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Speaker 1: Wait, hold the phone. We do have an episode coming,

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Speaker 1: but first we have a very important announcement. Paul, can

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Speaker 1: we get like one of those breaking news sort of

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Speaker 1: sound cues. Perfect. The secret project that we have been

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Speaker 1: mentioning for years, decades, centuries is finally available everyone. If

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Speaker 1: it is possible, I ask you to stand up at

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Speaker 1: your desk while you're listening to this, stand up from

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Speaker 1: your couch, stand up and listen. You guys like to read? Right?

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Speaker 1: Do you like cool pictures? We got you covered on

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Speaker 1: both fronts with stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: That's true. That was like I love how you did that, Nold.

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Speaker 1: That was like a I was like the part in

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Speaker 1: the last Avengers film where Captain America goes Avengers a symbol. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is true. As people who are paid to talk,

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Speaker 1: we had such a time no talking about this. Fellow

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Speaker 1: conspiracy realist, we wrote a book for you, and uh,

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Speaker 1: no fooling. We have been working in secret, in concert

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Speaker 1: with some great folks yours, your fellow conspiracy realists included. Uh,

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Speaker 1: we cannot wait for you to check out this book.

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Speaker 1: And if you're listening to this episode the day it

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Speaker 1: comes out, you can go right now to stuff you

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Speaker 1: should read dot com and check out. I mean, just

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Speaker 1: check out the cover. It's it's amazing. All praise to

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Speaker 1: Nick Turbot Benson. All hail, friend of the show, friend

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Speaker 1: of us as human people. Uh and it's a great

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Speaker 1: guy and absurdly talented and boy oh boy a you're

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Speaker 1: gonna get an eye fall of Nick Benson full page,

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Speaker 1: glossy screen printing, beautiful, gorgeous illustrations, along with a super

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Speaker 1: kind of nugget of um reader on the various conspiracies

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Speaker 1: that we have covered throughout the history of this show,

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Speaker 1: which ones are real, which ones are a bit trumped up? Um?

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Speaker 1: What lies in between? We will tell you. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: for this one, folks, uh, we focus primarily on government conspiracies.

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Speaker 1: As we've said on the show before, doesn't matter where

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Speaker 1: you live, your government has lied to you and probably

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Speaker 1: is lied to you, because that's part of what being

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Speaker 1: a government means. But how many of those stories are

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Speaker 1: fanciful tall tales, how many are provable, and perhaps most importantly,

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Speaker 1: how do we distinguish between the two and a so

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Speaker 1: called post truth world. It's a question we answer in depth.

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Speaker 1: We can't wait for you to check this out. We

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Speaker 1: can't wait to hear from you about it. Also, peep

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Speaker 1: behind the curtain here, folks. We would love for you

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Speaker 1: to get this book in advance. We have so many ideas,

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Speaker 1: We have so many other things we want to do.

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Speaker 1: You know, when when we started this show, we were

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Speaker 1: convinced we were gonna get fired and like what two

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Speaker 1: weeks or so? Uh, and we kept this crazy ride

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Speaker 1: going only because of you, only with your support. So

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Speaker 1: we don't often do this. We don't often, you know,

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Speaker 1: to our own horn uh so much. But the three

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Speaker 1: of us worked really really hard on this and we

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Speaker 1: hope we get a chance to do this even more

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Speaker 1: often in the future. And the reality is we can.

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Speaker 1: We can with your health. Look, we don't have a

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Speaker 1: subscription service for the show. We don't have a Patreon

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Speaker 1: or something like that. If you really do want to

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Speaker 1: support the show, an amazing way to do it is

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Speaker 1: to pre order a copy of stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. Just head over to stuff you Should

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Speaker 1: read dot com. If you wish to do that, we

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Speaker 1: massively would appreciate it and thank you for listening. They

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Speaker 1: thank you for doing that if you choose to, and

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Speaker 1: we really really are excited about this. Just do it.

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Speaker 1: Do the thing for your friends. Buy if your enemies

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Speaker 1: by buy a pilot and just pass them out at

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Speaker 1: the airport like a hard Christian, you know, like I mean,

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Speaker 1: be a stuff that it wants you to know. Evangelists.

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Speaker 1: All right, this part is done. We're about to get

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Speaker 1: swifty with it. Here we go from UFOs to psychic

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Speaker 1: powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events.

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Speaker 1: You can turn back now or learn the stuff they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to know. A production of My Heart Radio. Hello,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my

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Speaker 1: name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as

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Speaker 1: always with our super producer Paul. Mission controlled dec ands

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Speaker 1: most important. You are you, You are here and that

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Speaker 1: makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: I would like to begin today's episode, part two in

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Speaker 1: a series by giving a special shout out to our

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Speaker 1: fellow conspiracy realist Scott and Erica, who actually get this, Matt,

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Speaker 1: no we'll know we're there. Get this. They showed up

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Speaker 1: at our local chicken wing spot, which is the local

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Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, you met him, nol I did it.

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Speaker 1: It was a lovely evening. It was really cool to

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Speaker 1: meet them and uh this chat, and they came all

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Speaker 1: the way in from Baltimore. I've never been to Atlanta before,

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Speaker 1: and I think they ended up hanging with our buddy

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Speaker 1: Nick Benson after you and I took off and going

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Speaker 1: to a secondary location. Hopefully they had really nice time. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: shout out to you all and thanks for dropping by again.

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Speaker 1: You are the most important part of the show, specifically

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Speaker 1: you and we are especially eightful for every conspiracy realist

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Speaker 1: in these troubled times. This is an episode where we

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Speaker 1: answer a question. I went on Twitter earlier to check

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Speaker 1: about this. This is an episode where we answer the

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Speaker 1: question what is swift? What is the swift banking system?

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Speaker 1: I mean, let's be honest. Money makes the world go round. Right.

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Speaker 1: As the conflict in Eastern Europe continues, Uh, collectively, we

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Speaker 1: saw actions that we have predicted would come to pass

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Speaker 1: in earlier episodes. And this is the kind of show

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Speaker 1: where it's not always good news when we're correct. We

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Speaker 1: were right about sanctions and we were so far correct

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Speaker 1: about context. Look, NATO, the US and other forces went

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Speaker 1: pretty hard on the sanction paint. They drove Russia's already

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Speaker 1: struggling domestic economy into a tailspin. Not a lot of

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Speaker 1: people are investing in rubles. Recently, the global public learned

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Speaker 1: of this other type of economic warfare, and it's something

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Speaker 1: people outside of the world of geopolitics and finance hadn't

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Speaker 1: really heard of. It's swift. It's an acronym. It's a big,

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Speaker 1: big deal, long story, short, and retaliation for the invasion

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Speaker 1: of Ukraine. Russia just got kicked out of this thing

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Speaker 1: called swift. But what is it, why does it matter,

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Speaker 1: and perhaps more importantly, why were some European countries so

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Speaker 1: hesitant to pull the plug? Here are the facts. If

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Speaker 1: we want to talk about swift, we have to talk

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Speaker 1: about international banking. Everybody drinks some coffee. We gotta stay

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Speaker 1: awake for this one. So a lot of people, including ourselves,

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Speaker 1: heard about sanctions against Russia. Like anything in geopolitics, sanctions

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Speaker 1: are not particularly new and they are very much not

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Speaker 1: easily lifted. Uncle Sam for instance, is still salty at

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Speaker 1: Cuba and has had embargoes and sanctions on that island

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Speaker 1: nation for many decades. Now. What happened with sanctions recently

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Speaker 1: is that the West was deploying further sanctions against Russia

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Speaker 1: because they had already done so under previous world leadership,

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Speaker 1: but they started describing something as a nuclear option quote

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Speaker 1: unquote uh, And the nuclear option was the sanction that

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Speaker 1: is very difficult to walk back, which was kicking them

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Speaker 1: out of the sphere of international banking. Globally connected finance

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Speaker 1: networks are, in a very real way, love it or

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Speaker 1: hate it, the backbone of modern civilization. Maybe not the

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Speaker 1: best term to just throw around the nuclear option, being

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Speaker 1: that there is in fact an actual nuclear option. Um,

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Speaker 1: just putting that which is also being mentioned back on

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Speaker 1: that enormous table or one of the enormous tables that

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Speaker 1: left the massive, boring table with a hundred feet separating

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Speaker 1: Poutin from his shivering Toady's right. And to be candid, uh,

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Speaker 1: this is still hopefully a distant possibility. I think, if

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Speaker 1: I had to guess, I think the first for a

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Speaker 1: would be something like a quote unquote nuclear test. Um.

