WEBVTT - Uncovering Capitalism’s Corruption with Raymond Baker 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.450 The Western world's way of capitalism has brought about more 0:00:03.450 --> 0:00:06.780 prosperity than any other system in the history of man. 0:00:06.990 --> 0:00:09.420 But there are those who have corrupted the principles of 0:00:09.420 --> 0:00:14.160 capitalism to benefit themselves without any concern for society in general. 0:00:14.430 --> 0:00:18.720 It's that crony capitalism that's a direct threat to real democracy, 0:00:18.900 --> 0:00:22.890 at least according to our guest today, Raymond Baker. Raymond 0:00:22.890 --> 0:00:26.189 is author of a new book titled Invisible Trillions, and 0:00:26.190 --> 0:00:29.460 he's got some keen insights into what's broken in today's 0:00:29.460 --> 0:00:33.060 financial systems and how to fix it. Klaus Schwab of 0:00:33.060 --> 0:00:36.089 the World Economic Forum may also stop by to share 0:00:36.090 --> 0:00:39.510 his thoughts on eating crickets and the latest in fashion. 0:00:39.690 --> 0:00:43.589 It's the jovial eat the bugs and like it. Episode 0:00:43.590 --> 0:00:48.590 number 664. Of the Bad Crypto podcast. 0:00:48.650 --> 0:00:54.800 503 Are there all. 0:00:55.190 --> 0:00:57.950 The people whose bad? 0:01:17.220 --> 0:01:20.190 The Bad Crypto podcast. Joel, come here. And Klaus Schwab 0:01:20.190 --> 0:01:23.100 has made his way. And Mr. Schwab, how are you, sir? 0:01:23.700 --> 0:01:26.559 I am doing very good. How are you, Mr. Director? 0:01:26.700 --> 0:01:29.520 What is this that you're wearing? It's kind of like 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.060 it's it's Darth Vader ask and you know, who's your 0:01:33.060 --> 0:01:33.960 fashion designer. 0:01:34.170 --> 0:01:37.800 Basically, what I've done is I have taken Dr. Evil 0:01:38.130 --> 0:01:40.350 and I have merged him with the dark from the 0:01:40.350 --> 0:01:43.950 very bad guy from Goldfinger. And I have created this 0:01:44.250 --> 0:01:45.900 I call it my master suit. 0:01:48.870 --> 0:01:51.060 It's not gold member. So you know. 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.880 It's it's don't you will never see my gold member 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:55.860 unless you, by chance see me on the beach. Have 0:01:55.860 --> 0:01:59.610 you seen my beach outfit? Don't google it. Don't google 0:01:59.610 --> 0:02:03.150 that shit. It is very weird, but I call it eclectic. 0:02:03.810 --> 0:02:08.670 Yeah. So Lord Travis also in the building. Just Lord Travis. Now, though, 0:02:08.700 --> 0:02:11.280 we've abandoned the sir. Hello, Good sir. 0:02:11.850 --> 0:02:15.960 Lawrence Lord Travis. Well, we've talked about that. What that 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.990 means because you know it's redundant. I said, Lord, it's fun. 0:02:18.990 --> 0:02:20.850 I like that. It's all good. I well, I don't 0:02:20.850 --> 0:02:21.960 have any complaints about this. 0:02:22.740 --> 0:02:25.800 It's just part of the deal. So great show for 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.389 you guys. Today. I found Raymond Baker, an older gentleman 0:02:30.389 --> 0:02:32.520 who's been around the block of old times. He's got 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.030 this new book coming out and and he has identified 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:42.690 how capitalism functions outside the control of democracy and how 0:02:42.690 --> 0:02:45.540 to link the two again. And we go down all 0:02:45.540 --> 0:02:47.580 the rabbit holes, not just some of them, but all 0:02:47.580 --> 0:02:51.090 of them. And he's also got some thoughts on on crypto. 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.679 And we can discuss his thoughts with our thoughts after 0:02:55.680 --> 0:03:04.030 we hear his thoughts in this interview right now. Timestamp 0:03:04.030 --> 0:03:09.010 the 16th of January 2023. And what in the world 0:03:09.010 --> 0:03:14.770 is happening? Well, in Davos, Switzerland, the unelected officials who 0:03:14.770 --> 0:03:17.799 want to rule the world are meeting at the World 0:03:18.010 --> 0:03:21.250 Economic Forum to decide whether or not we're just going 0:03:21.250 --> 0:03:23.320 to be eating bugs. And you will. 