and here he is

00:08:18.520 mr america my good mate and i like him he's got a lot of the same interests as i have a lot of the

00:08:25.240 same things that appeal to him appeal to me and i like that and and here he is in situ good chap

00:08:30.220 if if you are at least in your late 20s but certainly by your 30s you will understand what

00:08:37.340 i'm about to describe you have a good mate and you want the best for him and he gets himself a

00:08:43.160 new woman and in about five minutes you can sniff out that this chick is no good i suppose it applies 1.00

00:08:50.200 for women as well if you've got women friends and actually i've had i have had this i have had

00:08:54.080 women friends who have got a new squeeze and I've sussed out within like two minutes that this guy 1.00

00:09:00.420 is a wrong and he's no good but you try telling her that that dude is no good even if you're right

00:09:08.780 you will get zero thanks and even when it comes to a mate right and I've had I've had this a

00:09:13.040 couple of times I'm thinking of a couple of examples in my life a chap I know has got with

00:09:18.900 girl and i can just see like this is not going to end well it's not she's she's gonna she's gonna

00:09:27.340 pressure you and the type i'm thinking of is the type of chick who is obsessed with keeping up with 1.00

00:09:33.420 her friends yoga class and she will make you work ridiculous amounts of hours um at your quantity 0.99

00:09:40.740 surveyors or your bloody software job or whatever the hell it is you do uh so that she can have a 1.00

00:09:47.300 better holiday than the people at her yoga class or a better kitchen or an extension and stuff 0.96

00:09:52.580 right and then you'll have two or three kids and then she'll leave you anyway because she was 1.00

00:09:57.680 always a fucking disaster zone to begin with have you ever had that right and you've tried to tell 0.96

00:10:03.020 your mate this relationship is bad for you i know you're besotted by it i know you love it i know it 0.99

00:10:09.800 gives you the feels but this is going to lead you to a bad place right they don't thank you for it

00:10:17.140 and mr america he's got himself in a uh in a relationship which and i and i want the best

00:10:24.440 for the anglos right i've got i've got no problem with israel you know or anywhere really but unless

00:10:32.440 you're an anglo or an anglo country quite frankly i don't give a toss because you're not mine 1.00

00:10:37.880 uk america and what the other ones australia new zealand canada yeah all of them right i like them

00:10:44.680 they're anglos i've got your back i don't think that this relationship that you're in

00:10:51.200 is good for you now at this point again preempting the avalanche of comments that i know are going

00:10:58.220 to be under the youtube version of this video i'm going to loads of people saying oh a israel

00:11:05.160 doesn't control america blah blah blah you're overstating how many of these comments are

00:11:10.100 genuine and how many bots in tel aviv i've no bloody idea um but the point and there will be

00:11:16.760 loads because i've seen them over the loads over the other comments and i'm looking at this and

00:11:20.180 thinking are that many americans really in love with israel first i don't know whatever but it's

00:11:26.220 bit suspect bit suspect if you are if you are commenting under the youtube version of this

00:11:31.700 please say if you're a bot or not because it would really help me distinguish between which

00:11:39.700 of you are genuinely america first or somewhere else first anyway um so i i think that you're in

00:11:47.760 a bad relationship which is not serving your interest the second thing i wanted to say is

00:11:53.620 the the other type of comment that i get thrown at me is um oh america is number one i mean yeah

00:12:00.500 it is but and it will say things like oh we're going to sort out the straight and then we charge

00:12:06.400 you a fee for going through it and stuff like that you have to understand that the way that

00:12:13.340 the american empire is built is you are already doing that that is what the dollar reserve system

00:12:19.560 is that is what the petrodollar system is the model of empire has always been the same going

00:12:26.860 back to the you know bloody syrians acadians sumerians whatever it is the model of empire 1.00

00:12:33.000 is that you leave your home carrying a sword and you come back with treasure that's how it works

00:12:39.680 right and as time has gone by that model is updated so by the time it got to the british

00:12:46.480 it was we're going to go out with our muskets um and and we're gonna we're gonna fire at the 0.93

00:12:53.460 fuzzy wuzzies until they comply and then what we're going to do is we're going to get them

00:12:58.880 to do the lowest tier of labor which is extraction of resources and then you're going to put it on