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Speaker 1: But but Russian forces have acquired, invaded, and they are

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Speaker 1: occupying Chernobyl as we speak. So yeah, so yeah. The

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Speaker 1: global West and the innocent people of Ukraine, and honestly

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Speaker 1: the innocent citizens of Russia are very worried about this. Stuff.

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Speaker 1: But let's go back to the banking things. So it's

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Speaker 1: boring and it's kind of a feature, not a bug.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's it's good to those in power for

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Speaker 1: banking to be a snooze fest. But it's weird if

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Speaker 1: you think about it. Imagine, out of all the things

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Speaker 1: there's one thing they could all finally agree on, and

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Speaker 1: it was so it was so lame. They all got

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Speaker 1: together and said, we need ways to move money. Al Right,

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Speaker 1: ideology aside, guys, you know, cultural what knots and what

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Speaker 1: about is ms aside? We gotta we got tabs to pay, right, Uh?

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Speaker 1: That is that is what swift comes from. Like, think

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Speaker 1: about this, Like Matt noll Win's the last time any

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Speaker 1: of us sent a physical check. I bet we remember,

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Speaker 1: because I bet it's rare. I mean it was so

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Speaker 1: rare that I think I had to go to the

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Speaker 1: bank and get a counter check because I don't have

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Speaker 1: a checkbook to my name. Um, I just don't. Well,

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Speaker 1: I actually have several checkbooks in here. Guys, whoever they spoke,

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Speaker 1: they're not No, it's just the old accounts that I've

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Speaker 1: had I've had the same account and it's just changed

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Speaker 1: banks as bigger banks keep consuming the smallest um. But

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Speaker 1: I did use one not long ago, and it was

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Speaker 1: just to pay a company that came over the house

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Speaker 1: to help me with some repairs. And it's it's a

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Speaker 1: weird thing because then you have to wait for everything

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Speaker 1: to occur before you get confirmation from your own bank

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Speaker 1: that money has actually changed hands, and I don't know

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Speaker 1: it. It It becomes a strange thing. We're so used to

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Speaker 1: having immediate transfers when we're banking online in some way

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Speaker 1: or just using you know, an app or something we

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Speaker 1: as consumers, but banks have also become very much accustomed

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Speaker 1: to that. You know, who does use check still is

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Speaker 1: Uncle Sam. You know, I think the most often I

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Speaker 1: handle a check is when I get a refund um

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Speaker 1: from the government. But now those obviously those can be

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Speaker 1: done direct deposit as well. But it's interesting, like, you know,

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Speaker 1: checks seems so antiquated, but like there are machines at

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Speaker 1: grocery stores for example, where I think still some older

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Speaker 1: folks do use checks where they scan them through and

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Speaker 1: and it scans that barcode and it does happen more quickly,

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Speaker 1: almost almost the same rate. I believe as a debit

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Speaker 1: transaction the global consumer from the individual to the state

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Speaker 1: level actor. Uh is pretty much on on board with

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Speaker 1: the old jay Z line. I got no passion, I

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Speaker 1: got no patience, and I hate waiting. So yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: imagine living your life without electronic access to money. It

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Speaker 1: is possible, but it is increasingly impractical in the modern day.

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Speaker 1: I mean think about it, and a lot of people do.

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Speaker 1: Think about this. What if you would only handle those

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Speaker 1: physical representations of money in specific amounts. You can only

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Speaker 1: write the check, you have to wait for the check

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Speaker 1: to clear. You can only use cold, hard cash or

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Speaker 1: back in earlier days, you can only use whatever weird

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Speaker 1: thing is the physical currency of your community, right, like

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Speaker 1: people talk about gold and the gold standard. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: humans have been using crazy stuff as currency as representations

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Speaker 1: of wealth for such a long time. Peppercorns, big rocks,

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Speaker 1: That's a true story. There was a community that like,

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Speaker 1: use big rocks as money. And I'm only laughing at

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Speaker 1: that because I also laugh at the idea of the dollar.

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Speaker 1: And now as we're increasingly moving toward abstract representations of

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Speaker 1: value and wealth. Money, by the way, is only um

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Speaker 1: only an equation of labor over time basically, and that's

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Speaker 1: an a political observation. What what we see is like

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Speaker 1: when when I'm asking when's the last time we touched

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Speaker 1: the physical check, it sounds like for most people it

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Speaker 1: is not necessarily a normal occurrence, right. The most normal

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Speaker 1: occurrence is to at least in the US, is to

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Speaker 1: receive a check, like you said, NOL from maybe a

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Speaker 1: state or federal entity. Um, it's over payment on a

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Speaker 1: credit card or something like that. They'll issue you a

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Speaker 1: check for like eight dollars since and you guys, you

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Speaker 1: guys know, I love culture jamming and I love being

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Speaker 1: a problem I have. I have at least one credit

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Speaker 1: card that I just I continually have a zero balance,

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Speaker 1: and every so often I just pay them five dollars

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Speaker 1: because as I know, eventually they're going to have to

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Speaker 1: waste time and effort sending me that five dollars back.

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Speaker 1: It's weird. It's not saying any good person. I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying I'm a good person by any means. But I

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Speaker 1: like the culture jamming. I like the asymmetric warfare of it.

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Speaker 1: So for a lot of folks, especially our younger conspiracy realists,

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Speaker 1: it may be difficult to remember the last time you

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Speaker 1: wrote a physical check. You may be thinking of one

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Speaker 1: of your elders in your family, or you may be

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Speaker 1: thinking of your parents making a big purchase right like

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Speaker 1: a house or a car, etcetera. Surprise, surprise, the system

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Speaker 1: is not that different at the top. People don't like waiting.

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Speaker 1: They have no passion, they have no patience. You know.

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Speaker 1: This is where something called the Society for Worldwide Interbank

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Speaker 1: Financial Telecommunication comes into play. Street name SWIFT, cool name,

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Speaker 1: what is it? It talks with so much money on

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Speaker 1: planet money put it really well uh MPR podcast where

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Speaker 1: they called it WhatsApp or as you pointed out, off

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Speaker 1: airmat a signal uh communication platform for banks. It's going

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Speaker 1: to surprise a lot of people to realize that SWIFT

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Speaker 1: itself is not a government entity. It is not, you know,

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Speaker 1: a body of the United Nations, nor is it a

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Speaker 1: body of NATO, nor is it a body of the

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Speaker 1: European Union. It's essentially a ton of countries and private

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Speaker 1: banks that got together in May of ninety three and

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Speaker 1: said we got a team up, and they rose in

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Speaker 1: response two problems before they before SWIFT came into play.

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Speaker 1: And we'll explain a little bit more about what swift is.