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:23.480 Eat. 0:03:23.650 --> 0:03:26.170 Bugs in. 0:03:26.500 --> 0:03:26.950 Your cell. 0:03:26.950 --> 0:03:27.700 Like I. 0:03:27.700 --> 0:03:30.320 Think maybe you just had a delivery of the bugs. 0:03:30.370 --> 0:03:33.640 There's much protein in the bugs. This is I am 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.550 Klaus Schwab. You will have nothing and you will like 0:03:36.550 --> 0:03:42.430 it anyway. We came upon a an author, a gentleman 0:03:42.430 --> 0:03:45.670 who is well acquainted with the World Economic Forum. He 0:03:45.670 --> 0:03:49.660 is the founder and president of Global Financial Integrity, a 0:03:49.660 --> 0:03:55.030 research and advocacy think tank working to curtail illicit financial 0:03:55.270 --> 0:03:58.120 flows and is a member of the World Economic Forum's 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.110 Council on Illicit Trade. He has written a book that 0:04:02.110 --> 0:04:05.740 is coming out called Invisible Trillions. It is the first 0:04:05.740 --> 0:04:11.440 exposé to reveal the secret financial system dominating capitalism today. 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.800 And for those of you who have balked before at 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:21.460 us saying that blockchain, Bitcoin, crypto and politics are inextricably 0:04:21.460 --> 0:04:25.480 linked together, this should bring an end to that. Raymond 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.870 Baker is his name. So, Raymond, welcome to the Bad 0:04:28.870 --> 0:04:30.010 Crypto podcast. 0:04:30.100 --> 0:04:32.109 Thank you. Pleasure to be with you. 0:04:32.589 --> 0:04:35.230 Did I, did I nailed the intro, right? Is that 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.940 you know, or are the powers that be these unelected 0:04:39.940 --> 0:04:43.780 officials that the WEF wasn't the world's going on their. 0:04:44.529 --> 0:04:48.580 World Economic Forum has always been a social gathering of 0:04:48.580 --> 0:04:55.300 the financial elite, bringing in a fair number of high 0:04:55.300 --> 0:05:04.720 level political figures as well. And there are often protestations 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:14.260 of being in favor of more taxation and balancing equality 0:05:14.260 --> 0:05:16.780 for the people of the world and paying attention to 0:05:16.779 --> 0:05:21.039 the development for the billions and so forth. But basically, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:27.730 it is it is the elite focusing on other elites 0:05:27.730 --> 0:05:34.659 and maintaining the opportunity to exist at a higher level 0:05:34.660 --> 0:05:35.770 than all the rest of us. 0:05:36.910 --> 0:05:40.060 Are they really the elite? Like, it's almost like they're 0:05:40.060 --> 0:05:42.369 the puppets of the elite or something. It seems to 0:05:42.370 --> 0:05:46.180 me like those ones that are elected or quote unquote selected, 0:05:46.180 --> 0:05:49.000 elected or however they get in power. It seems like 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:52.239 there's maybe even somebody behind those guys. Those are their 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:54.460 front the front people or something. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:03.050 Well, you'll get bank executive bank executives at World Economic 0:06:03.050 --> 0:06:09.710 Forum events, bank chairman's corporate chairman's, a lot of wealthy elite, 0:06:09.710 --> 0:06:13.640 such as Bill Gates and others and so forth. So 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.150 it really is a gathering of rich people. It is 0:06:17.150 --> 0:06:21.860 not a gathering that reflects the majority of humanity. 0:06:22.630 --> 0:06:25.880 But is it is it possible that these rich people 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:31.520 have a heavy influence in the direction that the politics 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.280 of the world, the leaders of the world, the policies 0:06:34.580 --> 0:06:38.150 of countries, you know, just how much power and authority 0:06:38.150 --> 0:06:45.589 do they actually have? Not from a hierarchical perspective, but 0:06:45.589 --> 0:06:47.150 from a functional perspective. 