WEBVTT - Selects: All the Gold In Fort Knox: Meh 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.880 Hey, everybody, it's me Josham. For this week's select I've 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.680 chosen our episode on All the Golden Fort Knox from 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.640 November of twenty twenty. One of the most surprising things 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:12.040 we learned to this episode isn't that there might not 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.000 be any gold left in Fort Knox. There most likely 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.520 is plenty in there, but that because of the size 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.400 of our economy, it doesn't really matter at this point 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.640 if it's there or not. Hope you enjoy this brainbuster 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.840 of an episode. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:38.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.760 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.879 there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's out there somewhere, 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:51.239 and this is stuff you should know. Carrot plated gold edition. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:53.720 Gold plated. 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:55.920 Isn't that what happens? Like if you put a bunch 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.200 of gold together, it means more carrots? 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.840 I think so. I'm afraid to doubt you, though, because 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.400 I had a movie crusher say that. All I do 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.040 lately is say you're wrong to you. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.319 What do they mean lately? 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:12.560 I know, I don't know. 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:14.520 They must be a newcomer to the podcast. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:19.080 It's dressing is Josh is all the time lately, Josh 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.760 makes really good points, and all Chuck does is pupu 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:26.040 it by just saying, no, you're wrong. It's like, has 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:27.039 that even happened once? 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.720 If it makes you I'm sure it's happened more than once. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.080 But if it makes you feeling better I haven't noticed, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.200 then that's what really counts, don't you think. Yeah, I guess, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.600 although there are like a million plus people listening, so 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:40.280 I guess their opinions count as well. 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:40.839 You're wrong. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.880 Oh man, you know what's funny is I didn't even 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:45.880 see that coming, Chuck. 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:46.800 Oh see there. 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.440 Yeah, that was good, good stuff. And I almost just 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.320 said the ES word. That was good stuff. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:53.880 You're wrong, it was mediocre. 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.120 Let's just do this for forty five minutes. 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.560 Yeah, no, let's do a real podcast episode. This is interesting. 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.160 All I could think about was heist movies. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.000 Oh really, I don't know what I thought about. I 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.840 think I was kind of stuck in the thirties. I 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.280 just thought of everything's kind of old timey and quaint, 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.000 all right, because it's kind of in a way where 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.799 the story really kicks off the story of Fort Knox. 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.519 In case anybody's listening, and didn't check the title. 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.520 Oh, I thought we were doing an episode on the 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.680 United States Bullion Depository, Buddy. 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.920 That is the same exact thing in a lot of ways, 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.200 but actually they're different too. Let's talk about this, right, So, 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:39.840 for anybody who is outside of the United States, and 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.200 I would wager that a lot of you, I'd wager 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.840 all the golden Fort Knox, that a lot of you 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.360 are very familiar with Fort Knox, because it does seem 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.639 to be kind of like this world famous place where 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:56.560 the United States hoards its gold and it's just totally impenetrable, 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.880 so don't even try. But there's also like a lot 0:02:59.919 --> 0:03:02.360 of conspiracy theories too that there's no gold in there. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.480 And we'll talk about all this and why there's golden 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.120 there too, but I feel like we should at least 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.320 give like a background on Fort Knox and the ins 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:10.280 and outs of it, don't you. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.200 Yeah. In nineteen oh three, this is where it all started. 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.360 The US Army said, you know what, I think we 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.440 need some training ground out here in Kentucky, in West Point, Kentucky. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.639 And everybody said, why, Yeah. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.320 I don't know good as place as any I guess, okay, 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.200 And they use that area. They got a few counties 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:35.800 to kindly hand them over some land, and they use 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.040 that area for training and stuff. Made it a permanent 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.400 training camp in nineteen eighteen, and then named it after 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:48.160 Henry Knox, a Revolutionary War officer, as Camp Knox. And 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.440 someone very quickly said, that doesn't sound at all tough. 