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Speaker 1: Before it came into play, international financial transactions from individuals,

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Speaker 1: from institutions, from countries, any any of those entities communicating together,

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Speaker 1: those usually took place over a thing called tell X

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Speaker 1: and talk about feeling old Telex is a precursor to

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Speaker 1: something that's also antiquated nowadays, the facts machine. Remember, guys,

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Speaker 1: in our old office, we had a fact machine and

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Speaker 1: it was just the most It was such a paying

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Speaker 1: in the key star to use it. Well, not only that,

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Speaker 1: just occasionally I'll just make that crazy modem sound. It's

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Speaker 1: a little jarring, you know, Paul, can we get the

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Speaker 1: modem sound? There? It is? There, it is. It's interesting, Ben,

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Speaker 1: you and I were having last night and talking about

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Speaker 1: just the the very interesting history of data transfer and

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Speaker 1: like how ultimately we still use a lot of technologies

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Speaker 1: that are very low fi, like like in co did

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Speaker 1: within that sound is is the data that is the

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Speaker 1: sound of the data like going from through the lines

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Speaker 1: being interpreted by the other side. It's all in a

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Speaker 1: sound um and that's essentially what telex was doing, but

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Speaker 1: again even more low fi. It was a precursor to

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Speaker 1: the fact machine. If we can imagine what that would

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Speaker 1: be like, as antiquated as the fax machine seems. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so telex is essentially communicating via telephone lines, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean. It's a descendant in some ways of

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Speaker 1: the telegraph, right, it's in the name. But the issue

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Speaker 1: with telex was that it was controlled in a way, uh,

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Speaker 1: such that European countries and banks were increasingly concerned that

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Speaker 1: a private entity heaven forfenned, God forbid, an American private

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Speaker 1: entity might control the global flow of money. This was

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Speaker 1: based in the actions of an outfit called First National

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Speaker 1: City Bank, you know it today as City Bank with

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Speaker 1: spelled C I T I. So it sounds dangerous, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's quirky. And the Europeans, the old money thought that

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Speaker 1: this bank was getting a little too big for its

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Speaker 1: Yankee bridges. Uh. They also, I don't want to ding

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Speaker 1: the Europeans here. They also had a really valid point

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Speaker 1: with this concern, and it's a fascinating thing. So telex

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Speaker 1: senders had to transcribe every transaction. They had to write

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Speaker 1: it out in sentences by hand, and then those sentences

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Speaker 1: had to be interpreted and then executed by the person

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Speaker 1: on the other end of the you know, the can

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Speaker 1: and string line that is telex. What this meant is

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Speaker 1: that it led to this so interes state. I think

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Speaker 1: I'm supposed to say it led to a lot of

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Speaker 1: errors and it had slower processing time. But when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about errors, what we're really talking about is corruption,

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Speaker 1: often on the part of the powerful people who are

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Speaker 1: powerful enough to get away with one of those old

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Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle, I'm sorry, officer, I didn't know. I couldn't

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Speaker 1: do that kind of things in court. So a lot.

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Speaker 1: So it is I am certain that several financial shenanigans

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Speaker 1: that were premeditated and purposeful executed via tl X, where

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Speaker 1: later uh sort of dropped down to just Bob Ross

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Speaker 1: happy accidents, right, and those people didn't go to jail anyhow.

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Speaker 1: So the Europeans have real concerns. Swift winds the day.

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Speaker 1: It is a co op, it is not a government body.

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Speaker 1: It is, as we speak, the current global standard for

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Speaker 1: financial messaging. We don't have to get two into the weeds,

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Speaker 1: but we should describe a bit about how this mechanism works.

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Speaker 1: What do we say, what what do we mean when

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Speaker 1: we say it's like signal or telegram or WhatsApp for banks,

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Speaker 1: What do we mean? What does that all mean? It's

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Speaker 1: a messaging system, but it's not just going between you know,

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Speaker 1: different countries, different languages. It's going between currencies. You can

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Speaker 1: make exchanges of all different sorts. Really, think of one

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Speaker 1: you can exchange it through Swift if you are a

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Speaker 1: member financial institution. It's kind of odd to think about.

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Speaker 1: If you imagine all of the transactions that occur, maybe

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Speaker 1: automated payments that happen from your bank account or credit

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Speaker 1: card payments, little things you buy during a day, if

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get lunch or something, You've got a certain

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Speaker 1: number of transactions that are that are occurring. Now imagine

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Speaker 1: that on like a countrywide sale or an entire bank scale.

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Speaker 1: Think about a bank like Bank of America. Let's just

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Speaker 1: say how many transactions are actually occurring throughout the day

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Speaker 1: for that one bank, or just think about any bank,

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Speaker 1: whichever one you use. There are billions of transactions occurring

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Speaker 1: across the world that go through Swift. And it's a

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Speaker 1: single day. Yeah, every day, every moment, it's just happening.

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Speaker 1: Money is just transferring all over the planet, and Swift

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Speaker 1: is the thing that's carrying that. It's the jet stream

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Speaker 1: that all of those transactions are flying through across the world. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: think about this, like, have you ever wired money to

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Speaker 1: someone overseas or someone in a different country. For many

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Speaker 1: of us in the audience today, the answer is yes,

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Speaker 1: and some of us have had money wired to us

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Speaker 1: for one reason or another. It's pretty easy nowadays in

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Speaker 1: many parts of the world. And that's all due to Swift.

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Speaker 1: Right now, there are more than eleven thousand global Swift

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Speaker 1: member institutions M minus eight that's you know, eight Russian bigs. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They sent an average of forty two million messages per

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Speaker 1: day through this network alone in one which actually is

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Speaker 1: uh a little over an eleven percent increase in frequency

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Speaker 1: from Yeah. Fine, okay, throwing a lot of numbers out there,

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Speaker 1: but what the hell is swift exactly. It's not a

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Speaker 1: financial institution, is the thing. It's not like you know,

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Speaker 1: your Bank of America or what have you. It's not

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Speaker 1: like the Federal Reserve. It is a messaging network that

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Speaker 1: all these institutions Matt Noel and I are describing used

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Speaker 1: to securely transmit information and then instructions about a bank

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Speaker 1: transaction through a standardized system of codes. So like if

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Speaker 1: you ever look on the back of a book. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you see an I, S B N, Right, that's a

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Speaker 1: standardized coding system describing a specific book. Or if you

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Speaker 1: are in a grocery store in many parts of the world,

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Speaker 1: if you look at a mass produced food product, you

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Speaker 1: turn it around and then you'll usually see a barcode

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Speaker 1: a U P C. Swift is sort of like that,

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Speaker 1: but is much more secure. It Also Swift also doesn't

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Speaker 1: hold or transfer money itself, and it has no clients accounts.

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Speaker 1: It just facilitates the movement of money, and that's incredibly

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Speaker 1: important to the world's most important and powerful groups of people,

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Speaker 1: all of them, all of them? Or what's like area

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Speaker 1: oldman meme everyone, He's like screaming everyone everything whatever. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I think of Ron Swanson when the all of your

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Speaker 1: bacon and eggs. Yes, yes, So just like the reason

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Speaker 1: we're citing these memes and these pop culture moments is

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Speaker 1: because it's not hyperbole. All of these institutions, all of

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Speaker 1: these countries would be crippled without access to Swift, including

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Speaker 1: the United States. Uh. They're earlier examples by the way

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Speaker 1: of people getting kicked off Swift, the most notably Iran.