0:06:48.850 --> 0:06:52.450 Let's just take the United States as an example and 0:06:52.450 --> 0:06:55.930 then maybe we can extrapolate from there. In the United States, 0:06:55.930 --> 0:07:01.900 there's no question that I'm a high level. Corporate executives 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:09.100 and corporations, through their lobbying expenditures, have a huge impact 0:07:09.430 --> 0:07:15.520 on government processes. I say in my book that capitalism, 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:20.170 as it has come to be practiced in recent decades, 0:07:20.620 --> 0:07:28.270 has basically bought democracy, bought the mechanisms of governance that 0:07:28.270 --> 0:07:32.860 enable the corporations to operate with an enormous amount of 0:07:32.860 --> 0:07:41.350 freedom and flexibility outside of regulation. And in my judgment, 0:07:41.950 --> 0:07:46.060 this has gone so far as to be a threat 0:07:46.330 --> 0:07:51.640 to democracy. Let's take Citizens United, the Supreme Court case. 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:57.520 I just as an example, Citizens United basically says, yes, corporations, 0:07:57.700 --> 0:08:03.520 you can continue to influence elections and propositions before the 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:09.070 people and so forth, to whatever extent you want to. 0:08:09.940 --> 0:08:13.540 This has opened the floodgates even more than in the 0:08:13.540 --> 0:08:18.220 past for corporations to have a decisive impact on the 0:08:18.220 --> 0:08:24.809 processes of government in the democratic. Are currently in a 0:08:24.810 --> 0:08:29.910 position where capitalism is by far the stronger partner in 0:08:29.910 --> 0:08:30.750 that system. 0:08:32.450 --> 0:08:34.760 So. So it's almost it seems to me, because I've 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:38.600 been paying attention to this stuff for about, wow, 23 years. 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.240 I've been paying attention to this stuff. Once I realized 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.350 that the Federal Reserve was not federal, that they created 0:08:45.350 --> 0:08:47.720 a central bank and they printed money out of thin air. 0:08:47.990 --> 0:08:50.300 Then Nixon took us off of the gold standard, right. 0:08:50.300 --> 0:08:52.699 With with Bretton Woods and the how that whole thing worked. 0:08:52.970 --> 0:08:55.010 And then I was like, wait a second. The Federal 0:08:55.010 --> 0:08:57.980 Reserve Bank's never been audited. We don't know how much 0:08:57.980 --> 0:09:01.250 money they've created. We know nothing about that. And then 0:09:01.250 --> 0:09:04.460 in 1913, they created the Federal Reserve Bank and they 0:09:04.460 --> 0:09:09.710 created the IRS and they created this whole central bank system. And, 0:09:09.710 --> 0:09:12.470 you know, we've had Edward Griffin on this show twice 0:09:12.470 --> 0:09:14.690 now talking about a lot of this stuff. And so 0:09:14.900 --> 0:09:16.939 once I realized that I was like, wait a second, 0:09:17.450 --> 0:09:20.420 I lost faith in the whole entire system in a 0:09:20.420 --> 0:09:22.880 lot of ways, right? Because like, how do I trust 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.910 any of these people to have our best interest when 0:09:26.179 --> 0:09:29.270 the bankers are the ones that are controlling things, the people, 0:09:29.270 --> 0:09:33.260 the trustees behind the Federal Reserve Bank. And so let 0:09:33.260 --> 0:09:36.500 me ask you this then, Raymond, based on your research, 0:09:36.950 --> 0:09:39.829 who who, who or who are kind of controlling things, 0:09:39.830 --> 0:09:42.680 who are pulling the strings, when you mentioned some bankers, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.860 you mentioned some politicians, like who Who are we supposed 0:09:45.860 --> 0:09:46.490 to be mad at? 0:09:48.100 --> 0:09:53.890 I think the I think the the people that I 0:09:53.890 --> 0:09:57.939 am most critical of or the are the corporations and 0:09:57.940 --> 0:10:03.550 the banks, corporations make use of what I refer to 0:10:03.550 --> 0:10:08.050 as the financial secrecy system. They use it every day, 0:10:08.050 --> 0:10:12.070 thousands of times a day to move money across borders 0:10:12.850 --> 0:10:18.880 that are extremely difficult to detect beyond the capacity of 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:25.030 