WEBVTT - What are the Weirdest Things the Government Invests In? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.680 Guess what, mango, what's that will? I know you're a 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.240 big fan of couzies, so I've got a great story 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.360 for you. Just just go with it. It's a good setup. 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.479 So you know how we've had so many good business 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.720 ideas since starting this show. We had amish dust, we 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.279 had remote control condoms. Well, I think we need to 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:18.480 try and apply for some government money to get these 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:20.759 things off the ground. So you really think we'd have 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.360 a shot. Well that's where the coozies come in. Just 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.720 a couple of years ago, to students at the University 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.240 of Washington, we're doing some pretty cool research on how 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.280 foam couzies helped keep a can cold in the summer heat. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:33.479 And you know how much they got from the National 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:38.080 Science Foundation to explore this one point three million dollars 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:40.960 you're making up? I'm not. And it turns out that 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:43.480 there's a little more to the story than just that headline, 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.080 and that the study was part of an effort to 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.080 learn more about climate change. But it's more fun to 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.639 ignore the important science e stuff and just say one 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.680 point three million to study cazies. And I'm sure we 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.000 could come up with a bigger, more noble cause behind 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.080 our ideas, but it does make you wonder what are 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.040 the weirdest things our government has invested in? And that's 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:22.520 what we're talking about today, Mr Hei their podcast listeners, 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:24.800 Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.560 always I'm joined by my good friend Mangueshot Ticketer and 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.320 today we're breaking out our calculators and taking a hard 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.720 look at questions on government spending. What exactly does the 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.920 US budget pay for? And more importantly, what's the weirdest 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.640 stuff our country has ever invested in? And to talk 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.560 about that, We've got a few fun guests today. Who's 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.080 gonna be joining us today, Mango. Today we'll be joined 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.320 by James Ledbetter, author and editor of inc Magazine, and 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:49.680 he's got this great new book, One Nation Under Gold, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:54.040 where he digs into Operation Goldfinger, this bizarre secret federal 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.760 plan from the sixties that tried to sniff out golden 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:58.880 strange places. And we're also going to talk to a 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:00.880 couple of coin collectors. You know a thing or two 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.760 about unusual investments. They're going to give us a low 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.160 down on some of their best finds and in return, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.320 we'll put them to the test. All right, Well, that 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.600 sounds like a fair trade. So to kind of dip 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.160 our toes into this topic, I thought we should first 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.600 address what most people already know about government spending, which 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.360 it turns out isn't a whole lot. Plenty of us 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.680 could probably point to healthcare and national defense as big 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.080 parts of the US budget, but beyond that, the specifics 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.600 actually get a little hazy for most people. Yeah, sad, 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.639 but true. The Pure Research Center to the study back 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.400 in two thousand fourteen that really helped illustrate just how 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.080 little we know about where our money goes. PU pulled 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.720 Americans on what they knew about carent events and issues 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.959 in the news, and while the average respondent was fairly 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:45.480 knowledgeable about many of the topics, when it came to 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.560 how much the government spent on particular programs, most people 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.240 were pretty clueless. So when they were pulled out, what 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.079 were they asked about? Well, respondents were asked how much 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.200 money they thought the government spent on four programs. It 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:02.080 was foreign aid, transportations, social security, and paying down interest 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.560 on the national debt. Or rather, they were asked to 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.239 put them in order from like largest the smallest, so 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.440 at thirty three the majority of people said we spend 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.160 the most money on foreign aid, followed by interest on 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:18.680 the national debt. That was at thought. Social Security received 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.600 the most money and only four percent. Name transportation is 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.440 the top expense, all right, so I'm guessing that's a 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.840 little off. So what's the actual breakdown, Well, social Security 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:29.720 nets the most money of the programs on the list 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.280 by far. It received ninety four billion dollars in the 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.720 fiscal year two thousand and sixteen, and that's roughly seventeen 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.640 times the annual spending on foreign aid. It's also nine 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.560 point five times the amount spent on transportation and almost 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:44.560 three and a half times the amount spent on interest 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.840 for the national debt. So people underestimated how much we 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.480 spend on Social Security and they also severely overestimated the 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:53.920 money we devote to foreign aid. Yeah, yeah, I'd say, 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.160 well that that's that's very interesting. How do you think 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.920 we should reconcile the fact that Social Security always ranks 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.600 is one of the most popular government programs among Americans. 