00:13:05.020 British boats and then they're going to go back to England with bales of bloody tea or tin or 0.99

00:13:12.840 whatever it is and then we are going to make our economic machine work by taking those raw resources

00:13:19.640 and turning them into stuff you know fortunes like Cadbury's were established because boats

00:13:24.300 load of cocoa would turn up and they would they would turn it into chocolate and then they'd ship

00:13:28.660 it out again so our model was resources in stuff gets made stuff goes out we get rich we have a big 0.63

00:13:36.940 navy and if you look at us funny we will blow the crap out of you brilliant right okay the american

00:13:43.140 model of empire is a little bit different it's it's potentially even cleverer but it but it is

00:13:50.400 more vulnerable the american model of empire is but you dig it up you turn it into semiconductors

00:13:59.060 or whatever um bloody trainers whatever it is you dig it up you do the work you do the full 0.63

00:14:07.860 bloody value chain but the energy that goes that you require to make all of that work

00:14:14.300 must be traded in dollars and essentially the system was this this model has kind of evolved

00:14:21.720 over time but essentially what it comes back to is is after the war um america had all the gold

00:14:27.840 and and that was largely as a function of the fact that you didn't have the germans all the

00:14:32.800 japanese well you did have a bit of japanese turning up briefly but that was in hawaii and

00:14:36.700 whatever you you were a safe haven right and you ended up with all the gold because everybody

00:14:42.280 Europe was like oh this is getting dodgy let's send the gold to America and also um you extracted

00:14:48.060 um an absolutely eye-watering amount of extraction from us in order to supply us with stuff while we

00:14:54.880 were fighting the war and stuff the UK the Britain getting into the second world war 0.95

00:14:59.560 in retrospect was bloody stupid because it cost us everything right it dissolved the empire it 0.97

00:15:06.660 screwed us any overseas military presence that we had that was any good the americans just took all 0.99

00:15:13.880 of it right and i can live with that when it's you know anglo to anglo so i don't care whatever

00:15:18.880 well i do care a bit i'd rather it was still the british empire but it's not whatever but i can

00:15:22.660 live with it you being americans and you know i could i could i could see myself if you'd have me

00:15:28.400 i could see myself relocating to somewhere i don't know where tennessee maybe and or virginia

00:15:34.060 No, you've got to think about the demographics, haven't you?

00:15:37.700 I don't want to end up in Maine because they're all mental there.

00:15:40.780 But you take my point, right?

00:15:42.920 I can see myself in either outlet of the Anglosphere, fine, right?

00:15:49.560 But the American deal is you do everything,

00:15:53.660 but you buy your energy in dollars, right?

00:15:58.600 And then you've got loads of dollars.

00:16:01.060 and the dollar is the is the global currency reserve so you've got loads and loads of what

00:16:06.800 are you then going to do it's like oh bugger i've got all these dollars well i know i'll buy u.s

00:16:11.440 treasuries or put it in the stock market and that is why the american stock market is such 0.59

00:16:17.580 it's unlike the stock market anywhere else in the world it's flush with capital and the american

00:16:23.500 tax system is heavily reliant on gains in the stock market which is why the bloody thing always

00:16:29.440 goes up one way or another they make sure it always goes which is why my my investments that

00:16:33.980 i make personally are in american stocks because it's why why would you fight that gravitational

00:16:40.160 pull of all that massive amounts of capital so you don't even do the resources well you do a bit

00:16:45.760 and get it said back but not a lot basically you let your vassals do everything as long as

00:16:52.680 they're doing it in dollars and then when they got too many dollars they go to the u.s you get

00:16:59.660 to export little pieces of paper with the president's face on and treasury bills so you're

00:17:05.460 sending out bits of paper and you're getting in semiconductors and trainers and you know whatever

00:17:11.720 else that is your model of empire you are already extracting your imperial tithes and what has

00:17:23.380 happened over the the one thing that the the lack of insight that that trump does and i don't

00:17:29.060 criticize him often but he does have a lack of understanding on this stuff right trump has

00:17:33.280 pushed out the the narrative that everybody is free riding on america no no no no that's because

00:17:41.320 you've internalized the dollar system and haven't appreciated that that is your system of imperial

00:17:49.280 tithes that's how the capital flows back it is built into the system and then americans that 0.83