local officials to be able to see what's going on. Banks, 0:10:25.030 --> 0:10:28.839 banks in the United States. Let's just take the United States, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:34.050 for example. When bank see money that looks dirty and 0:10:34.050 --> 0:10:37.230 they think it's it's illegal or it's money laundering or 0:10:37.230 --> 0:10:42.200 it's criminal or it's human trafficking or so forth. They 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.260 don't have to reject handling that money. They don't have 0:10:45.260 --> 0:10:48.620 to reject it as a deposit or handling it as 0:10:48.620 --> 0:10:52.040 a transaction. If they think it's dirty, what they have 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.900 to do is to file a report to the U.S. 0:10:56.900 --> 0:11:04.610 Financial Intelligence Unit, which is called FinCEN, the financial criminal 0:11:05.090 --> 0:11:11.469 network investigative arm of the U.S. government. Can you imagine 0:11:11.470 --> 0:11:18.160 how many reports they file a day? 80 files. 0:11:18.370 --> 0:11:22.990 Wow. Thanks. Across the world. Banks across the world. No, no, no. Well. 0:11:23.170 --> 0:11:31.000 U.S.. U.S.. U.S. banks file 80,000 suspicious activities reports and 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:36.370 currency transaction reports a day. Which means that FinCEN, the 0:11:36.370 --> 0:11:42.730 Financial Intelligence Agency, can't begin to see all of this. Basically, 0:11:42.730 --> 0:11:47.309 in the United States, we are prepared to accept them 0:11:47.980 --> 0:11:52.420 as deposits or as transactions that we will handle just 0:11:52.420 --> 0:11:58.030 about every dollar of dirty money that flows. And and 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.120 this is not just the I'm giving you this data 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:04.870 from the United States, but other countries do the same. 0:12:05.260 --> 0:12:07.510 Why do we do this? Why don't we do a 0:12:07.510 --> 0:12:12.130 better job of of looking at the dirty money? In 0:12:12.130 --> 0:12:16.120 my first book, which was called Capitalism's Achilles Heel. I 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:19.929 gave you the answer. The answer is very simple. We 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:25.000 like the money. We like the money that flows into 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:30.520 our economy to balance our trade deficits and fiscal deficits. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.700 And we will find a reason to take just about 0:12:33.700 --> 0:12:37.540 every dollar of dirty money that passes under our noses. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.770 And go figure or somehow inexorably tied to Ukraine because 0:12:41.770 --> 0:12:45.189 they weren't dirty before, and how much money we funneled 0:12:45.190 --> 0:12:47.740 over there for this war. 0:12:48.429 --> 0:12:52.950 This this is a very interesting question. And if you will, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:59.860 let me speculate a little bit on on Putin's motivations. Yes, please. 0:12:59.890 --> 0:13:03.429 Putin and his cronies have, for the past 20 or 0:13:03.429 --> 0:13:09.100 30 years, been robbing Russia, robbing Russia's people, and sending 0:13:09.100 --> 0:13:13.900 the money into Western accounts, into Europe, into the United States, 0:13:13.900 --> 0:13:18.550 and to Cyprus, but always out of Russia and into 0:13:18.580 --> 0:13:22.810 foreign accounts. Now, think of it. Putin sees this going 0:13:22.809 --> 0:13:25.990 on for the past couple of decades. Do you think 0:13:25.990 --> 0:13:30.040 he develops any respect for the moral fiber of the 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:34.660 West when he sees that going on? No. I've known 0:13:34.660 --> 0:13:37.510 lots of criminals in my career. I've never known one 0:13:37.510 --> 0:13:42.490 that respected his fence. The man who handles his stolen property. 0:13:42.820 --> 0:13:46.569 Putin developed no respect for the West, no respect for 0:13:46.570 --> 0:13:50.890 the moral underpinnings of the West. And in my judgment, 0:13:50.890 --> 0:13:57.640 that contributed to his decision to attack Ukraine, thinking that 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:02.230 the West would not come to Ukraine's defense. Now, he 0:14:02.230 --> 0:14:05.829 was wrong. What he failed to understand is that there's 0:14:05.830 --> 0:14:11.560 a difference between our financial integrity and our national security integrity. 