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.800 So I'll barn aid consistently ranks as the least popular 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.360 spending category. I think it really points to how our 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.360 preconceived notions and political opinions can color the way we 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.520 view the world, including our nation's spending habits. Well, how 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.920 is that? Well, we tend to assume the worst about 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.279 our government spending, and I think that's because we're aware 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.040 in this really broad sense that the country burns through 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.159 a lot of money and that the national debt is 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.320 this like sky high number that's unimaginable, but it's always 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.159 on the rise, even if we don't know the specifics. Yeah, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.720 I mean, it seems like we take the pessimistic approach, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.039 and you know, it's easy to imagine our government that 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.480 we must spend the least amount on programs we like 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.360 and the most on ones we don't like. And I 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.159 guess that's kind of human nature too exactly. But a 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.400 closer look shows that the worst case mentality doesn't always 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.560 add up. For example, foreign aid, that's the program that 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.880 tops the chart in terms of unpopularity, but in reality 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.359 it only accounts for roughly one percent of the total 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:57.760 federal budget. Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that. All right, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.000 So let's set the record straight on this and once again, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.440 and it's Pew Research to the rescue here. So they 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.840 broke down how the US government spent its three point 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.320 nine five trillion dollar budget last year, and according to 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.440 their senior writer, Drew to Silver, our country is basically 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.440 a giant insurance company that also has a defense gig 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.800 on the side. So we spend most of our money 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.800 on healthcare in the national defense, oh definitely. About seventy 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.479 of the total budget went for different kinds of social insurance, 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:29.240 so that would include Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment compensation, 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.919 veterans benefits, all of the things kind of like this. Now, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.480 another fifteen percent of total spending went for national defense. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.240 Interest payments on national debt came in and looks like 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:44.480 six percent, and education and related services made up less 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.320 than three percent. So I'm just looking at the numbers 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:52.360 on your page here, So seventy fifteen six three that's 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.680 only whereas the other six well, that's the crazy thing. 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.679 Every other program, whether that's national parks, public broadcasting, foreign A, NASA, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.359 you name it, all of those fit into the remaining 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.240 six percent of the federal budget, which is all the 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.839 stuff we squabble about. But it's all the fun stuff too. 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.080 I know, it's a pretty sweet six percent, And it's 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.560 inside that six percent that we're going to be focused 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.400 on today. Yeah, but again, the worthiness of those programs 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.600 is up for debate depending on who you ask, right, 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.320 So we're not going to get into that debate. If 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.160 you haven't noticed, we typically avoid big political statements here 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.400 on the show, but we do love to dig up 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.599 the most interesting fact. So that's what we're gonna stay 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.640 focused on. Right. Well, we definitely see federal spending running 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:34.640 into the same problems we face as individuals. You know, 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:36.360 what to buy at the grocery store, or how much 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.520 of your incomes should go to entertainment versus savings. Most 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.279 people aren't going to agree on this stuff, and the 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.520 fact is not everyone wants to spend their money in 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.320 the same way, and that causes pretty big headaches when 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.840 you're spending from a pot to which every taxpayer contributes. Sure, 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:52.880 and that's why you'll never reach a consensus on certain 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.560 line items, like, for example, whether or not it was 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.640 a wise move for the government to invest nine dollars 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.719 to promote Vidalia nions as part of a promotional campaign 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.440 for the fourth Shrek movie. Ninety thousand dollars. I think 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:07.799 we can all agree that sounds like a really bizarre 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.280 use of money. Don't tell me that actually happened. It did, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.440 but I'm not so sure the can was a waste. 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.480 Like according to the Vidalia Onion Committee, which is a 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:18.680 real committee I was going to call, onion sales were 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.280 up thanks to the Shrek promotion, and that's a huge 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.080 deal here in Georgia, where agricultural makes up like a 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.920 good chunk of the economy. By the way, did you 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.160 know even more than that was spent in two thousand 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.720 twelve to help Idahope promote their caviar. It's like three 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:38.080 hundred thousand dollars Idaho. Again, it was to help the 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:42.480 local farmers in rural areas. Onions and caviar yummy. All right, 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:45.280 fair enough, But but here's another one for you, unrelated 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.720 to food. So in two thousand and ten, the government 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.880 gave six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars to the University 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.640 of California at Santa Cruz so they could digitize Grateful 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.320 Dead memorabilia. How crazy is this? That's over half a 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.480 million in federal funds that went a digitally preserving old 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.679 Grateful Dead concert tickets, t shirts and posters of dancing 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:07.880 Teddy Bears. I mean, maybe it's just me, but that 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.400 seems a little tougher to defend. I feel like we're 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.680 gonna get a ton of angry emails from deadheads now. 