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.600 It sounds like children belong here and people are roasting s'mores. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:57.320 So that's always going to say. 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:58.520 How about Fort Knox. 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.640 It seems like all the best fort started out as camps. 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.200 Yeah, so they said short. In nineteen thirty two, it 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.360 became officially Fort Canucks. 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:12.160 Right, nice one. So yeah, so it started out as 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.360 a legit army base. But then eventually in the thirties, 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.120 which is why I've been stuck in the thirties because 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.839 so much of the story takes place there, the United 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.839 States Mint said, hey, we could use a new spot 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.800 to store some gold, because we got a lot of 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.400 gold and this isn't even all of it, but we 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.520 need a new spot to store some gold. And they 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:37.880 actually took possession of part of Fort Knox and built 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.480 what's known as, like you said, the United States Bullion 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:46.159 Depository there in Kentucky, and it is legitimately Fort Knox 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.400 is now not just the Army Camp. Even more famously, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.520 it is really what you officially would call the United 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:53.960 States Bullion Depository. 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.680 Yeah, and the camp is still there, and some say 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:01.160 it is there as sort of a a means of 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.520 maybe intimidation maybe back up, like, hey, there's an army 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.000 camp right next door. But they know also asked to 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.279 borrow that name because it sounded tougher than the Bullion Depository, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.520 and they said, sure, you can go ahead and just 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.000 call that building Fort Knox as well. And that's where 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:22.400 we moved, well not all of it, but we had 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.080 a lot of gold at the time, as you were saying, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:29.679 and it was it was a little unnerving, I think, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.200 to have most of the gold and the country stored 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.479 in Philadelphia, the mint there and in New York because 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:38.880 it was so close to the coast, and if some 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.920 warring nation wanted to invade us and grab our gold, 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.680 then they wouldn't have far to go to get it 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:46.359 onto a boat. 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.440 Yeah, oh truly, which is you know, pretty sensible, really, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.880 and I never really thought about that. But New York's 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.400 not very far from water, and neither is Philly, so 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.160 why not. So they decided to move as much as 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.440 they could, and there was silver moved too. There was 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:03.400 a lot of stockpiles of silver that we're not even 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.479 going to bother with in this story because silver we're 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.039 talking gold here. Yeah, And they moved a lot of 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.680 it to Denver, and they very quickly said, well, the 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.640 Denver Mint's a great place because it's protected from the 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.360 from the Pacific Ocean by the Rocky mountains, which make 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.080 that makes it much more difficult for an invading army 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:23.640 to come in from the Pacific and steal it. But 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.600 we've run out of space and we need some more 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.080 space for all the spill over gold. And that's when 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.440 they decided to build a Fort Knox, which in Kentucky 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.480 is protected from the Atlantic Ocean by the Appalachian Mountain. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:38.799 So it's pretty pretty clever. Why they why they chose 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:39.400 Fort Knox. 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.840 Yeah, So the Treasury, like you said, took control of 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.520 that land in thirty six, and then in thirty seven 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.360 they I mean, they started building you know there. You know, 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.200 they couldn't just keep it intense even though those intimidating 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.760 Appalachian Mountains were right there. They're like, we need a 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.880 building here. So they built a building over just a 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:00.800 few months. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:01.800 It's impressive. 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.960 Yeah, cost about a half a million bucks. And in 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.800 nineteen thirty seven they said, we're open for business, bring 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:10.679 that gold from New York City. 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.000 They didn't. They they did it the way, exactly the 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:15.600 way that you would think they would do it. They 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.360 had a lot of they had a secret location where 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.640 they were loading it. They sent a bunch of trains 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:27.080 out that were decoys. And it didn't all happen at once. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.480 It wasn't one shipment that made its way from New 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.720 York and Philadelphia over to Kentucky. 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.480 It would have been in the movie, I think, exactly. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.880 Yeah, But it happened like actually in many shipments over 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.120 several years. But supposedly they did it like sometimes darkness 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.440 of nights, and there was decoys and they were always 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.080 protected by a number of groups from the Post Office 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.080 inspectors that are licensed to carry guns. Which would I 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.160 hate to say it, everybody, but that's the one that 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.280 you would try to hijack if you were going to hijack. 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:04.560 Yeah, I mean all the way to be honest. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.680 I like, yeah, right, yes, chuck, all the way to 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.560 the army, you know, which I would I would probably 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.120 not try to hijack that one. If I were going 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:17.000 to hijack one, which I wouldn't do, it would probably 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:19.080 be the Postal inspector one. 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.240 Yeah, and you know, I'm sure that they've someone has 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.280 written a movie treatment at some point for a nineteen 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.720 thirty seven train on the way to Fort Knox heist 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.079 type of thing, right, and they surely would have cast 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:37.840 those poor post office gun slingers is the likely train, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:41.959 those poor guys. 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.240 So we've got the gold shown up at Fort Knox, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.200 and the thing is is, like this was like people 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.319 knew about this. It wasn't done in secret, Like this 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.000 this is known about and I think I get the 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.360 impression that the reason that it was talked about in discussed, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.160 and there were like little tidbits here there in the 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.800 in the popular media to give this idea like Okay, 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.600 yes we're moving this gold, but like, don't even try it, 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.400 Like here's just enough that you need to know to 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.680 not even come anywhere near this place. And over the years, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.400 little tidbits have kind of been released here there that 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.480 give a pretty complete picture of what you would be 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.880 dealing with if you did, in fact, try to impregnate 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:25.800 Fort Knox. 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:32.800 Oh, pretty sexy. So first of all, you can't just 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.280 take a tour, and you can tour almost anything in 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.880 this country except for Fort Knox. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.360 Even if you were a sitting congress person, the chances 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.760 are you're probably not going to get a tour. 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.360 Yeah, I mean, if ed is correct here who helped 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.200 us put this together? There have only been three official tours, 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:51.680 Is that right? 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.440 Yeah, that's what I saw. So there's there was one 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.680 from FDR himself, which is pretty understandable. Sure, there was 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.040 one in the seventies, which we'll talk about, which made sense, 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.120 but it was a congressional delegation. And then I think 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.160 in twenty seventeen, Steven Mnusan and a delegation toured it. 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.760 So there's at least three, but those are the three 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:17.840 that we know about. There may have been more, but 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.320 I would think they would kind of publicize that because 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.200 the whole point of being a delegate to tour of 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:26.680 Fort Knox is to basically reassure the public there's a 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:28.520 lot of gold in there. Don't even worry about. Yes, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.240 the gold's there. That's pretty much the reason why anybody 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:32.480 gets a tour of Fort Knox. 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.560 I wonder if they let FDR in just to say, hey, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.080 you might as well just urinate on this golden person, 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.160 because that's what you're about to do with policy. 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:45.559 That's probably what happened. 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.400 We'll get through that later with the gold standard, And 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.720 of course you didn't urinate on it. Even with policy, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:52.800 you don't know. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:54.559 You can't ever tell what that FDR. 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.880 So here's a bunch of things, and this next bit 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.320 is going to be just sort of a lot of 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.400 the facts and figures that we know and we've gleaned 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:07.360 over the years. Some comes from official releases, some comes 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.640 from an old nineteen thirties issue of Popular Mechanics, which 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.360 is kind of cool. But should we take a break first? 