WEBVTT - The Old Economy Is Dead 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.920 Calzon Media. 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:06.360 Welcome to it. Could that be here? 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:09.840 A podcast where the the the ancient leftist adage there 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.520 was power logistics has finally been realized by one Donald Trump. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.560 I am your host, Mia Wong, and with me is Gear. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:18.079 How are you doing, Gear? 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:20.440 Just another great day in America. 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.000 It's great, it's great. There were arresting judges. It's it's 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:25.920 a good time. It's great. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.280 Something that Mia has probably called for before, but under 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:30.520 different circumstances. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:33.800 Hey, look, have I ever publicly called for the arrest 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:34.280 of the judge. 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:35.320 I'm not sure I have. 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.479 Maybe probably not, because like arresting power itself is a 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:40.960 little bit problem hashtag problematic. 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.080 Yeah, I mean this is this is this is this is. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.720 A carcial solution to this. This is Garrison, Like we 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:48.760 kind of for using carcialism to solve the problems of 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:53.080 the cucural system. Sure, speaking of carcural systems, there is 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.600 the economy that we're all living under, which is also 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:58.840 quite literally a cucural system, because so much of it 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.520 is based on prisident and slave labor of various kinds 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.600 across the world. Now, I have good news and I 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:05.800 have bad news about this. 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:07.640 I don't remember what the good news was. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.360 So we're only getting the bad news, which is that 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:11.000 well the good news and the bad news is that 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:12.440 this the system that we all. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:12.760 Grew up on. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.200 That the economic system that has, you know, supported us 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.240 our entire lives or not supported us for our entire lives. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:21.880 The thing, you know, the system that encompasses everything we 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:23.319 have ever known, is fucking dead. 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:24.920 It is dead as shit. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.960 The economic system that existed literally at the end of 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.200 last year does not exist anymore. It is it right 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.759 now in the process of dying, and the thing that 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.759 is emerging has not emerged yet, which means we get 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:39.679 to go to the Gramsey quote where he says, this 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:41.360 is the time of monsters. 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:46.760 The Chinese century. My favorite see whatever Gramski, how do 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.960 we say this guy's name Gramski, Gramm gram Sheet see 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:54.720 you fucked up too? Yeah, my favorite gram Sheet quote? 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.360 Or entering the Chinese Century? 0:01:58.160 --> 0:01:59.520 Look I okay, So, like here's the thing. 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.120 I I, on a fundamental level think that GRAMPSI is 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.840 like the harbinger of the entire retreat of the twentieth 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.320 century left. So I hate him and therefar if you 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.280 say his name properly. Also, we're going to get into 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:13.280 a little bit about white. The Chinese century is going 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.160 to also be a complete shitcho for them too, But 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:15.639 you know. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.240 The Canadian century, I don't know. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.320 Finally, the Yugoslavian century. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.200 With God Emperor Mark Carney in charge, he will usher 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:33.040 in a new era of Canadian progress and global supremacy. 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.160 As climate change worsens, the Canadian economy will suck up 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.720 all of the independency and resources from the US in 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.000 the late twentieth century. And finally we will have a 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.519 Tim Hortons in every country in the planet. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:51.680 I'm so excited for us to finally get our first 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:53.720 war between two countries with Tim Hortons in it. 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:57.359 That will be exciting. 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:01.920 So here is a story that we have told on 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.240 the show many many, many, many many many times, and 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.840 it is the story of the structure of the modern 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.680 world economy. The birth of the liberalism, the ascendancy of 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.480 free trade, the decline of the US as the world's 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.040 grand manufacturing power, the collapse of the clower of the 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.120 global working class, and the generalized ascension of capitalism, and 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.959 this specific force of capitalism as the structuring force of 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.760 the world system. It is a story of how structural 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.600 forces and contingent choices, technological changes in class weres, domestic 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.200 politics and grand international maneuvers, and international relations built a 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.640 political and economic structure that ruled the world for half 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.240 a century of American hegemony. And we are going to 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.400 tell a very very abbreviated version of that story for 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.760 one final time because that world. 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.680 The world, say final, because you'll probably do this again 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:50.880 in two years. But okay, the. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.520 World that we were all born into, that world is 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.400 fucking dead and Donald Trump has killed it. 