00:17:56.120 have come on who have no recollection of the immediate post-war period where a lot of this

00:18:00.720 was established have internalized it forgotten the basis of it and then said okay well where

00:18:08.300 our imperial tithes it's already built in you're already getting it and and explicitly the deal

00:18:15.740 with the deal with um you know the the the you know the gold system post the end of the war

00:18:20.160 is america had all the gold and it didn't want to send it back because people started turning up and

00:18:25.200 say all right the war's over now let's have our gold back and the americans thought about it for

00:18:28.880 a little while and they said i'll tell you what why don't we keep it and you could just use the

00:18:34.680 pieces of paper with the president's face on it instead but it will be as good as gold so you

00:18:41.280 don't need it back do you and everyone else said oh yeah that's a good idea so everybody used a 0.66

00:18:46.580 dollar and then in 1971 nixon was like oh shit we've run out we've run out of gold and this this

00:18:54.920 government spending stuff yeah that's quite good that we want we want to keep doing that so they 0.95

00:19:00.040 broke the connection with gold. And that was a sticky five minutes for America. And they

00:19:07.480 had to scramble around. And there's a bit of an energy crisis back in the 70s. And it's

00:19:11.600 like, oh, bugger, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going 0.94

00:19:13.960 to do? And then old Saudi pops up. And at this point, Saudi was really motoring with 0.99

00:19:21.460 its oil. And some smart, very smart American went to the House of Saud and said, look, I tell you

00:19:30.500 what, you're a bunch of corrupt, entitled bastards at the top of Saudi Arabia. We like you. But the 1.00

00:19:38.420 only problem is, is you've got millions of savages all over your country that would tear you apart 1.00

00:19:43.800 the first moment they got. And you've also got hostile Arab states all around you, who would 0.67

00:19:50.420 also tear you apart the first moment they get a chance. So I'll tell you what, if you agree

00:19:56.940 to only sell energy in dollars, we will provide you security guarantees. We will make sure the

00:20:06.460 House of Saud gets to live like spoiled, corrupt bastards forever. We'll send you all the tanks, 1.00

00:20:14.680 we'll give you all the military bases, whatever. You just sell that energy in dollars. And they

00:20:20.160 thought about this? And they said, yeah, that's actually quite a good deal. We're going to do

00:20:24.280 that. And having got that keystone client in place, the Americans then went around to everybody else

00:20:31.480 and said, you see that deal we've done was sold? And they're like, yeah, that's quite a good deal

00:20:35.840 that. And they said, well, we're going to do a similar deal. The only difference is in that your

00:20:40.820 deal, you either sell your energy in dollars or you're going to end up with a spike up your ass. 0.99

00:20:47.000 and uh they thought about it and they said yeah it's actually still quite a good deal so 0.98

00:20:54.020 so we're going to go for that and they get the odd they get the odd military base as well

00:20:58.100 every so often a qaddafi or a saddam hussein forgets the deal and they get the spike up the 0.98

00:21:04.980 ass they get sodomized with a bayonet uh because they get turfed out uh and you know invaded and 0.99

00:21:10.980 the rest of it so pretty much the arabs understood this the world understood it the arabs yeah we do 0.85

00:21:19.320 energy we have the american military bases we're selling dollars everybody uses dollars everybody 0.88

00:21:25.800 has to use dollars massive demand for dollars shit too many dollars let's buy treasuries let's 0.90

00:21:31.560 buy u.s stock market right potentially right and i can't can't really fault it as long as as long 0.93

00:21:39.440 as that is working that is a genius model of resource extraction of imperial tithes 0.98

00:21:48.900 because you're getting paper for stuff as long as you don't fuck with it and that is what this 0.97

00:21:55.680 iran war is doing it is undermining your imperial tithes system so when i get all these angry 0.99

00:22:05.000 comments saying blah blah all the shit that comes out me um i'm thinking yeah but you haven't thought 0.93

00:22:12.860 it through you haven't understood what american power ultimately rests on you might think it's 1.00

00:22:21.260 your ability to blow shit up it's actually your ability to afford to be able to blow shit up 0.97

00:22:28.900 right the american military is big nowhere near as big as it was during the time of the iraq war 0.99

00:22:34.480 which is another factor.