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.120 Oh? Sure, man, Yeah, I think that's a great cliffhanger. 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:52.439 Right, great, we'll be right back alrighty, So we promised 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.120 you stats and figures about Fort Knox. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.760 And nineteen thirties issues of Popular Mechanics. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.480 I know, how's this for you? The vault requires, of course, 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.760 multiple people to open it up, and each person nobody 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.880 knows the entire combination. Each person knows only a part 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.960 of it. And even if you got it open, there's 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.800 a one hundred hour time delay lock, so you got 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.680 to wait. If you have them at gunpoint and you 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:20.760 all force and you force them all to open it, 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:22.520 you got to sit around and wait for four days, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:22.960 no matter what. 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:24.800 That's my favorite one. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:26.680 It's pretty great, m h. 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.440 That and the fact that it's really just artificial intelligence 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.400 from the future is the only one that has the 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:38.120 entire combination in its possession. What else, Well, let's see, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.840 the vault itself is actually inside a building. So you 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.600 remember in our Alcatraz episode where the cell blocks were 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:49.160 buildings inside of the larger prison building. Yeah, that's exactly 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.920 the same thing, and not coincidentally, they were built around 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.280 the same time, so I think there was that kind 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.680 of you know, impenetrable building within an impenetrable building in 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.679 the zone geist kind of thing going on. And the 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.840 only way, the only place the vault and that building 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.240 are connected is on the floor. But don't even think 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.960 of coming up from under the floor, because the flooring 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.080 is two feet thick of granite, which you are not 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.360 going to get through even if you successfully dug under. 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.079 And I'll just go ahead and tell you why you 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.280 would not be able to successfully dig under the building 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.559 from the outside. Is because you have barrier after barrier 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.440 after fence after razor wire separating you from the building. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.320 There's a huge blank field around the building, so it's 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.640 not very easy to kind of walk up to it. 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:42.320 And they apparently have said that the field around the 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.680 building is a minefield, which means that they apparently studied 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:51.480 cartoons to design Fort Knox, which I love. 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:53.840 They're like, what would wile E Coyota do? 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:55.400 Exactly? 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.920 Yeah, it is, I mean it's it's definitely worth googling 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:03.800 a like an aerial image of this building. It's pretty interesting. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.120 I mean it does. It sits out in the middle 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.559 of nothing in this big flat area, and there's like 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:15.600 a circular driveway around it. And you know, it's made 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.840 of what you think it's made of, which is granite 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:22.520 and concrete and steel. They said that the walls are 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.440 also two feet in thickness, and inside those walls are 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.920 fabricated steel coils that are so closely smushed together that 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.600 they say a human hand can't even get between them. Right, 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:37.560 So you need a baby or a child. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.560 You need a baby in so you got to bring 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.160 a baby. You have to bring diapers and food to 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.760 last the maybe four days until the time Locke comes. 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:46.160 Yeah. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.400 Of course, don't forget a gun to hold people off with. Yeah, 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.960 and probably some people you don't like to send through 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:53.440 the minefield the clear path for you. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.280 Yeah, and you got to get one of those diaper 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.280 genies to put the diaper in, otherwise it's smell in there. 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:00.960 Oh man, it would smell so bad in that little building. 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.320 Here's another cool thing. Well, the whole building isn't huge. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.440 I mean it's it's not small. It's ten thousand square feet, 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.680 but it's not I don't know. You think of Fort 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.880 Knox and you think of something the size of like 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:19.040 a maximum security prisoner or something like that. It's not huge. 