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:05.080 This is how it died. Garrison. Yes, in the beginning, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:07.000 there was war. 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.880 Sure, in the ashes of a continents read by the 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:15.320 flames of fascism, two army's stood triumphant over a new world. 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.480 One of them, unfortunately, was the United States. The second one, unfortunately, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.880 was the USSR. Now it's also worth mentioning that very briefly, 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:26.840 both the French and the British assumed they would also 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:33.520 be like superpowers and no jokes, washed failed failed powers, 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.600 zero out of ten absolute dipshits destroyed. 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.360 Now, oddly enough, Japan walked away with more power than 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.599 either of those countries. Yes, yeah, a little bit, a 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.400 little bit odd considering the conditions that led to this happening. 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.760 Well, you know, I mean, but the actual shift here though, 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.880 and this is and this is you know, this actually 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:54.760 is a lot of what this episode is about is 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.240 that the thing that World War One or World War 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:00.640 two did was was more I would also do this, 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.719 but was fundamentally break the power of the old world empires. Right, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.599 because the world had been ruled for several hundred years 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.520 by various combinations of the French, the British, and the Germans. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.039 And you know this is some extent like Spain, but 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.320 Spain was sort of gone, right, But like those old 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.440 World empires had been what had structured everything in the world, 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.200 and at the end of World War Two that suddenly 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.800 wasn't the case anymore. And the product of this was 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:28.640 that if if you look at the places in the 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.720 world that had the largest remaining industrial reserves, right, you know, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.360 I mean, there was obviously some industrial production in Latin America, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:39.680 particularly Argentina. There was some like Chinese manufacturing belts that 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.719 were run by Japan in China that weren't destroyed. And 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.440 then there was the entire manufacturing power of the United States. 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.320 And this meant that alone among countries, right, the US 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.480 was in the most dominant position, like one of the 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.400 most positions of great power has ever been and even 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.320 though there technically was a second great power, right, they 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.440 had an unbelievable percentage of the world's total manufacturing power, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.599 We had an unhinged percentage of the world's total gold reserves. 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:08.279 We had I mean, I guess, like the second largest 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.680 army in the world. But you know, like we were 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.840 significant the more technologically advanced than the USSR. And this 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.480 had a bunch of extremely weird consequences because there was 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:24.640 really no way for the amount of like concentrated industrial 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.600 power the US had to go but down because we 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:29.800 controlled so much of the world's wealth and so much 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.960 of the world's manufacturing capacity that the only thing that 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.800 could ever possibly happen was that the rest of the 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.279 world would catch up. And this was a thing that 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:39.960 was actually necessary. And this is something that was that 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.800 was spurred on by the American industrial class, right, because 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:45.760 they suddenly had all of these like jeep factories you're 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.240 trying to make cars out of, and they needed people 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:48.880 to buy the cars. And the only way to do 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.599 that was to rebuild Europe and to rebuild Japan in 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.479 order to sort of rebuild these places as markets and 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.800 so for like a very brief time. And this is 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.240 the sort of like golden age that all of these 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.760 Trump people know these like weird dipshits like harkened back to. 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.080 Was this like part time of like unmatched American power, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:08.280 but also it was it was a time in the 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.480 world economy where you could have multiple powers industrializing at 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.520 the same time without it being zero s and that 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.360 just was not going to last because at a certain point, 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.000 and this is accelerated by things we've talked about in 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:27.640 other episodes, like this attempt by a bunch of what 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:29.360 we're called the Non Aligned Movement or sort of the 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.000 G seventy seven, you know, also like the Third World Movement, 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:36.960 a bunch of these countries that were non alliance, like Yugoslavia, India, Pakistan, 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:39.120 which you can immediately tell how this alliance is going 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:40.920 to shit because these two countries are allied, are like 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.960 in the same alliance, right, like you know, this is 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.120 the Chiito's Yugoslavia is in this with like Saudi Arabia, 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:49.880 these countries sort of like economic strategy was to create 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.200 something that actually is in a lot of ways kind 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:54.800 of like what Trump is trying to do, which is 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.080 like using their control of resources, although again the resource 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.160 of the US has now is like money basically took 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.240 all