0:14:11.770 --> 0:14:14.679 And so we did come to the defense of of 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.250 of Ukraine. But in my judgment, part of the reason 0:14:18.470 --> 0:14:22.210 that Putin made the most made the decision to go 0:14:22.210 --> 0:14:27.280 into Ukraine was lack of respect for the West. And 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.580 that came about very much as a result of our 0:14:30.580 --> 0:14:34.870 providing the outlet for all the money that he could 0:14:34.870 --> 0:14:37.630 steal from Russia. As I say, you don't respect the 0:14:37.630 --> 0:14:41.290 person that handled your dirty money. 0:14:41.710 --> 0:14:43.900 Mm hmm. Well, in my book, it doesn't matter if 0:14:43.900 --> 0:14:46.750 you're from Russia, you're from Ukraine, you're from the United States, 0:14:46.750 --> 0:14:50.050 you're from the UK. Wherever there. It's a den of 0:14:50.050 --> 0:14:52.180 thieves in a lot of ways. And when we saw 0:14:52.180 --> 0:14:56.200 that with the Panama Papers. Right. We see where people 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.780 are doing this stuff. We know. And then now we 0:14:58.780 --> 0:15:02.230 know that money went to Ukraine from the U.S. government 0:15:02.230 --> 0:15:05.170 was then given to FCX, which is a crypto exchange, 0:15:05.350 --> 0:15:07.720 and then given back to the unit party, given back 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.660 to people on the right and people on the left. Right, 0:15:10.660 --> 0:15:13.479 mostly on the left. But it's kind of a unit 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.850 party from what I can, from from my judgment, from 0:15:15.850 --> 0:15:20.230 what I've ascertained over the years. And so what is 0:15:20.230 --> 0:15:22.660 it going to take to maybe clean this stuff up? 0:15:22.660 --> 0:15:26.920 Because it's not country specific. It's at least specific in 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.770 a lot of ways. The rich get richer and they 0:15:29.770 --> 0:15:32.920 keep creating money out of thin air, donating it to 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.180 certain causes and then laundering it back to their own cause. 0:15:36.190 --> 0:15:37.600 It's it's unbelievable. 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.330 You hit the nail on the head. We're dealing with 0:15:40.330 --> 0:15:45.580 a systemic problem, not a bunch of little particular problems. 0:15:45.910 --> 0:15:50.340 You mentioned Panama Papers. Panama Papers is headed by Gerard Ryle, 0:15:50.380 --> 0:15:55.910 friend of mine. He's coming to Washington next. Week and 0:15:56.130 --> 0:16:01.770 next month to participate with us in something. Jared Ryle 0:16:01.770 --> 0:16:06.900 and I have exchanged the conversation with each other over 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:11.130 how we have been fighting all of this illegal dealings 0:16:11.430 --> 0:16:15.900 for decades and not making enough progress. Not only do 0:16:15.900 --> 0:16:18.630 you have the Panama Papers, you have the Pandora papers, 0:16:18.630 --> 0:16:22.200 you have the Angola Papers, you have. But Jared has 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.850 been doing this across eight or ten different reports now. 0:16:27.090 --> 0:16:30.480 And he and I have lamented we're not making enough 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:39.570 progress in changing these realities. And so Jared has has 0:16:41.580 --> 0:16:46.260 endorsed the back of my book. Incidentally, Jared, the head 0:16:46.260 --> 0:16:53.100 of of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. We're not making 0:16:53.100 --> 0:16:55.380 enough progress in cleaning this stuff up. 0:16:55.710 --> 0:16:56.000 Well. 0:16:56.670 --> 0:17:00.330 How do you demand this? 0:17:00.510 --> 0:17:04.080 Yeah. So how do you do that when the powers 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.970 that be that are driving policy have, you know, the 0:17:07.980 --> 0:17:11.490 hands in their pockets or those of these corporations? I mean, look, 0:17:11.490 --> 0:17:15.750 we're big, we're capitalists, we're big fans of capitalism. Socialism 0:17:15.750 --> 0:17:20.820 is not exactly opposite, but it's the other major alternative, which, 0:17:20.820 --> 0:17:23.580 of course, leads to death, despair and destruction. 