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.800 But the building inside the building, so the vault inside 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.880 has an eighteen inch space clear on every side, and 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.800 they have all these mirrors everywhere. And of course now 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.960 they have real cameras. I guess this was from the 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:38.240 popular mechanics pre camera. You just use mirrors to make 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.120 sure that you could see every square inch of this thing. Yeah. 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.160 So if you did somehow manage to get inside the vault, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.000 the people who whose job it is is to watch 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.840 the vault would see you immediately, and they ostal service 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:55.520 workers yeah. Yeah, they would just start, you know, lobbing 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.600 dead letter off as packages at you until you got 0:15:58.640 --> 0:15:59.480 annoyed and left. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.680 And of course there's heavy artillery. There are four corner 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:10.320 machine gun turrets essentially on the outer building, just looking down. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.520 So I'm sorry, I was confused. Is that on the 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.880 outer building or is that part of the vault? 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.359 I think that's outside? 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.160 Okay, I don't know. I couldn't quite tell, and I 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.920 didn't see it outside. Did you see him outside? 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:25.960 Well, I mean I saw I mean I didn't see 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.120 any really close ups. Everything was kind of an aerial 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.680 and I did see what looked like corner turrets, but 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.520 maybe they are inside. Okay, I don't know if i'd 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.640 be shooting up machine guns inside of granite room. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:39.960 Yeah, that's actually probably a pretty bad idea. 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.560 I mean, I've seen Wiley Cody too. Those bullets bounce. 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.800 All over the re place. That's right. So you've also 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.040 got a door to contend with. So so far you've 0:16:49.040 --> 0:16:53.160 got two feet thick everything to get through, which means 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.400 that your best bet is to go through the door 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.480 because rather than twenty four inches, it's only twenty one 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.800 inches thick. But you should probably be dissuaded by the 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.560 fact that it's blast, drill and torch proof, said the 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.640 US MINT director from back in twenty sixteen, Philip Deal. 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:12.760 Yeah, and again this is all under the banner of 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:17.680 don't even think about it, buddy. Right between the there's 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.440 a corridor that encircles the vault and then the outer 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.199 wall of the building. They do have some offices. I 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.919 guess that's where Dottie the secretary has been since nineteen 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:27.960 fifty something, answering. 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:29.280 For Danny or Danny. 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.119 That's true. I don't think they gave jobs like that 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:33.520 to Danny in the nineteen fifties. 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.119 Okay, maybe not in the fifties. That's fine. But I 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.840 got called out for letting that stooge's comment pass, and 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.000 I'm not gonna I'm not going on the grill again 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:41.560 for you, pal. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:43.520 What the ladies don't like the Three Stages? 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:49.440 We got not one, not two, but thrice emails about that, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:51.360 and most of them were not happy. 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.120 Well, actually two of the three were very fun about 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:56.800 it and said that they love the three stooges. 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.280 But yes, but they weren't happy. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.760 One I couldn't tell, and I wrote her back and 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.320 it was like I can't tell if you're really mad. Well, 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.280 and I said, but I said, I was just, uh, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.439 if you google women don't like three stooges, it's a 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.720 it's a trope. I mean, it's a familiar trope. I 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.400 wasn't like inventing some sexist thing. I was just kind 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:17.520 of funning around with it. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:22.480 Yeah, it's like everybody not liking Detroit or Kentucky like google. 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.919 That, right, or google women don't like Rush the band. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.199 Hey, hey, hey, let's just let's bail out of this 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.000 while we still have our limb. 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.359 No, people can likely like. But trust me, I've been 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.920 to a Rush concert and there was there's a lot 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:37.480 of masculinity in that room. 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.600 What year was that, because I'll bet I was at 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:42.919 the same concert depending I went to. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.280 It must have been eighty eight or eighty nine. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:47.920 Oh no, I wasn't not that one. 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:48.879 Okay, yeah you were. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.600 This would have been maybe like ninety two, ninety three. 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:55.600 We just missed each other. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:57.880 Yeah, just by a few years. Had I just hung 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.800 out at the Omni for three or four more years 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:01.480 or had you, we would have passed EACHO. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.280 But you're right, Women like all sorts of things, and 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:05.639 men like all sorts of things. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.920 That's right. And Danny and Dottie can both be secretaries, 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.560 that's right. And we don't even call them secretaries anymore, Chuck, 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:16.080 we should just stop podcasting altogether. We have aged out 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:16.600 of it. 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.359 So to me, the only way in would be the 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:22.440 escape tunnel. 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.959 Yes, which they thought of that. They realized that. They 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.239 actually put a tunnel underground that you could use to 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:36.520 get into the depository, the actual vault, which they installed 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.320 in case somebody got locked in there, which I'm really 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.360 surprised they even installed that or designed that in there. 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.399 I would think like, if you have people guarding it 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.840 as closely as it's being guarded all the time, that 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.160 if you got locked in there, they could let you out. 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.320 They just give you food or something through those those 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:56.320 slots that for the four days. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:57.399 Yeah, or. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.480 That's an even better idea, actually, now that you mentioned it, 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:05.399 but now they didn't do that. They actually put an 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.680 escape tunnel in so that you can crawl out. It's 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.280 not like a pleasant walk or anything. You crawl like 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.000 through this tunnel and then out into the minefield basically, 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.880 but the door that you reach that lets you outside 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.040 only opens from the inside. It's impossible to open from 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.080 the outside, which I take to mean it doesn't have 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:28.879 a doorknob on the outside, and then it's guarded twenty 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:30.760 four to seven by people who are ready to just 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.600 shoot you up if you try to approach this door 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.080 with your own doorknob that you brought to open it 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:37.360 from the outside. 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.639 Right, because you're not going to come in here with 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.320 a presumably a freight train to steal all this gold. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.280 Where are you going to put the tracks? You can't 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:46.640 do it? 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:48.840 Are you going to get that gold out of there? 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.280 I just love the fact that we're trying to you know, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.560 we're doing a podcast in twenty twenty explaining and dissuading 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:00.239 people from trying to get into Fort Knox. I mean, 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.400 it's just so like seventies to me, or thirties or fifties, 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:04.439 you know. I love it. 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.880 The other cool thing is is that it can go 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.200 off grid, has its own water and power. So if 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.360 you you know, in the movie version, of course, once 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:16.720 again I would think you would try and knock it 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.920 off the line somehow get those cameras down, but they say, no, no, no, 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.400 we have those generators. We can live off grid. There's 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.800 a gun range in the basement, So if you want 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:28.480 to brush up on your machine gunning down there, you 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:28.919 can do that. 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.240 No, that's kind of like a little line yap to 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.719 the whole thing. Like, by the way, these guys are 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:39.840 training with guns downstairs in the basement for fun because 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.240 they've got nothing else to do. They're just waiting for 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:42.800 you to come. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:43.160 Now. 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:45.960 Who is guarding it though, from what I understand their 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:46.800 treasury agents? 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:47.440 Right, yeah. 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:50.439 The army can be called in if needed, because again 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:52.120 it's like right there. 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.960 Yeah, the US Mint Police Force. Yeah, which I imagine is 0:21:57.000 --> 0:21:58.520 it's probably a pretty cool gig to have. 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:01.919 I don't know where they would have come up, but 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.040 I swear we've mentioned that they exist before. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.840 It seems familiar to me. Have we done this all before? 