of the fucking world's resources, right, but using that 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.080 to develop your own local industrial basis so you can 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:11.400 have your own local manufacturing economy. And this is something 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.400 that like a lot of countries pursued this, like Venezuela 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:15.800 pursues this, like Bolivia pursues it is. This is something 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.320 that like everyone like kind of across the political spectrum 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.600 is trying to do in like the sitties and seventies 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.280 and through the eighties. But the thing is it's destroyed 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.080 by the second thing that's sort of a model for 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.960 what these people are trying to do, which is what 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.439 Reagan was able to do to the American economy in 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.800 the sort of nineteen eighties. And what Reagan is able 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.280 to do is Reagan actually does something that sounds really 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:43.160 bizarre now, but he was actually successfully able to temporarily 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.439 for about maybe like six years, six or seven years, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.160 was able to actually like dramatically ramp up American like 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.120 like industrial production and like was able to do the 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:55.920 whole sort of like we're bringing the jobs back to 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.400 the US. But the thing is, the way he did 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.600 this was not the way the Trump administration is doing it. 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:02.880 Right. 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.800 What he did was, on the one hand, he blew 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:07.920 a smoking crater in the entire world economy. And that 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.760 garrison will sound familiar to you because these people are 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:12.040 trying to. 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:14.959 Blow a hole in the American economy, right, like you 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:16.000 have seen this. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.080 Yes, I have seen the stonks and the trade and 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:21.920 the shipments, yes I am. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:22.640 Yeah. 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:24.760 But but even like like Elon Musk would like deliver 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.000 like post about this, right, like very deliberately about how 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:28.640 he wants to destroy the economy so that there could 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:30.920 be like a oh yeah, brief economic hardship and that 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:31.760 a golden age. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.559 Right, necessary hardship will have to endure for a short 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.240 period of time to then reach the like utopia which 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:39.680 is surely around the corner. 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.000 Yeah, And it's interesting because when when when serious people 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.520 have to defend this like Fox Okay, I say serious people, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.200 I'm taking this and I'm saying Fox News because like serious. 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.360 Look, look here's a serious clouds. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:54.680 Yeah, I don't have to defend this, right, Like, Okay, 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:56.559 you know we're not dealing with like you know, we're 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:58.719 not dealing with like intellectual titans here. But like when 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.640 someone who is mildly more intelligent than Elon Musk has 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.640 to defend this, it is Reagan, they point you, because 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.040 Reagan and Carter was also had a hand in this. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.040 But Reagan does this thing called the Folker shock, right, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.000 like working working hand in hand with. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:11.640 Paul Volker's the head of the Federal. 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.240 Reserve, which notably, Trump just spent a bunch of time 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.360 threatening to fire the head of the Federal Reserve and 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.040 then had to back off on that because all of 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.640 the markets were like, this is our fucking rubicon, Like 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:22.120 we don't. 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:23.160 Give a fuck about any of the other thing. Well, 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:24.240 I we kind of give a fuck up the other 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:24.760 things he'd be doing. 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.160 But like, if you fire the head of the Federal Reserve, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.199 like we're going ape shit. But like, you know, the 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.600 Fed and Reagan work together in order to do this thing, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.360 which is the jack interest rates to just like unhinged levels, 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.440 causing everyone else's debt in the world to become like 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.640 unbelievably unsustainable to repay this like annihilates boast of the 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.120 world's economies. This also creates like a double dip recession, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.240 where the US has like almost twenty percent unemployment. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:54.079 But he's able to. 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.439 Write this out specifically because like, this thing actually benefits 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.079 a bunch of sections of the American capitalis class. Like 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.120 if you are someone who holds debt, right, this is 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.679 fucking great for you. And this is something very different 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.400 from what's happening right now because nobody is winning the 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.440 trade war, Like everyone is just having the very worst 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:14.200 time I've ever had. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.160 It does seem like a globe of losers. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.880 Yeah, But the thing that Reagan does that actually allowed 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:26.000 him to temporarily restore the profitability of a lot of 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:28.960 American manufacturing. And there is still a lot of American manufacturing. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.000 We'll get to that in a bit. But the thing 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:32.920 he was able to do was the thing that Garrison 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:34.480 I was threatening at the beginning of the show. 