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Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a second. So what they

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Speaker 1: do we can blaze through this part. Swift gives each

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Speaker 1: and every financial organization its own unique code. It has

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Speaker 1: like eight characters or leven characters. You can find uh,

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Speaker 1: pretty approachable and accurate breakdown on how to read those

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Speaker 1: codes if you go to places like Investipedia. We don't

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Speaker 1: have to go into it right now, but let's just

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Speaker 1: look just so you know, if you want to, if

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Speaker 1: you want to be the code whisperer of Swift, if

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Speaker 1: that is important to you, you can figure out how

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Speaker 1: to read the things. The best way to explain why

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Speaker 1: Swift is important is probably through example. Let's say you're

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Speaker 1: Let's say you're you're Matt Frederick. You're in New York. Matt,

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Speaker 1: You're in New York and you have to send money

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Speaker 1: to Noel and Noel is in Italy and Matt, yeah nice,

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Speaker 1: and Matt you are. Just so we can spin out

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Speaker 1: this thought experiment, Matt, you are you are sending money

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Speaker 1: to knowl because he needs to put down a deposit

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Speaker 1: on the place that you guys are staying for your

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Speaker 1: Italy adventure. Right, uh, And so you go to your

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Speaker 1: Bank of America, your Wells Fargo your chase whatever, and

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Speaker 1: you just walk into New York and you want to

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Speaker 1: you wanna get this money to our guy. But our guy,

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Speaker 1: being based in Italy, now uses a different bank. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't use Bank of America, he doesn't use Wells Fargo

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Speaker 1: or Waukovia I think was the older version of that.

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Speaker 1: I just like the name Wacovia because it sounds like

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Speaker 1: a weird cough kvia. But I'm also not. I'm also

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Speaker 1: not I'm sending him US dollars. You're saying US dollars, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So how do we make those US dollars from Pacovia

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Speaker 1: turn into euro in an Italian bank? It's because the Swift.

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Speaker 1: You walk into your local branch there in the big Apple,

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Speaker 1: and then you say, I need to send blah blah

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Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, and then the banks make it

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Speaker 1: so easy. They use Swift to communicate. So via this

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Speaker 1: messaging platform, you're like, we got this guy Matt, and

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Speaker 1: he's with us, and there's this other system that this

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Speaker 1: guy Nola's with, and we need to make this money.

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Speaker 1: Makes sense in this regard, you could kind of say

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Speaker 1: that Swift is like a secret language for banks. It

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Speaker 1: works because pretty much every bank speaks it. It's a

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Speaker 1: common financial tongue. At this point, it's very fair and

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Speaker 1: we we might need to break for an ad soon.

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Speaker 1: But at this point there's a good question, why should

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Speaker 1: I care? Why? Why why are you guys telling me

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Speaker 1: about banking? Uh? Well, imagine your own daily expenses. Imagine

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Speaker 1: that while Matt and Noel are planning their new life

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Speaker 1: in Italy, I am walking up to an A t

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Speaker 1: M and I find out it's out of order. That's

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Speaker 1: happened to everyone in the West at some point, right you,

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Speaker 1: You just want to draw out a couple of bucks

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Speaker 1: in cold hard cash and the A t M is

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Speaker 1: out of service. But imagine that happens to you everywhere,

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Speaker 1: Just like with our case DA example in the sanctions episode,

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Speaker 1: your card doesn't work, no one will accept it. You

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Speaker 1: have been removed from the ability to send or receive

427
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: anything at all. This is the state of a country

428
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: without swift access. You can have all the resources in

429
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: the world, it doesn't matter what they are. It could

430
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: be gas, it could be lumber, it could be tin,

431
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: it could be titanium, it could be wheat. You won't

432
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: be able to move it outside of your border, without

433
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: physical transactions, without writing a check, right, and when's the

434
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: last time countries trusted each other without you know, sending

435
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: over gold or a massive peppercorns or whatever happens to

436
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: be invoked. To be fair, there are some competitors out there,

437
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: but swift is by far top in its class. That's

438
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: what all the hubbub is about. The global international order has,

439
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: in retaliation for the Ukraine invasion, removed Russia's ability to

440
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 1: speak the common tongue of global money. And there is

441
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: a phrase for this that is much more familiar than

442
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: the kind of arcane ins and outs that we just discussed,

443
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: and phrases economic warfare. When a pause for a moment,

444
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: we'll be back after a word from our sponsors. Here's

445
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. Economic warfare. Uh uh, that's a

446
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: little more exciting than just saying swift. Right now, if

447
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: you turn on your television, if you turn on your radio,

448
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: if you look on Reddit, if you go to any

449
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: major new his source, you will probably notice that the

450
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: world is currently engaging in economic warfare. And there is

451
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: a real hot land war occurring in Eastern Europe right now.

452
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: It's the biggest land war that has happened in that

453
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 1: area in decades, and it really, uh sucks. It sucks

454
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 1: for everybody, and it's scary, and I mean, really think

455
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: about it. Russia is engaging with Ukraine right now. It's

456
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: a nuclear power. Many of the NATO countries have nuclear capability.

457
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: Everybody is on high alert. And the lever that's being

458
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:42,719
Speaker 1: pulled right now by the West, by NATO, by all,

459
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: well it's not necessarily NATO, but by the West and

460
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: by the United States is is economic attacking the wallets,

461
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: attacking the banks. Um, I'm scared. This sucks. Let's talk

462
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: about it. There, go. Yeah, it's true. It's a it's

463
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: a dangerous balancing act. What you're seeing right now as

464
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: we are recording on March four two is everybody trying

465
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: not to be the first person to push the button

466
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: on the bomb. Right It's it's a tremendously insanely high

467
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: stakes game of chicken. And the innocent people of Ukraine,

468
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: of Russia, of the entire region are caught in between

469
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: these world powers. So the question is, how do we

470
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: stop an invasion without sending in NATO? How do you

471
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: stop the nukes from launching? The calculus that NATO countries

472
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: eventually arrived at after a lot of dithering, was to

473
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: cut off Russia's military ambitions at the source. We don't

474
00:32:55,280 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: need to, they thought, We don't need to um bother

475
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: with testing mutually assured destruction. If we can just remove

476
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: Russia's ability to pay for war. The inability to use

477
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: this messaging platform Swift to communicate with other banks outside

478
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: of Russia's border will severely hinder Russia's ability to access

479
00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: the money they need to continue the assault in Ukraine.

480
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: It's an interesting strategy. It is not a new one

481
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,479
Speaker 1: by any means, and the way it's being reported in

482
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: the US bears a little bit, a little bit more scrutiny.

483
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: I would say only a certain number of Russian banks

484
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,959
Speaker 1: have been given the boot. I think they're about seven

485
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: or eight. We're talking um banks that would be unfamiliar

486
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: to a lot of people, not in Europe, a lot

487
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: of people in the UI US. You're gonna you're gonna

488
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 1: hear like a cavalcade of names. You know what, let's

489
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: do it. Who's got the best Russian, who's got the

490
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:14,960
Speaker 1: best Russian voice? Um? You bro ah um. I did

491
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,439
Speaker 1: not mean to volunteer myself for the front line. I'll

492
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: give you a couple of these. There's a TV which

493
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: is it may actually be recognizable to you. I've seen

494
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: images of that before Russia. There's a two creety no

495
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: of him, no of it, humbank. Sure, there's a bunch

496
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: of those that I'm not gonna be able to pronounce correctly.