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:10.200 No, we haven't done this one, but we have talked 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.920 about money and currency before. Yeah, And I feel like 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:17.600 where that's where we're at. Don't you like that? Maybe 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.240 we should talk about the gold itself, because I mean, yes, 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.360 it's cool that there's a twenty one inch blast door 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.760 and there's a door that only opens from the inside 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:29.920 and the escape tunnel. But I think what everybody's really 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:31.919 fascinated with as much as anything, is the fact that 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.000 there is a lot of gold inside of four knox. 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:39.280 Yeah, and this will kind of hit home too. If 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.760 you've ever seen movies where you're bringing gold out of 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.400 a place in a duffel bag, those gold bars weigh 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:49.639 almost twenty eight pounds apiece, just one, Yeah, just one 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.359 of those things. So if you see people throwing them 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.280 around in a movie or putting ten of them fifteen 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.040 of them in a duffel bag and slinging it over 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.840 their shoulder, that is not realistic at all. They're seven 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.200 inches long, three and five eighths inches wide, one in 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.800 three quarters inches thick, and weigh twenty seven point five pounds. 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.600 Each, yeah, or four hundred troy ounces. If you know 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.600 what that means. I have no idea, and I think 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:19.240 it's what about ten twelve kilos a piece for those 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.080 of you who aren't listening in the US and the 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:24.600 weird thing, I didn't realize this, but as far as 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.240 the Treasury is concerned, and to me, this really kind 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:31.920 of goes to demonstrate like how little the actual value 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:36.080 of maintaining this gold horde is that, just for bookkeeping, 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.680 they assign like an arbitrary value the statutory value of gold. 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.680 It's what it's called at forty two dollars and forty 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.240 four cents an ounce, so that they can keep track 0:23:47.920 --> 0:23:50.479 using that dollar amount of how much gold is in 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.200 Fort Knox, rather than you know, tracking it as it 0:23:54.320 --> 0:23:57.400 as it relates to like the international gold market. 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.200 Yeah, and so I did the math this time. 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:02.080 I did two. Let's see if we came up with 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:02.800 the same figures. 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:05.920 So the supposedly there are forty six hundred metric tons 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:09.000 of gold, which by the way, is about two point 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.760 five percent of all the gold ever mined in the 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:13.000 world in human history. 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:14.400 That's pretty impressive. 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:16.400 And if we're just going I want to make sure 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:19.320 we use the same numbers here forty six hundred metric tons. 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.920 Can use that forty two point four to four cents 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:24.639 per ounce. 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:26.840 Okay, I did it differently, But let's see if we 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:27.919 came up with the same figure. 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:29.960 Well, what value did you use? 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:33.200 Like, no, you go first, mister, you're wrong guy. 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:38.520 So using the statutory value of gold that the US 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.560 is set, I came up with six point eight billion 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:42.520 dollars worth of gold. 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.919 Close for mine. Close for mine. I used a different method, 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:48.960 and this is one of the great joys of math? 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:50.880 Is there a different approaches to the same proble? 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:51.679 What did you do? 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:55.840 I took that forty six hundred metric tons of gold 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:01.720 and divided it by pounds twenty seven point five pounds, 0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:05.080 so I came up with the number of individual bars. 0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:07.879 Then I multiplied that number of individual bars, which is 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:10.760 three hundred and sixty eight thousand and seven hundred and 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:15.160 seventy three bars. Uh huh, by that sixteen thousand, eight 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:18.160 hundred and eighty eight dollars per bar. Okay, I came 0:25:18.240 --> 0:25:20.720 up with in the neighborhood of six point twenty five 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:23.040 six billion dollars worth of gold. 0:25:23.720 --> 0:25:27.240 Well, first of all, there's a psychologist that's listening to 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.800 this that is really yeah, looking at what that means 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:32.119 for both of our personalities. 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:34.160 For sure, it's gotta say a lot. 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.280 You know, did you use Are you sure you used 0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:38.800 metric tons and not just tons? 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:43.399 Yeah? I did a pound to metric ton conversion. You 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:45.040 know how you can go on the internet and just 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:47.960 say pound metric ton and like it brings up a 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:49.439 little conversion thing for you. 0:25:49.720 --> 0:25:51.840 Yeah, I was. I was just making sure because at 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:53.959 first I didn't do metric ton, and that was different 0:25:54.320 --> 0:25:56.400 and did a short ton that is a short ton, 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:58.879 and that came to about six closer to your number. 