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.360 By the way, I was on Wikipedia the other day 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.239 and I found this incredible page of what fans are called, 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.240 And so do you know what Barry Manilow's fans are called. 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.600 They're called fan alos and cris Pines fans they're called 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.040 pine nuts. I'm a huge pine. Maybe I didn't know that, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.239 but I mean, I see your point, right. Like expenses 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.600 like the Shrek Onion promotion and a federally funded Grateful 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.560 Dead archive, they're tough to justify because they tend to 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.679 benefit a much smaller segment of the population than you know, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.160 something like medicare Well, it's definitely an eye of the 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.800 beholder kind of thing, and some programs will seem like 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.920 good investments to you and others won't. And there's bound 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:53.880 to be a lot of disagreement among people as to 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.120 which or which. Absolutely so one of my favorite examples 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.920 of that disparity and thinking comes from this weird research 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.760 study from two thousand five. Biologists at Yale University received 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.000 a federal grant to study the reproductive anatomy of ducks 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:12.200 and namely the mail ducks unique corkscrew shape privates. Right, So, like, 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.640 pundits and politicians were all over this, and they counted 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.000 the study as like a particularly egregious case of wasteful 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.160 government spending, so much so that the lead researcher, and 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.600 her name was Patricia Brennan, she actually came forward to 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.359 defend her work for the public. What did she say, Yeah, 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.920 it's a pretty great statement. Actually, so I'm just gonna 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.920 go ahead and read it. Quote, this is basic science. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.400 The headlines reflect outrage that the study was about duck genitals, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.400 as if there's something inherently wrong or perverse with this 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.560 line of research. Imagine if medical research through the line 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.480 at the belt Genitalia, Dear readers, are where the rubber 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:51.480 meets the road evolutionarily, that's a statement. What a great 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.360 quote there. But you know, that kind of dismissive attitude 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.400 is it's actually pretty common when dealing with research projects 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.079 that can admittedly sound a little nutty when take and 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.000 in isolation. In fact, there are a few senators who've 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.760 made it a yearly tradition to publish waste books, as 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.400 they call them. These detail hundreds of what they deemed 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.880 to be the worst cases of wasteful spending for a 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.080 given year. I should note that the two thousand sixteen 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.640 waste book was titled Pokemon Go. It's pretty great. But 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.480 while these reports always make some fair points, they also 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.040 tend to ridicule grants for quirky research and present them 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.680 without mention of their connections to the broader fields of 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.200 legitimate study. Yeah, and I want to make sure we 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.040 don't fall prey to that same temptation. But that's a 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.760 They're definitely other parts of the federal budget that seemed 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.200 wasteful no matter the context. What do you say we 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:40.800 look at some of the strangest cases of clear cut waste, 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.360 along with a few more examples that skirt the line 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.720 between impractical and outright crazy. All right, well, that sounds 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.280 good to me. Why don't we start with Operation gold Finger, 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.640 which seems like a prime candidate for the outright crazy category. 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:54.240 Why don't we see if we can get our first 0:10:54.240 --> 0:11:02.120 guest on the line to talk through it. Our guest 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.240 today is the editor of inc magazine and the author 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.040 of a new book titled One Nation Under Gold, How 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.079 One Precious medal has dominated the American imagination for four centuries. 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.200 It's a terrific book. And with today's episode being focused 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.960 on weird government investments, we're going to focus this conversation 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.640 on an incredibly bizarre effort known as Operation gold Finger. 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.000 James Ledbetter, Welcome to Part time Genius. Thank you so 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:26.880 much for having me. All Right, well, James, can you 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.360 help us set the stage for our listeners. So it's 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.720 the early nineteen sixties. What is the state of gold 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.280 at this point? So, when World War Two was coming 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:41.079 to an end, the major powers of the world gathered 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.680 in New Hampshire in Bretton Woods to hammer out a 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.680 new monetary system for the globe. Uh and that system 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.079 had at its heart the convertibility of the dollar to 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:56.200 gold at the rate of thirty five announced so Bamian theory, 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.800 anyone with thirty five dollars could go to the United 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.120 States Treasury and get a bounce of gold, and anybody 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:03.840 with announce of gold could go to the High States 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.800 Treasury and get thirty five dollars. That every other currency 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.040 in the world was then pegged to the dollar, and 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.480 the dollar was fully convertible to gold. This system worked 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.280 