497
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: You can find a list of these banks all over

498
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: the place. UH recommend you checking it out. I mean,

499
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: you know, look, here's the thing. I mean, we know

500
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: from our last episode and just from paying attention and

501
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: just knowing what we know about Putin in general, that

502
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: dude's pretty calculated character and he is, you know, been

503
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: planning this invasion for a long time. Um, we have

504
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: seen they're likely some setbacks and that he may be

505
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: overplayed his hand little bit, but he is maintaining the

506
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: line that everything is going on schedule and everything's going

507
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: exactly as by his planned. Um don't you think he

508
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 1: would have seen these sanctions coming and had a contingency plan,

509
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like it just seems to me

510
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,320
Speaker 1: like it's just gonna piss him off rather than actually

511
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: hinder his advance. And really it's just trickling down to

512
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: screwing over the average Russian citizens. Well yeah, and also

513
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about blowback here because economic warfare

514
00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: is more unpredictable than the policy walks in the boffins

515
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: would have the average person believe. So okay, here's here's

516
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: the myth busting. Right, Only a certain proportion of Russian

517
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: banks were excluded from SWIFT as of March second, two

518
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: days ago. As we record, the banks that Matt mentioned

519
00:35:54,840 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: are given ten days to wind down their SWIFT operations.

520
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: And you can read this, this is not scuttle butt,

521
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: it's not rumor. The exceptions to that rule are banks

522
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: that handle energy payments, are banks that help facilitate the

523
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 1: movement of gas and oil and fossil fuels. So why

524
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: is this dangerous? Well, the issue is that revoking SWIFT

525
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: access does not just hurt Russia. It hurts the Russian

526
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: economy most immediately and most severely. But China leans heavy

527
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: on Russia for trade goods. As we mentioned at the

528
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: top of the show, it's important to remember that Russia

529
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: itself is a massive resource exporter, right, and there are

530
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: a lot of countries in the African continent in the

531
00:36:55,560 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: Middle East that depends upon wheat in particular cereal grains.

532
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: The UK and the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, I should

533
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,799
Speaker 1: say the United Kingdom in the Netherlands also depend on

534
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,279
Speaker 1: Russia for a lot of trade goods. The world is

535
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: interconnected now in ways that are almost impossible for one

536
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: person alone to envision, to fully comprehend. And in a

537
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: world of interconnected trade, bleep me here, Paul rolls downhill.

538
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: There is a domino effect. This means that Europe and

539
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: the US may also be adversely affected. If you live

540
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: in the US, you may remember that a lot of

541
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: the domestic opposition two conflict in the Middle East, US

542
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:53,760
Speaker 1: involvement in the Middle Eastern conflicts came about when people

543
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: started seeing gas prices rise. That's what it took. It

544
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't acknowledging the tax dollars are paying for

545
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: weapons of war. It wasn't acknowledging the innocent people are dying.

546
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: It's that moment where someone goes, what four dollars Well,

547
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: that's the line, you know what I mean? Because because

548
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,440
Speaker 1: now it's me, it's different because it's me, and it's

549
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: about to go a lot higher than four dollars. Um. Yeah,

550
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: it's it's it's pretty scary because if you think about

551
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: how much oil Russia produces and exports two countries across

552
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: the world, in countries like Germany who are attempting to

553
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: take steps to mitigate that issue, uh of like cutting

554
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:44,879
Speaker 1: off the oil that they get from Russia. But it's

555
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 1: it's gonna get rough. And again we're talking about green,

556
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,919
Speaker 1: We're talking about all kinds of commodities. If you cut

557
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,839
Speaker 1: them out of the game, there's gonna be more. I mean,

558
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: there is demand. There's a huge demand for things like green,

559
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 1: you know, food, and the ability to drive vehicle is around. Um,

560
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: it's gonna call it's gonna raise prices across the board

561
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: and it already is. And we drive, drive to go

562
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,879
Speaker 1: get gas right now, try it. See what you're You're

563
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: gonna come away spending quite a bit of money. Um.

564
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: And the scary thing for me is that we just

565
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: talked about this. I don't even remember which episode it was,

566
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: but we just discussed how inflation is happening all around us,

567
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: especially here in the US, that we we notice it

568
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: most most immediately because at the grocery store, right it

569
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: is at the gas station, Um, consumer prices. Listen to

570
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 1: this rose seven point five percent in the past twelve months. Yeah, yeah,

571
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,479
Speaker 1: up to January. And I love the point you're making

572
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: their matt because the the fossil fuel rise, right, the

573
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: rise in demand for fossil fuel. Ultimately, we'll fall on

574
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 1: anything you buy that is in any way of fact

575
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: by fossil fuel. So we're talking about trucking, we're talking

576
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: about cargo ships, we're talking about keeping the lights on

577
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: your house. You know, your energy bills, et cetera. This

578
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 1: this hits globally. That's that's the thing. Russia produces about

579
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: ten million barrels of oil every day. That's about ten

580
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: of current global consumption. And analysts like people who spend

581
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: their lives studying the fossil fuel industry are concerned that

582
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: oil prices could surge to and twenty dollars of barrel

583
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: thanks to this conflict. And again, when we talk about resources,

584
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 1: we have to emphasize people's lives are more important. Right.

585
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: You can replace the resource, you cannot replace a human life.

586
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: They are individual, distinct and unique. But people like Patrick

587
00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: de Haan, who is the head of petroleum analysis at

588
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 1: a place I love the name of this place, gas

589
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: Buddy said, Gas buddy. So so our gas buddies are

590
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: saying that a move to per barrel of oil, and

591
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: listen to our previous episodes on big oil to figure

592
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: out what a barrel means. Uh, This rise to could

593
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: increase US gas prices to four dollars a gallon or

594
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: an excess of four dollars a gallon. We mentioned Rush

595
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 1: is also the biggest wheat exporter. It's a huge producer

596
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: of precious metals like palladium, aluminum, nickel. We also said

597
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 1: Ukraine has a lot of uranium, titanium steel. What we're

598
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:52,839
Speaker 1: saying is when those operations of resource movement and allocation

599
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: are disrupted, it hits everyone. There's not there you can

600
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 1: aim uh something like economic warfare. You can aim it

601
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: at an initial country, but especially now, it's gonna be

602
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 1: like um saying you want to poison one part of

603
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: the ocean, because the ocean is its own inextricably connected thing.

604
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: So that's part of why that's part of why Russia

605
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 1: is only partially removed from swift because the people of

606
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 1: Western Europe need to not freeze, honestly, and that's also

607
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: part of why the US called it a nuclear option.

608
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: If we're gonna wax poetic. Let's just say the quiet

609
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: part out loud. A long long time ago, Uncle Sam

610
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 1: figured out that there are times where you can use

611
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: US dollars the same way you would use bullets or missiles.

612
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: You can weaponize the dollar. We talked about this in

613
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: our petro dollar episode. Right like the global reserve currency,

614
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 1: the swift is the common tongue or the the WhatsApp

615
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: or the signal for banks. But when it comes to currency,

616
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: the US dollar is the most widely accepted currency in

617
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 1: the world. If you have ten bucks, you have, like uh,

618
00:43:26,840 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: an old school ten dollar bill from the United States,

619
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,479
Speaker 1: your odds of someone letting you use that to pay

620
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: for something or buy something are much higher than almost

621
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: any other currency. You know. That's that's just the reality.

622
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 1: It is economic dominance. It is an economic hedgemon, and

623
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 1: the US has tremendous privilege as the sole issuer of

624
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: the world's de facto reserve currency. They use it as

625
00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: a carrot stick tool in global policy all the time.

626
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:06,879
Speaker 1: Pretty much every place on Earth excepts cash, even even

627
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: countries that are um fundamentally opposed to the United States.