0:17:23.790 --> 0:17:27.870 Yes, we are against crony capitalism. Yes. I'm big on capitalism. 0:17:27.869 --> 0:17:31.260 I'm big on the constitutional republic, but I'm against and 0:17:31.260 --> 0:17:33.930 most people are against crony capitalism. Right. 0:17:34.290 --> 0:17:39.060 I agree with you. How do we solve the problems 0:17:39.060 --> 0:17:43.740 that I'm dealing with that Gerard Ryle is dealing with and 0:17:43.740 --> 0:17:46.890 a lot of other organizations are dealing with. I call 0:17:46.890 --> 0:17:49.830 about this. I said to you, I wrote my first book, 0:17:49.830 --> 0:17:55.050 Capitalism's Achilles Heel in 2005. We tried for a decade 0:17:55.290 --> 0:18:02.790 to push our our ideas into political thinking, and we 0:18:02.790 --> 0:18:06.750 were not making enough progress, in my opinion. So I 0:18:06.750 --> 0:18:10.710 decided in 2015 to write another book in with the 0:18:10.710 --> 0:18:15.119 very specific purpose of taking a lot of little particular 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:23.100 issues that we were dealing with, like money laundering techniques 0:18:23.100 --> 0:18:29.909 and disguised corporations and so forth, taking those issues and 0:18:29.910 --> 0:18:34.470 elevating them to the systemic level. We are dealing with 0:18:34.470 --> 0:18:39.690 a problem that could bring about the end of the 0:18:39.690 --> 0:18:43.830 democratic capitalist system if we don't solve the problem. And 0:18:43.830 --> 0:18:47.400 the reason it has the potential to bring about harm 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:52.440 to the democratic capitalist system is that the ultimate effect 0:18:52.770 --> 0:18:57.330 of the financial secrecy system is to drive inequality. It 0:18:57.330 --> 0:19:02.070 makes the rich richer and does not do anything for 0:19:02.070 --> 0:19:02.640 the poor. 0:19:03.060 --> 0:19:07.560 Eliminates the middle class, right? Doesn't it? Hurts class a way. 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:13.530 In America, the middle class is full of angst about 0:19:13.710 --> 0:19:17.580 how they they don't feel they've been fairly treated. And I, 0:19:17.690 --> 0:19:22.440 I sympathize entirely with that angst. When I graduated from 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:28.770 business school in 1960, the difference between executive pay and 0:19:28.770 --> 0:19:33.669 workers pay was 20 to 1. You know what it 0:19:33.670 --> 0:19:37.840 is now? More than 350 to 1. Hmm. Who's been 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:45.530 screwed in that process? The middle class, approximately approximately $50 0:19:45.530 --> 0:19:52.629 trillion since 1960, have flown to the upper class and 0:19:52.630 --> 0:19:56.409 settled into the accounts of the upper class with with 0:19:56.770 --> 0:20:02.140 the middle class not enjoying proportion that rise. I said 0:20:02.140 --> 0:20:05.410 to you, and I repeat. I know of no way 0:20:05.410 --> 0:20:12.730 to strengthen democracy amidst continuously rising economic inequality. I know 0:20:12.730 --> 0:20:14.859 of no way to do that. I've been looking at 0:20:14.859 --> 0:20:17.200 this phenomenon for a half century. I don't know how 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.070 you I don't know how you strengthen democracy with continuously 0:20:21.070 --> 0:20:26.170 rising economic inequality. I'm not saying that solving the problem 0:20:26.170 --> 0:20:29.860 of inequality is a total solution. I'm saying that it 0:20:29.859 --> 0:20:34.630 is a necessary part of any solution to strengthen democracy. 0:20:34.990 --> 0:20:36.670 I would tend to agree. And I want to come 0:20:36.670 --> 0:20:41.020 back to your original thought around corporations right there. What 0:20:41.020 --> 0:20:44.980 concern you and a guy by the name of Nieto? 