00:22:37.180 The armed forces have been reduced a fair bit since then.

00:22:42.320 But yeah, American power, backed by the Fifth Fleet

00:22:45.520 or whatever way you choose to describe it,

00:22:48.480 the ability to pay for that military presence,

00:22:51.040 which is far larger than it is in other countries,

00:22:54.760 and also the ability to subsidise your problematic,

00:22:58.840 how should we say this, inner city populations

00:23:01.740 who want to have corn syrup poured down their throats 1.00

00:23:06.660 so they don't stab people on buses, that kind of thing.

00:23:09.300 You get to do the gibs. 0.81

00:23:11.580 You get domestic gibs, foreign explosions.

00:23:15.540 Empire system, people at the top bloody love it.

00:23:19.320 The capital creators bloody love it

00:23:21.340 because they've got incredibly deep capital markets

00:23:24.380 where they can start their new tech venture

00:23:26.980 or whatever the hell it is they're trying to do.

00:23:29.460 Banks love it.

00:23:31.740 the american population themselves get a reasonable deal out of it because they get

00:23:37.500 they get access to resources around them they don't get to see much of them

00:23:40.780 if you're the appellations you know you get a bit ripped in fact the appellations get really

00:23:44.960 screwed on this because at least with the british model of empire we went out and got stuff and

00:23:49.820 brought it back and everybody had a job whereas in the american system you don't you don't even

00:23:54.240 get the job so unless you can attach yourself to the capital formation or the capital flows

00:24:00.740 you can actually get severely screwed up by this and then end up on opiates and you know in a right

00:24:06.940 mess and stuff and the case i'm going to take you through as we go through this right is that

00:24:13.240 because this is such a nice system you really don't want to mess with it without understanding

00:24:20.980 the mechanisms behind it this is why i'm critical of the iran war it is not because i do not think 0.93

00:24:27.880 that you can blow shit up i know that you can blow shit up and and actually a whole bunch of 0.98

00:24:33.900 comments because i mean god the comments lately it's like who don't you don't you realize that 0.99

00:24:40.640 we are blowing the shit out of them how many americans that why they have actually blown up

00:24:44.400 a few americans and they've taken down was an f-35 recently with their defense but some people 0.95

00:24:50.100 are looking at this like a call of duty game they're looking at the kill deaths assists ratio

00:24:55.280 and they're like yeah we are winning on kills versus deaths and therefore we are winning

00:25:00.680 right that is not the win condition here you will get more kills on the iranians than the

00:25:07.120 iranians will get on you granted but it doesn't matter right because the winning condition for 1.00

00:25:14.780 america is to get back to the situation before the 28th february before bibby got trump

00:25:24.860 to bomb Iran, you want to get back to Straits of Hormuz open, energy being produced, energy being 0.93

00:25:33.260 sold in dollars, and then those dollars flowing back to the US. Your win condition is getting back

00:25:41.460 to three weeks ago. That's not the win condition for Israel. The win condition for Israel is that

00:25:47.680 Iran is not able to exert regional power.

00:25:52.220 The ring condition for Iran is to raise the costs of empire on you guys 0.99

00:25:58.780 to a point where everybody else looks at this system and is like,

00:26:04.420 well, bugger me, this dollar thing isn't working out for us.

00:26:09.280 Maybe we want to sell in something else.

00:26:12.180 Maybe we want our reserves in gold or yuan.

00:26:15.100 maybe still 70% of the dollar,

00:26:18.340 but even going from bloody close to all of it

00:26:21.880 to 50% dollar reserves,

00:26:25.360 the amount of economic harm that will do

00:26:28.920 to the ability to sell treasuries and fund deficits

00:26:32.680 and the capital flows that come into America,

00:26:35.980 they can hurt you a lot just by raising the costs of empire.

00:26:41.380 If you enjoyed that content, and of course you did

00:26:44.360 because you are a smart person,

00:26:46.280 then why don't you go over to lotuseaters.com

00:26:48.740 where you can watch the whole episode

00:26:50.520 for as little as £5 a month,

00:26:53.100 which really is not much money at all

00:26:55.900 and you get loads of really good content.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 24, 2026

PREVEW： Brokenomics ｜ The basis of US Empire is the Petrodollar

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