628
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:16,880
Speaker 1: We'll say, okay, burn the US to the ground. But

629
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,280
Speaker 1: we will we will accept dollars if you have dollars,

630
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: no checks, So back ineen Um. The Obama administration blocked

631
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: UH several Russian banks from swift um as the relationship

632
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: between our country and Russia began to deteriorate. UM. Trump,

633
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: on the other hand, threatened to lock China out of

634
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 1: the dollar system who failed to follow UN sanctions on

635
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: North Korea. We know that Trump was very vocal and

636
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: his opposition into China and UH a little bit on

637
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: the cozy side when it came to Russia. Yeah, shout

638
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 1: out to the comproment. I still wonder what's in that

639
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: steal dossier? You know, Well that's that's the rumor, but

640
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: it hasn't been confirmed. You know. Also, we are in

641
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: the midst of a new kind of war. You know,

642
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: it's very much a war of information. It's taken place

643
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: on two separate fronts every war now. So the these

644
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: sanctions do affect the economy. In Prime Minister Medyev said

645
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: that sanctions resulted in a loss of tens of billions

646
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 1: of dollars of value. So it hits hard. But we

647
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:42,359
Speaker 1: have to talk a little bit more about future and

648
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:47,360
Speaker 1: past concerns. What swift means to Russia, what Swift means

649
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: to Ukraine, what Swift means to Europe, and ultimately what

650
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 1: Swift means to you and what these what the fallout

651
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: of this will be, because just like a bomb, there

652
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: is fallout. It's on the way we returned. Make no mistake,

653
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: we're not being hyperbolic. Uh. Economic warfare is not a

654
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 1: missile or a bomb. But this removal from swift, even

655
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: though it's it's partial, it does remain a weapon of

656
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: war and it functions as one. In fact, you can

657
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: make the argument that it's more dangerous in some ways

658
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: because it's less easy to control, which makes it therefore

659
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: less predictable. So if this is such a powerful weapon,

660
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: why did some European countries hesitate to make this move?

661
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 1: I mean, I love what you pointed out earlier. All yes,

662
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: Russia was well aware of the fallout. Nobody in this

663
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: conversation is particularly thick or dunderheaded. Russia has been con

664
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 1: like attempting to mitigate the possible damage of this economic

665
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: warfare for quite some time, and as we discussed in

666
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: our previous episode, they're the ones with their hands on

667
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:22,760
Speaker 1: the faucet for much of Europe's energy supply, so members

668
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: of Russia, members of Russian Parliament, I should say, I

669
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: even said as much. They said, Look, if Russia is

670
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: taken off of swift, then you Europe, I'll have to

671
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: find your gas somewhere else, and that could spell disaster

672
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: for millions of innocent people. As a matter of fact,

673
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: as we're recording now, the you, the United States is

674
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: actively selling energy fossil fuels to Europe at a lower

675
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: rate to try to get in front of the idea

676
00:47:54,080 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: of Europe without energy. And we also know that this

677
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 1: has inspired further pushes toward alternative energy in Europe because

678
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 1: they don't want to be hooked on the gas, right,

679
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,279
Speaker 1: they don't want to be addicted to gas the same

680
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 1: way that in the in Iran, or in North Korea

681
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: or in Russia. Their perspective is they don't want to

682
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: be addicted to the US dollar. Russia. Russia has taken

683
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: some some pretty proactive steps to try to get in

684
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,439
Speaker 1: front of this. Everybody is trying to predict the next

685
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: move and everybody is trying to sort of indemnify themselves

686
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: against the consequences. Does that make sense? It does, And

687
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,920
Speaker 1: Russia is no stranger to sanctions. They know what happened

688
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 1: in you know, around two thousand and eight with Georgia,

689
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen with Crimea, and they actually started

690
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: making moves, probably thinking in long game terms as they

691
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 1: tend to do, that this stuff might happen again. We

692
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 1: might end up being kicked out of Swift at some point.

693
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:07,239
Speaker 1: So they started I you know, I guess you can

694
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: call it a homegrown Swift. They got Swift e with

695
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: it and created this thing called spfs UM. It's the

696
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: system for Transfer of Financial Messages, a very similar thing

697
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 1: to use, and they've got several hundred members of that

698
00:49:23,360 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 1: thing already, I just internally within Russia that they and

699
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: a couple other member states outside. So they've got something

700
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 1: they can use that isn't Swift. While it isn't the

701
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:36,800
Speaker 1: same number of connections and the same level of power,

702
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 1: it's still functions, right. So it means that you can,

703
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: if you are Russia, you can say, uh, you know,

704
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: Swift's not really popping for us right now, but have

705
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: you heard of spf S. That's the new kid on

706
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 1: the block. They also purchased a lot of gold Wait.

707
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: I can't say a ton for non Americans. It's really

708
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 1: common for us to say a ton when we mean

709
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,239
Speaker 1: a lot of something. But it is very much not

710
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,239
Speaker 1: an accurate expression. I think if you look at it,

711
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: when you say a ton of people. We pointed this

712
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:17,239
Speaker 1: out on air earlier, a ton of people is like

713
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 1: twelve to thirteen people. It's not a lot of people.

714
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: But depend the other way. Oh, Matt, I see you

715
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 1: look at it up, all right, So I was gonna look.

716
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: I was gonna look it up. It was any just like,

717
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:33,759
Speaker 1: what is two thousand pounds to kilograms and then we

718
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: could convert that anyway. Don't know, we should do it.

719
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 1: It's just a lot. It's a lot, that's what we mean.

720
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 1: So there's a old school analog solution to moving away

721
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,839
Speaker 1: from the dollar, which is you accumulate treasure, just like

722
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,280
Speaker 1: a dragon in a fantasy novel. You get a horde

723
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: of gold and you sit on it, and then when

724
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 1: people say, hey, we want this thing, or you say

725
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 1: hey I want this thing, you just pay them in

726
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:11,960
Speaker 1: something shiny and metallic before ending their purchase program. At

727
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: the onset of the COVID pandemic, Russia was the world's

728
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: largest central bank buyer of gold. The Central Bank of Russia.

729
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: Think of it like the government's bank. Essentially, the Central

730
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 1: Bank of Russia bought four point three billion dollars worth

731
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: of gold in just over the year of June, did

732
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: June alone, And it turns out they've been buying tons

733
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: of gold way way before that. They would put smiled

734
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 1: to shame and mass mass quantities, mass quantities therapist. That's

735
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 1: way better than a ton. Nailed it. So at the

736
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:07,680
Speaker 1: same time they're doing this, they have been aggressively selling

737
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 1: off their US debt holding um. As we discussed earlier,

738
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,239
Speaker 1: debt for a country is way different than debt for

739
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: regular folks, you know what I mean. At times it

740
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: is quite beneficial for a country to have some sort

741
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: of international debt, like other countries buying up United States

742
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:39,799
Speaker 1: debt actually shores up and strengthens the status of the

743
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: US dollar. But this this leads so we're getting in

744
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,400
Speaker 1: the weeds. But this leads us to something really important.

745
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:49,839
Speaker 1: Need to know. We need to be aware that everything

746
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: is a precedent in the world of geopolitics. Very very

747
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: very few things are one offs. The weaponization of swift

748
00:52:59,239 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: does have a press. In earlier years, it has been

749
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 1: applied Iran for instance, um and and other similar financial sanctions.

750
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: So it comes from a precedent, but it also sets

751
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 1: a precedent for future conflicts. We say it all the time. Now,

752
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: nothing happens in a vacuum, experts economic analysts again, people

753
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: who spend their lives studying this. Folks like Peter Schiff

754
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 1: are well aware of this. They are warning that other

755
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:36,040
Speaker 1: countries are watching how the US handles its economic power

756
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: during this conflict. And I wanted to pull a quotation

757
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: from him at the tenth Amendment Center dot com where

758
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: he notes the importance of the other countries watching. Quote,

759
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: China is looking on thinking, well, Russia's doing something America

760
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: doesn't want. They're getting sanctioned. What if we do something

761
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: with a ket doesn't want as well? Uh, we get sanctioned.