0:20:45.010 --> 0:20:49.210 Mussolini said Fascism should rightly be called corporatism because it 0:20:49.210 --> 0:20:52.990 is the merger of corporate and government power. Right. It's 0:20:52.990 --> 0:20:55.120 right there. And so then you have some folks on 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:57.010 the left that are saying the folks on the right 0:20:57.010 --> 0:21:00.940 are the fascists. Well, historically, you know, if you look 0:21:00.940 --> 0:21:05.379 at the National Socialism, the Nazis, that's a left organization. 0:21:05.380 --> 0:21:07.869 Somehow they've changed the history books and made the right 0:21:07.869 --> 0:21:10.780 think that they're the bad guys. And so it's interesting 0:21:10.780 --> 0:21:15.220 to me where we're having corporations merging with governments and 0:21:15.220 --> 0:21:19.690 then they're going after certain classes of people, right? Just 0:21:19.690 --> 0:21:22.629 like the Lois Lerner thing, and then sicking the IRS 0:21:22.630 --> 0:21:25.659 on certain people that had happened. And then you also 0:21:25.660 --> 0:21:29.709 have this sort of web of unelected people that are 0:21:29.710 --> 0:21:33.220 in the federal government that are basically impossible to fire. 0:21:33.369 --> 0:21:36.010 And it doesn't matter who the president is or who 0:21:36.010 --> 0:21:39.100 the Congress is, you always end up getting, you know, 0:21:39.100 --> 0:21:42.760 cruddy people in charge. So I don't know what the 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:47.409 solution is, but maybe it is around the Citizens United 0:21:47.410 --> 0:21:51.459 and kind of reversing that and stop giving corporations the 0:21:51.460 --> 0:21:54.639 ability to donate so much money. I mean, what do 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:56.050 you think might be the solution? 0:21:56.470 --> 0:22:00.879 That's that certainly is is part of the solution. Let 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.330 me back up a minute. I watched the climate change 0:22:05.330 --> 0:22:11.390 issue for 30 years in the in the seventies, eighties 0:22:11.390 --> 0:22:15.530 and nineties. And a lot of scientists knew that global 0:22:15.530 --> 0:22:21.410 warming was a reality. Climate change is a reality. And 0:22:21.410 --> 0:22:26.270 yet the issue didn't get into the public consciousness. Finally, 0:22:26.270 --> 0:22:30.380 Al Gore comes along with his stature and he writes 0:22:30.380 --> 0:22:35.030 and he makes films and he gets he drives the 0:22:35.030 --> 0:22:39.440 issue into the global consciousness so that climate change is 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:43.250 now perceived to be a reality. The issues that we're 0:22:43.250 --> 0:22:48.080 dealing with have not yet gravitated into the global consciousness. 0:22:48.380 --> 0:22:51.800 There are a number of us that know that think 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.800 we have a pretty good idea of what's going on, 0:22:55.070 --> 0:23:01.070 but it's still mostly within the the the thinking of 0:23:02.060 --> 0:23:06.859 some academics and activists and think tanks and so forth. 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.320 What we're trying to do, what I'm trying to do 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.590 is to drive it into the global consciousness. Let me 0:23:12.590 --> 0:23:16.430 come back to something else that you said. You you 0:23:16.430 --> 0:23:21.500 indicated that you thought socialism was probably the alternative to 0:23:21.500 --> 0:23:22.940 democratic capitalism. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.400 I think no, we don't We don't want we don't 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:26.720 want that, but we don't need it. 0:23:26.900 --> 0:23:30.500 I don't said I said it was in many ways 0:23:30.500 --> 0:23:35.540 the political opposite where rather than the individuals being focused 0:23:35.540 --> 0:23:37.010 on is the collective. 0:23:37.190 --> 0:23:40.400 Let me tell you what is the political opposite. I 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:46.669 too don't want socialism. I have I have seen this 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:51.740 fail in in too many places at the present time. 0:23:52.260 --> 0:23:57.740 You mentioned Mussolini at the present time. The alternative to 0:23:57.740 --> 0:24:04.369 democratic capitalism is authoritarianism. And that is a linkage between 0:24:04.369 --> 0:24:07.850 the political and the economic class. It's a it's a 0:24:08.030 --> 0:24:11.869 it's a unity of those two. I have never known 0:24:11.869 --> 0:24:15.170 I've known lots of authoritarian leaders in my career. I've 0:24:15.170 --> 0:24:21.679 never known one that didn't use the the opportunities available 0:24:21.680 --> 0:24:28.389 within capitalism to steal and hide money. Is it isn't it. 0:24:28.550 --> 0:24:31.970 Isn't that what they tried to pin on Trump? You know, 0:24:31.970 --> 0:24:35.179 the left would say, oh, he's literally Hitler when he 0:24:35.180 --> 0:24:38.180 was running for president because they were trying to paint 0:24:38.180 --> 0:24:44.800 him as this person who would be authoritarian with with money. Right. 