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:36.680 By the time I am done doing this, pot like 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:38.559 maybe not this podcast block. By the time I. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:41.760 Finish doing it, could happen here when I like die 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.520 on the battlefield in fifteen years, everyone will be able 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.080 to fucking explain the Plaza Chords and the reverse Plaza 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.480 Chords because they're they're the central thing that got us 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.120 to this alt of this fucking place, which is that 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.640 Ronald Reagan goes to Japan and goes to like West Germany, 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.520 and the subtext of what he's saying is like you 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.840 are a Maria military protectorates and because you are American 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.400 build or Japan by the way, it's like the great 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.000 industrial power of the nineteen eighties right and through the nineties, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:10.480 Like they are like the defining like they are the 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:13.000 thing that everyone thinks about China today. Like if you 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:14.960 want to find every argument people make about China from 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.640 the entire political spectrum, like all the way from like 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.120 people in the one hands going like this is they're 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.000 going to destroy American hegemony to people on the other 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.079 hand being like this is what socialism is, you can 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.040 find all of those same arguments people made about Japan 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.120 in like the eighties. But you know, what Reagan forces 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.160 these countries to do is to increase the value of 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.840 their currency relative to the dollar. Right, so the dollar 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.240 is suddenly worthless, and because the dollar is like worthless 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.559 relative to other international currencies, it makes US manufacturer more competitive. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:45.440 And this like temporarily restores American techleological production, but then 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.520 they have to reverse them because that nukes the entire 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:50.040 Japanese economy, and the Japanese economy becomes an entire thing 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.959 of real estate speculation, which you know, I guess, I 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:55.800 know you may be too young to remember what happened 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.079 the last time that we base the entire. 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.679 Economy of ailsa speculation. 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:01.920 But that's not true. 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.720 I say, you're like a few days older than me. 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:06.920 Come on, that's unbelievably not sure. 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.800 I am over half a decade older than you. Is 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:10.240 that real? 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:10.559 No? 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.800 Yeah, real, Yeah, we'll talk about this afterwards. I don't 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:15.719 I don't think that's true. Let me pull up my 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:26.959 mea Wong docs file to check once, all. 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.560 Right, while Garrison checks to be a Wong Docks file. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.600 The economy that is built up from all of us, though, right, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.200 is an economy based on a few different things. One, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.920 it's based on an entire network of global supply chains 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.319 with you know, like very very minimal tariff barriers between them. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:37.559 Right. 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:40.000 It is based on the sort of doctrine of free trade, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.240 which is, you know, not really free, but obviously like 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.240 the ways that these were written structurally benefited the US, right, 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:48.840 where like the US is allowed to do all of 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.880 this shit for like its corn production that nowhere the 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:53.480 country is allowed to do. Like all of the market 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.360 tampering that all these people scream about is just what 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.480 the U S does with corn. But you know, the 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.920 entire canoxysm was based on being able to cheaply produce 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.760 different components of goods in different countries, assemble them, and 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.800 then move them across the world cheaply in order to 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.720 sort of avoid the localized power of workers movements. It 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.199 is based on the US running a series of bubble economies, 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.080 so the tech bubble, the housing bubbles, heata, et cetera. 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.920 And it is based on the US dollar and the 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.680 bond as like the fundamental aspects of the like as 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:24.800 the world reserve currency, the. 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:26.560 Fundamental thing that drives the system. 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.600 And when we come back, we will talk about this 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.200 literally all exploding and what it's going to do for 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:35.640 all of. 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:36.960 You, which is not good. 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:50.560 Yay, okay, we are back now. 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:54.840 One of the things that have in a lot of 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.280 ways locked the system in place was that because of 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.280 the that these manufacturing like networks are set up right, 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.560 because they're all so interlinked, because they're all dependent on 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:12.880 like exploiting differences between production capacity and like labor costs 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:17.000 in different countries. They are all so interconnected that if 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.800 you try to pull one thread out of it and 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.440 do a major change to the system, the entire thing 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.800 is at risk immediately. And this meant that there has 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.480 always been an enormous structural incentive to keep things the 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.920 way they were, even if everyone can also already like 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.800 realize that they're kind of fucked up. And this stays 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.600 all the way back to like things that most people 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.280 largely have forgotten about. But like Obama, for example, ran 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.520 on renegotiating NAFTA, and he never like intended to do that, 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:44.360 but like even if he had the moment he got 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.880 into power, you know, like Trump renegotiates NAFTA too, right, 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.640 but he renegotiates NAFTA and it's just like the same 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:50.240 trade deal. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:52.400 Because for a long. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:53.800 Time, right, if if you were going to run the 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.800 capitalist economy in a functional way, the only thing you 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.600 could possibly do was run it the way he had 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.680 already been set up, because there were so many structural 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.440 factors about how this is no production works, that this 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:04.760 is only that this is the only way you could 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.880 run it and still like have the economy not explode. 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.440 But now we have finally produced a group of men 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.040 so stupid that they are unconstrained by the structural limits 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.000 of the economy. And this is where we get into 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.640 the ground of turf terracemberon right now, and we get 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.720 into something that is very important to understand about this, 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.280 which is that this shit is not about economics, right 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.520 in the sense that you or I were understand them. 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.480 This is none of this stuff is about like we 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.400 want the economy to grow. It's this is not something 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.600 that like really any of the major sectors of capital 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.680 want because it is just nucing this whole thing. And 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.000 this is why you've seen a split between even Elon 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.600 Musk has like openly criticized the trade policy, even if 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.560 he's been sort of hedging it. What we've been seeing 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.680 is this widening rift. And we talked about this in 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.960 the last Executive Disorder, where like different factions of the 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.520 Trump administration we're literally trying to like isolate Trump from 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.800 like Navarro, who's the guy who wants to do all 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.439 of the all of the tariff bullshit they've been you know, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.560 like literally try to get them alone in a room 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.480 so that they can they can implement their trade policy. 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:19.200 But the actual underlying urge here is completely ideological, right 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.960 it is. It is this idea that like if you 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.040 run a trade deficit with a country, or if you're 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:25.960 if you are buying things from a country, they are 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:27.879 ripping you off and you always need to be selling 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:33.320 more things than you're buying, which is just like so 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.359 okay on one level, like this is just so fucking 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.720 nonsense that like attempting to explain why his bullshit is 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.240 kind of pointless, But we're gonna do it anyways, because 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.200 someone fucking has to somewhere, And this actually does also 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.080 reveal something about the way that money has always worked 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.840 under these systems. Okay, So before we get to like 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.000 what this is going to do to the entire world economy, 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:56.560 we need to talk about garrison. Do you know what 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:57.840 balance of payments is? 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:01.520 That sounds like something and to ask my accountant about. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.320 Yeah, so this is a technically an accounting thing, right, 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:08.320 but the balance of payments of a country it is 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.480 like a leisure thing, right, But it's the measure of 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:13.080 like their accounts, right, in terms of all of the 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:14.320 money coming out of the country and all of the 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:15.440 money coming into the country. 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:18.120 That's you know, that's like trade balance stuff. 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.119 Right, and the balance of payments is actually very important 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:25.240 for a lot of countries because specifically most countries in 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.480 the world need to buy things in a currency they 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.119 can't print. This has always been the structural limit of 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.840 things like modern monetary theory, which talks about how like 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:39.840 your country's ability to like have things isn't constrained by 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.719 just like the pure money supply of your country as 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:43.800 long as you're buying things in your own currency, right, Like, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.000 the purpose of money is the thing that move assets around. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.119 But inflation isn't a product. I mean, like, yeah, okay, 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.280 if you just like hammer the fucking printer button, right, Like, yeah, 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:58.000 you can cause hyper inflation, but substantively because money is 0:18:58.000 --> 0:18:59.560 something that is a production of the government, because it 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:00.720 is literally government debt. 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:01.520 Right. 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.160 It's not a commodity in the conventional sense. 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:05.639 Where you have to like figure out how much of 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:07.719 that there is and there's like a limited supply of it, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.520