762
00:54:02,960 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 1: They pull the dollar out from under us. Let's go

763
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: out from under the dollar on our own. Let's not

764
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,360
Speaker 1: leave this weapon in the hands of the US that

765
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: can be turned against us at any time. And this,

766
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: of course can create, you know, the potential for future

767
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 1: economic standoffs in which the United States does not have

768
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 1: nearly as much of the upper hand as in past exchanges. China,

769
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: of course, is one of the largest foreign holders of

770
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 1: US debt, and if China were to dump a significant

771
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: amount of m U S treasuries, it could potentially have

772
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: a catastrophic effect on the bond market and make it very,

773
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: very difficult for United States to finance this massive debt.

774
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 1: We always hear about, you know what if China calls

775
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:46,360
Speaker 1: in instead. I mean, it's not as simple as that.

776
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: It's not as cut cut and dry as that. Or

777
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 1: if they like flood the market with you know, um,

778
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 1: with with the U S currency, it could like cause

779
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 1: you know, drastic fluctuations and in the value of the dollar.

780
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: They do have a significant amount of power and leverage

781
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: in this, But some of these scenarios are you know,

782
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: there's there's just only a seed of truth to some

783
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: of these more like extreme how scenarios of how China

784
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: could play this card. Yeah, well, said man, because the

785
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:21,360
Speaker 1: the issue here is that tanking Russia's economy has clear

786
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: repercussions for other connected economies, and ultimately the majority of

787
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 1: world economies are connected in some way, some much more

788
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 1: than others. Sure, but ultimately there are ripple effects, there

789
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 1: are unforeseen consequences, and the future right now is yet

790
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:47,239
Speaker 1: to be seen. As we said, as we said in

791
00:55:47,239 --> 00:55:51,279
Speaker 1: a previous episode, not even DARPA can predict it yet.

792
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: But this sort of warfare does come with an unavoidable,

793
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: inescapable tragic costs, and it's one that goes far past

794
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: bank king codes. It goes past like piles of dragon

795
00:56:03,560 --> 00:56:08,359
Speaker 1: gold and piles of printed cash or whatever. It's this

796
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 1: people in power, and this is true. People in power

797
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:18,240
Speaker 1: can often circumvent sanctions, they can preserve their own personal

798
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: quality of life. But people living in those punished countries,

799
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:27,920
Speaker 1: living in those affected countries already typically are already not

800
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: going to have a voice in the policy or decisions

801
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 1: of their government. I think that gets you a one

802
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:37,759
Speaker 1: way ticket to a Russian prison these days. But they

803
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 1: are going to have to bear the burden of skyrocketing prices,

804
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: widespread shortages, and economic chaos. And you have to be

805
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 1: aware again, like if you if you have any contacts

806
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: in Russia, uh, you are well aware of just how

807
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 1: profound the propaganda game is there. Like they're very good

808
00:56:59,120 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: at it. There is no alternative to their Fox News,

809
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:07,400
Speaker 1: just to be clear, right and right now, there isn't

810
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: because the last independent, one of the very last independent

811
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: Russian TV stations just went off the air, and you

812
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 1: can actually watch a video right now of the last

813
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: broadcast where the last things said we're no war. Yeah exactly.

814
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: That's a great point, Matt, because again, these are innocent

815
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 1: people working with the information they have right and the

816
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:34,439
Speaker 1: world is watching. We have not one thing I want

817
00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: us to get to in a future episode is something

818
00:57:37,560 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 1: that Noel Matter I think we're all fascinated by, is

819
00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 1: the viability of cryptocurrency in this regard, right in terms

820
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: of getting around some of these uh these sanctions, at

821
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 1: the very least in terms of the way the military

822
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 1: and the government might be able to kind of keep

823
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:01,720
Speaker 1: running without some of these foreign um go betweens in

824
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: terms of moving money just so, just so. And crypto

825
00:58:05,640 --> 00:58:09,840
Speaker 1: is not quite the wild West it was back in

826
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: the day several years ago, but there's still there's still

827
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 1: a flexibility and liquidity that doesn't it doesn't quite occur

828
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:22,400
Speaker 1: with your hordes of gold or with your hordes of currency.

829
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: Still in the meantime, the clock is ticking, giants are

830
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: fighting on the chessboard. Want to give a shout out

831
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: to our fellow conspiracy realist uh Steph, who just wrote

832
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: to us about our episode on the Great Game and

833
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 1: about the importance to world powers of controlling this part

834
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: of the globe while these giants fight in their Great Game,

835
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 1: innocent people with no influence on that game, our pain

836
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 1: and blood and treasure for every single move made. So

837
00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: when you hear of things like swift banking system right, oh,

838
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 1: nuclear option on a sanction, there's more to the story,

839
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 1: more to these headlines. As we record today. The situation

840
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 1: is ongoing and we're not sure what the future will hold.

841
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 1: But we do know, Matt, We do know that, we

842
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: do know that apparently Russia's op set is pretty sloppy.

843
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:29,560
Speaker 1: They got compromised, wasn't it just earlier this week, some

844
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 1: some classified Russian intel was discovered. It was abandoned, and

845
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: it was like the war will last fifteen days? Oh yeah.

846
00:59:39,760 --> 00:59:44,040
Speaker 1: Some There are a couple of things like that that

847
00:59:44,160 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: I've seen online. I haven't been able to fully verify

848
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: any of it, but documents and statements that were published early,

849
00:59:52,600 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: or or published at a time when maybe they were

850
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 1: like scheduled or something when Russia believed that they were

851
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 1: going to be able to clear victory or some thing,

852
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:03,840
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like the banner on the battleship. Um.

853
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: And then that last one was very weird. It was

854
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: like an outline. Yeah, here it'll be fifteen days. This,

855
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 1: this is what's going to happen. This is our plan. Um.

856
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: And like I said earlier too, I mean he has

857
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:18,919
Speaker 1: come out saying no no setbacks here, all on military operation, right.

858
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 1: That's how he refers to everything's on schedules, accomplished. It

859
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 1: was I was trying to keep his subtle. Um, everything

860
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 1: we've set out to accomplish has thus far been accomplished

861
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: on schedule. Uh. And I think that fifteen days is

862
01:00:32,680 --> 01:00:34,520
Speaker 1: still what he's kind of thinking about. What are we

863
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 1: eight days in now again? Mark four two? Uh? Yeah.

864
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: So we want to hear from you, folks, especially if

865
01:00:45,720 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: you are in country, if you're in Ukraine, if you

866
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 1: are in Russia, if you are in Belotus, if you

867
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: are anywhere in the area, if you have family in

868
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:01,640
Speaker 1: the area. We also want to hear about your conversations

869
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:04,680
Speaker 1: with your family members, with your friends, with your loved ones.