0:24:44.810 --> 0:24:48.500 With this capitalistic approach, which of course, nothing of the 0:24:48.500 --> 0:24:50.270 sort was a reality. 0:24:52.340 --> 0:24:58.070 Yes, there were lots of attempts to put that responsibility 0:24:58.070 --> 0:25:00.679 on Trump. I will leave it to the judgment of 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:06.320 history as to whether that was a correct assessment or not. 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:13.130 And I certainly don't want to see authoritarianism for America, 0:25:13.130 --> 0:25:17.990 for Europe, for any other country. If if if anything 0:25:17.990 --> 0:25:24.320 will drive inequality, it is authoritarianism. And it is the 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:32.270 greatest economic challenge that we face going forward is is inequality. 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:35.690 We're about to become a world perhaps do in your 0:25:35.690 --> 0:25:43.100 lifetimes of more than 10 billion people, the majority of 0:25:43.100 --> 0:25:49.190 those living pretty close to economic straights, living lives that 0:25:49.190 --> 0:25:55.070 are so far below the the the elite that just 0:25:55.070 --> 0:26:00.250 simply cannot last. The democratic capitalism cannot last. Under that reality, 0:26:00.260 --> 0:26:04.550 something has to change to produce a more equitable world 0:26:04.820 --> 0:26:05.600 going forward. 0:26:05.810 --> 0:26:09.740 Well, this guy here says the great reset is what's needed, 0:26:09.740 --> 0:26:12.200 and I don't know what it is he's wearing there. 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:14.180 But if there was ever a case for a Bond 0:26:14.180 --> 0:26:17.389 villain in the real world, I'm thinking Klaus Schwab. Looks 0:26:17.390 --> 0:26:20.330 like he might he might be that guy. 0:26:20.330 --> 0:26:21.980 He might be the real Doctor Evil. 0:26:23.060 --> 0:26:27.350 Well, what is this great reset? They're talking about bringing 0:26:27.350 --> 0:26:30.020 it into the public mindset. They're saying it again and 0:26:30.020 --> 0:26:32.540 again and again and again. What do you make of 0:26:32.540 --> 0:26:32.930 all that? 0:26:35.300 --> 0:26:39.439 It's what do I make of it? I, I have 0:26:39.440 --> 0:26:45.340 been to a lot of economic forum events. Let me 0:26:45.340 --> 0:26:49.660 make a comment about the high level economic elite, if 0:26:49.660 --> 0:26:57.109 I may. I have never known an individual at that 0:26:57.109 --> 0:27:05.540 level who was particularly concerned about curtailing inequality, curtailing poverty. Yeah. 0:27:05.810 --> 0:27:09.880 I mean, you know, that's an easy band to get on. Sure. 0:27:09.890 --> 0:27:12.350 We need to curtail poverty. We need. 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:13.490 They need tax payers. 0:27:13.970 --> 0:27:18.080 For the poor. Right. But it is not poverty that 0:27:18.080 --> 0:27:20.770 will hurt the democratic capitalist system in the long run. 0:27:20.780 --> 0:27:24.409 It's inequality that will hurt the democratic capitalist system in 0:27:24.410 --> 0:27:27.170 the long run. And the most wealthy of the elite 0:27:27.350 --> 0:27:33.230 do not have their minds attuned to curtailing inequality. Poverty? Yes. Inequality? No. 0:27:33.410 --> 0:27:36.110 There are two different. There are two different subjects. There 0:27:36.109 --> 0:27:38.720 are two different ways you go about addressing that problem. 0:27:41.060 --> 0:27:44.120 Completely fascinating. I'm actually reading this book right now called 0:27:44.750 --> 0:27:47.449 It's about the Killing Fields. It's called Survival in the 0:27:47.450 --> 0:27:50.720 Killing Fields. And it's all about Pol Pot and it's 0:27:50.720 --> 0:27:54.890