pretty well. It arguably worked too well in the sense 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.800 that the growth of Western Europe and Japan starting in 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.360 the late forties through the nineteen fifties was so rapid 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.559 and extensive that you now have all of these dollars 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.439 out in the world and dollar backed securities that if 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.280 they were to be redeemed at the same time at 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.360 that treasury window, there would be no more gold. And 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.280 that was considered to be an absolute disaster that had 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.200 to be prevented because it would it would bring the 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.120 whole system crumbling down. And that's not because we didn't 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.480 have any gold. We had amassed the largest stockpile of 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.440 gold known to mankind, but it still wasn't enough to 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.280 deal with all of the dollars that were out there. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.800 And so with this problem being very well known by 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.440 the country's leaders and the Federal Reserve, there was a 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.320 kind of desperation about what to do, and so on 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.400 top of that you have pressure coming from the United 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:20.320 States gold mining industry. The the keeping the value of 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:24.840 gold at thirty five an ounce was very depressing to 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.960 the US gold industry. That it's a little analogous to 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.800 like oil companies when oil is at twenty barrel it's 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.160 really not worth their time to drill in certain places 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:39.679 or to go where you need to do fracking. At 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.559 a hundred dollars a barrel, it's it makes a lot 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.920 more sense. But with the price fixed at thirty most 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.400 of the gold that was easily accessible in the United 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.599 States had already been tapped out, and and so the 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.960 question is where what could be done to get more gold? 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:04.480 And a strange combination of high placed Treasury officials, l 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:09.080 v j's science and technology advisor, and some sympathetic members 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.079 of Congress cooked up this scheme in the mid sixties 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.120 that because it's the mid sixties, what else are they 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.080 going to call it? Operation Golder and the idea, the 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.760 idea was to use state of the art technology to 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.440 basically find gold where it had never been found before. 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:31.640 So you had this is all completely top secret. There 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.400 was no congressional debate, There was no budget line item 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.480 for it. You know, there wasn't like people said, oh yeah, 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.240 let's let's uh, let's sign off on the on the 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.040 on the alchemy quest. Um. It was completely hush hush 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:48.200 because they were afraid, uh they they they believed that 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.920 there was so much gold that they could find that 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.880 it was essentially you know, double or triple the amount 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.520 of gold already mind in the world. That's that's so 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:00.480 one of the things I say is it's not like 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.040 discovering a new gold mine. This was like they thought 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.240 discovering a new planet, and that they felt that that 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.640 if that got out, it might be so disruptive to 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.520 the world central banks that you could cause you know, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.000 any number of economic problems. And so what were some 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.160 of the weirdest places that they started looking for gold? 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.760 It feels like this insane exploratory mission. Yeah, so so 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.840 they were There were kind of three parts to Operation 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.880 gold Finger. The first part involved using state of the 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.240 art technology to see if there is in fact gold 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:39.600 in places where it had traditionally not been looked for. So, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.360 for example, uh, is their gold in the ash that 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.120 comes out of cold plants? Is there gold in certain 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:52.320 types of um plants and flowers? Is their golden animal brains? 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.200 Is their gold in deer antlers? Is their gold in seawater? 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:01.080 Um Literally dozens and dozens of projects all across the 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.400 country and internationally to find out if there's some you know, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:09.520 kind of hidden source of gold. And this is almost comical. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:14.240 This is an instant of when science kind of gets 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:19.520 in the way of wisdom because the technology was really great. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:24.200 The fact is there are traces of gold in lots 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.840 of places, but at parts per million or parts per billion, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.800 to get the gold out of the deer antlers would 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.480 cost way more than thirty five dollars, So it really 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:39.800 wasn't a solution, even though yeah, it was kind of there. UM. 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:45.720 The second component of Operation gold Finger again goes back 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:50.560 to this idea that we know where the gold is, 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:52.920 but all of the gold that can be easily and 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.400 profitably mined in location X has already been mined out. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.360 There's a very good chance that there's more gold underneath there, 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:06.120 but it's not really accessible um at thirty five dollars 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:11.240 announced if you use conventional explosives. But what if what 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.000 if we put nuclear explosives in the ground and blast 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.000 out the gold and then lead it out with a 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.439 with a with a chemical and this this was a 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.320 very enticing idea in the in the mid sixties, there 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.639 were a lot of government scientists who really believed in 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:31.560 what we're called the peaceful uses of atomic energy. UM. 