870
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: Please be safe and help us share this story with

871
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:14,360
Speaker 1: the world and let us know what more people need

872
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 1: to know about the context, about the specifics the rabbit

873
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: holes regarding this stuff. We want to dive in. We

874
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:25,520
Speaker 1: want to dive in with you. And speaking of rabbit holes,

875
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:29,200
Speaker 1: there are several we didn't go down. We we mentioned Crypto,

876
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 1: but we haven't examined it yet. That may be a

877
01:01:31,840 --> 01:01:36,520
Speaker 1: future episode. There's something else that we need to talk about,

878
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:42,720
Speaker 1: at least briefly. Well, something called Cybos. Yeah, Cybos. You

879
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: may not know this. Ben and Ol and I go

880
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: to a thing called podcast Movement every year. We've mentioned

881
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 1: it before in the show. It's a conference, right, their

882
01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: conferences for many things, many industries. Cybos is the SWIFT

883
01:01:56,160 --> 01:01:58,720
Speaker 1: Conference that occurs every year, and it has been occurring

884
01:01:58,800 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 1: since n D eight and every year a a except

885
01:02:04,240 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 1: for I believe in maybe every year they pick a

886
01:02:10,920 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: city and a bunch of the SWIFT member banks and

887
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 1: organizations and associates get together and they talk about the

888
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:21,920
Speaker 1: future of international banking, of banking technology, and all different

889
01:02:21,960 --> 01:02:25,480
Speaker 1: sorts of innovations that are occurring within the sector. To me,

890
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:29,720
Speaker 1: it feels very much like a I don't want to

891
01:02:29,800 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 1: use the term Illuminati, but it's definitely an elite group

892
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 1: of the world's most powerful financial institutions and individuals that

893
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 1: run those institutions where they get together and they share knowledge,

894
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 1: and to me, it's just feels I don't know, like

895
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: maybe the closest I've seen to an illuminati specifically, because

896
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:56,080
Speaker 1: it's the it's the money, it's the people who control

897
01:02:56,120 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: the money. It doesn't matter how powerful you are. If

898
01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: you can't move money and buy things or sell things,

899
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 1: then what are you gonna do? You just have a

900
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:05,919
Speaker 1: bunch of it, just have, like you said, a pile

901
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 1: of treasure that just sits there that can't be converted

902
01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:12,800
Speaker 1: into weapons or hypersonic missiles. Well said, let's email them.

903
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: Let's email and let's see what they say about two

904
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:19,800
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam. And I love what you're saying there, because

905
01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: we're talking about the important the importance of gate keeping.

906
01:03:24,840 --> 01:03:30,080
Speaker 1: Right like Facebook with the metaverse, they know that this

907
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: next iteration or this next evolution of online experiences occurring,

908
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 1: and they said, why don't we We don't have to

909
01:03:39,920 --> 01:03:42,800
Speaker 1: buy the house, why don't we own the door? Right?

910
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:46,120
Speaker 1: And Swift, in a very real way doesn't own the house,

911
01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 1: but they do own the door. And I think there's

912
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: a compelling argument that owning the door is more important

913
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 1: at some point. Oh, we also should mention Swift is

914
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 1: a for profit entity. This is not an altruistic thing.

915
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: They get a vague, They get a vague off of

916
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:09,400
Speaker 1: all those you know, millions of transactions. But to me, Ben,

917
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:15,320
Speaker 1: in my mind, Swift is Swift is the private club.

918
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: It's the Piedmont Driving Club. It's the um you know,

919
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: the placement, It's the placement, it's war Warse investments. It's

920
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: where people get together. They pay they pay money to

921
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 1: get in to become a member, and then they all

922
01:04:28,600 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 1: get to talk to each other. Right, to me, it's

923
01:04:30,920 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 1: an equivalent. Swift is a private country club kind of thing,

924
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 1: or a golf club where just the biggest banking institutions

925
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 1: get to chill and know each other's families and send

926
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 1: each other presence in the form of billion dollar transactions. Yes, yeah,

927
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 1: it's a different world, you know, to paraphrase the old

928
01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:57,120
Speaker 1: sitcom here in the States, we do need to collectively

929
01:04:57,320 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 1: be more aware of these things that happened, right, of

930
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: these things that happened regularly, because you may not know

931
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:09,160
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of it, but they affect you.

932
01:05:09,160 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: You know. I'd be very interested, Matt to hear about

933
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:19,600
Speaker 1: someone's experience visiting, uh, visiting this conference, this podcast movement

934
01:05:19,680 --> 01:05:26,480
Speaker 1: for swift What are you? I know, but we didn't

935
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:29,439
Speaker 1: get to go. What were you even doing in two

936
01:05:29,440 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 1: thousand and four, that's before the three of us met,

937
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:38,720
Speaker 1: you know, so if he goes out of the country,

938
01:05:38,760 --> 01:05:43,439
Speaker 1: actually that at that time. But uh, but um, I say,

939
01:05:43,480 --> 01:05:47,680
Speaker 1: we email it, maybe just request like their press packet

940
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:49,680
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's got to be interesting to

941
01:05:49,720 --> 01:05:54,840
Speaker 1: read now. And with that with an adventure ahead, with

942
01:05:55,000 --> 01:06:00,840
Speaker 1: sincere um concern and well wishes where the innocent people

943
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:04,880
Speaker 1: are being affected by the largest land war in Europe

944
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 1: in quite some time. Um, we wanted to end with

945
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:14,520
Speaker 1: just just a little thing to make this not so depressing.

946
01:06:14,760 --> 01:06:17,120
Speaker 1: I thought it was funny. I found it on our

947
01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:23,120
Speaker 1: Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. And someone get this.

948
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:28,439
Speaker 1: Someone got me. Someone pointed out something dumb I did,

949
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 1: which you know, the three of us know each other

950
01:06:30,400 --> 01:06:32,520
Speaker 1: very well. It's not hard to point out dumb things

951
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 1: I do at least four Nolan Matt. But but this,

952
01:06:36,240 --> 01:06:39,680
Speaker 1: this guy got me, all right, Tom h says quote.

953
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 1: Ben seemed to think the phrase private social club was ironic.

954
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: In today's Listener Mail episode, Ben Bullin guess a private

955
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 1: social club much like any Facebook group that requires permission

956
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:59,000
Speaker 1: to join, and only members can see the post of

957
01:06:59,680 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: well done, Tom, you got me. I thought I thought

958
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:06,640
Speaker 1: about that too, I got got a good job top.

959
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:08,800
Speaker 1: I just thought that would give us a chuckle. And

960
01:07:08,800 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 1: I think it's okay for me to point it out

961
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:14,040
Speaker 1: because I'm the one who is wrong. But we do

962
01:07:14,120 --> 01:07:16,200
Speaker 1: have a Facebook group. We try to be easy to

963
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:18,680
Speaker 1: find online. You can find us on Instagram as well.

964
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 1: You should tune in, I think, to our social media

965
01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:26,280
Speaker 1: because we have some pretty cool stuff on the way.

966
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:28,440
Speaker 1: We do indeed, and you can hear all about it,

967
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:32,400
Speaker 1: as Ben said, on Instagram or on Facebook, or on

968
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:34,920
Speaker 1: Twitter or on YouTube. You can find us on those

969
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:38,600
Speaker 1: under the handle of conspiracy Stuff and Instagram is conspiracy

970
01:07:38,640 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: Stuff Show. But wait, there's more. You want to give

971
01:07:41,200 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: us a telephone call, leave us a tale of some

972
01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:47,760
Speaker 1: sort and audio message admissive. Well you can do that too, Yes,

973
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: call us. Our number is one eight three three std

974
01:07:51,560 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 1: w y t K. When you leave a message, please

975
01:07:54,240 --> 01:07:57,320
Speaker 1: give yourself a cool nickname. You've got three minutes say

976
01:07:57,320 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: whatever you'd like in that three minutes. Please and lude

977
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 1: whether or not you give us permission to use your

978
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:05,680
Speaker 1: name and voicemail on the air. If you've got more

979
01:08:05,720 --> 01:08:08,320
Speaker 1: to say than can fit in that three minutes. Instead,

980
01:08:08,560 --> 01:08:11,800
Speaker 1: why not consider sending us a good old evolution of

981
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:16,080
Speaker 1: the telex and email. We are conspiracy at i heart

982
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:37,240
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know

983
01:08:37,479 --> 01:08:40,480
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts

984
01:08:40,479 --> 01:08:42,679
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

985
01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:45,599
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.