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.280 It was a somewhat naive time in the sense that 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.120 people were not paying a lot of attention to radioactivity. Uh, 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:40.560 and that's a bit of a problem. But there were 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:45.880 a number of experiments that were conducted using nuclear weapons 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.439 to to move large amounts of earth, and it was 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.720 it was kind of in the books to do this 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.920 for mining purposes. But by the time the words started 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.320 to get out and some of the more um uh 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:04.639 kind of conscious scientists, the program was eventually scrapped before 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:09.160 it actually took the form of of using nuclear weapons 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:13.119 for for gold mining. Um. And then the third component, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:18.160 which really didn't get too far beyond the conceptual stage. Um. 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.280 But let's call it what it is, was to turn 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:25.040 base metals into gold. It was nothing short of a 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:31.439 twentieth century alchemy proposal. And here again the science kind 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.640 of outpaced people's understanding of things. You can do this, 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.160 It can be done. Glenn Seaborg, who was for many 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.359 years the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and there's 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.320 there's elements named after him. He's he discovered a number 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:50.359 of elements. Very distinguished scientists actually did this. In you 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.879 could you could take very very thin foil of bismuth 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.000 and bombard it with proton beam and it displaces electrons, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.159 so that some of this remaining is in fact an 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.879 isotope of goals. So you can create gold out of 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:08.199 base metals. But again here's the problem. When Seaboard did this, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.600 he estimated that to produce gold by this method would 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:16.760 cost probably one quadrillion dollars per ounds as a way 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.240 of replacing the gold that was propping up the dollar 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.480 that was worth thirty five This was not really a 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:24.440 very good proposal. Um. But but you know, it's it's 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:29.320 kind of easy to make fun of these ideas. Now, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.200 it has to be said that at the time these 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.600 these were considered viable ways of propping up the global economy, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.320 which was it was a very serious, sober thing to do. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.600 But it shows you how twisted and um and kind 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:50.240 of um uh, what's the word I'm looking for, how 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:55.240 unsustainable the monetary system had become, that that that that 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.000 you would have someone seriously thinking of putting nuclear weapons 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.800 in the ground, is you know, a better way of 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.600 propping up the world's monetary system as opposed to say 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.320 changing the rules. It just shows you how the logic 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:10.800 had had really become you know, kind of work. And 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.000 I think that's that's part of the theme of my 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.400 book One Nation Under Gold, that for whatever reason, sometimes 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.600 we're good, sometimes we're not so good. This metal has 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.760 kind of warped the American mind over time, and uh, 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.920 and we we can't we can't stop. It's it's this utter, 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.240 utter fascination with this substance. Well, James, this has been terrific. 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.480 I hope everyone will check out One Nation Undergold. James, 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.000 thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.560 You're listening to part time Genius and we're talking about 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.000 the weirdest things our government spends money on. To ango. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.040 Before the break, you mentioned that there were some clear 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.400 cut cases of wasteful government spending that are tough to dispute. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:00.320 So when you said that, what did you have mind? 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.960 Oh man, where to begin? I'd say one of the 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.840 worst I came across was the staggering ninety million dollars 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.080 that federal agencies spent on unnecessary printing charges each year. 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.399 Like this includes about twenty eight million dollars just to 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.080 print the Congressional Record, and that's a daily transcription of 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:21.240 every word spoken in Congress. So there are over copies 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.560 of this record printed every single day. And the worst 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.240 part is the whole thing is available online. Yeah, that's 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.760 pretty much the definition of wasteful. And I've I've got 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.320 another one here. So, according to a two thousand thirteen 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.440 report by the Office of the Inspector General, the government 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.880 spent big on inside advertising to increase traffic to their 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.159 Facebook and Twitter pages. How exciting is that Facebook and 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.080 Twitter for government? All told, the State Department told out 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.840 six hundred and thirty thousand dollars of the course of 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.800 two years, and this was basically to buy more likes 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.480 for their social media posts. Man, did they at least 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.880 get the traffic they wanted? Well, no, unfortunately. I mean 0:21:56.920 --> 0:21:59.639 although the State Department's pages did see an uptick and 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:02.280 visit ters, I think it was less than two percent 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:05.560 of them actually liked or favorite at any post. So 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:07.280 not only was it a big waste of money, but 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:09.040 I'm guessing it was kind of a blow to the 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.480 government's pride. You know, I almost feel bad for them. 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:14.680