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:02.480 Oh okay, yeah, no, I and I actually rounded a 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:04.840 little bit because I was like, E, what the heck 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:08.360 is that when the total came up, So I went 0:26:08.400 --> 0:26:10.240 back and redid it. And I didn't feel like plugging 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:11.760 in all the same numbers that I rounded it. 0:26:12.560 --> 0:26:14.800 What I wonder what I did was I just took 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:19.680 how many ounces or in forty six in a metric ton, 0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:23.200 multiplied that by forty six hundred, and then multiplied that 0:26:23.240 --> 0:26:24.800 by forty two forty four. 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:28.960 Well, I proposed that move along because I just suddenly rose. 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:32.560 There's probably people who's like their fingertips are dug under 0:26:32.600 --> 0:26:35.959 their eyeballs. They're so they're in such agony hearing us 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:37.600 discuss math like this. 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:41.320 Well, what's what's important is that the FED in New 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:44.520 York actually has more gold in their Manhattan vault, which 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:48.000 was in a movie six thousand tons of Gold. That 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:52.240 would have been die Harder, Die Hard three. I believe 0:26:52.440 --> 0:26:54.520 it may die another day. I don't know, but it 0:26:54.600 --> 0:26:56.600 was a good one. That was the one with Sam Jackson. 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:00.800 Yeah, that was pretty good. And by the way, I 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:03.680 need to say something. I realized that. I said, Event 0:27:03.760 --> 0:27:07.240 Horizon is a good movie and holds up. I went 0:27:07.280 --> 0:27:10.639 back and saw it again again, huh, and I was like, 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:13.720 this is way jokier than I remember from last time. 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:17.520 Oh really, Yeah, And sadly there's a there's a sheen 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:21.720 or a coating of hokiness that I guess maybe they 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:23.840 brought in somebody to punch up the script or something 0:27:23.840 --> 0:27:25.040 and that was their contribution. 0:27:25.119 --> 0:27:27.160 But it's not so it doesn't hold up anymore. 0:27:27.440 --> 0:27:32.760 No, and it's a great galactic, love crafty and horror 0:27:32.800 --> 0:27:36.600 movie in concept and in some parts, but no, it's 0:27:36.720 --> 0:27:40.199 unfortunately rather hokey. I'm a little gutted to say that. 0:27:40.280 --> 0:27:41.920 As our British friends would say. 0:27:41.760 --> 0:27:43.840 Maybe you should watch it again in like three years 0:27:43.840 --> 0:27:45.000 and it might be back on track. 0:27:45.040 --> 0:27:47.760 Were you, well, maybe, you know, maybe it's me that's 0:27:47.800 --> 0:27:48.400 the problem. 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:51.320 Well, you know, taste waxes and wains. 0:27:51.920 --> 0:27:53.600 Yeah, that's true. It's true. 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:56.480 There's another there's some other stuff in Fort Knox, and 0:27:56.520 --> 0:27:59.439 there has been other stuff through history in Fort Knox, 0:27:59.480 --> 0:28:01.280 because it's just it's a great place to keep stuff 0:28:01.280 --> 0:28:03.399 if you don't want to lose it or have it stolen. 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:07.280 They have some rare coins in there. These are coins 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:10.240 that were not released to the public. They may have 0:28:10.280 --> 0:28:14.439 been promotional coins or test pressings, and so there's some 0:28:14.480 --> 0:28:19.439 of that stuff, including the Chicago Way dollars coins that 0:28:19.520 --> 0:28:22.199 flew in the Space shuttle. Is that funny? 0:28:22.880 --> 0:28:24.200 Yeah, that's sokka juweah. 0:28:24.640 --> 0:28:28.680 Yeah, that's like the American bastardization. It's Chicago Way. 0:28:29.560 --> 0:28:33.040 Oh well, maybe we should keep this in, Okay, because 0:28:33.800 --> 0:28:36.200 I've never heard anybody say that. I really thought you'd 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:38.760 just mised pronounced it. Other people say it like that. 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:41.440 Yeah. I think it's one of those things where like 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:46.000 the native pronunciation is Chicagoway and Americans were like saka Jowellah. 0:28:46.440 --> 0:28:49.360 No, oh my god, I've got so much egg on 0:28:49.400 --> 0:28:51.800 my face. Maybe we won't keep this part in. You 0:28:51.880 --> 0:28:53.360 have to say it you said it wrong, though, you 0:28:53.400 --> 0:28:58.400 have to be like that's wrong, that's wrong. Okay, thank you. 0:28:58.680 --> 0:29:01.480 So it is Chicagoway. Huh? Is it icagaweya? 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:04.120 I think it's just Chicagaway. And I only learn that 0:29:04.160 --> 0:29:06.000 from Ken Burns. 0:29:06.800 --> 0:29:10.560 God bless Kim America's teacher cut and you man, thank 0:29:10.600 --> 0:29:12.920 you for setting me straight in front of a million people. 0:29:13.720 --> 0:29:17.479 Let me see here at nineteen thirty three gold double 0:29:17.520 --> 0:29:19.720 eagle twenty dollars coin. That's kind of cool. 0:29:20.320 --> 0:29:23.600 Yeah. Sure there's an aluminum dime, no penny, an aluminum 0:29:23.680 --> 0:29:25.720 penny from nineteen seventy four. 0:29:25.520 --> 0:29:26.880 Which I'd love to see that thing. 0:29:27.400 --> 0:29:28.880 I would too, but it just strikes me as a 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:34.680 little sad. Sure there've also been because Fort Knox is 0:29:34.720 --> 0:29:36.880 just so well known as this impregnable place, and it 0:29:36.920 --> 0:29:40.000 really is, you know, legitimately, you cannot get into it 0:29:40.040 --> 0:29:43.280 no matter how hard you try. It's actually served as 0:29:43.320 --> 0:29:46.520 the site the storehouse for some like truly valuable stuff 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:51.840 like the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:57.480 Gettysburg Address, a Gutenberg Bible, the Magnet cart. Actually during 0:29:57.480 --> 0:29:59.480 World War Two, England's like, hey, can you hang on 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:01.680 to this four because the Germans are really like up 0:30:01.680 --> 0:30:04.840 our butts right now? That's kind of cool, yeah, they 0:30:04.920 --> 0:30:07.720 So we held that at Fort Knox during World War Two, 0:30:08.720 --> 0:30:11.760 which is I mean, that's just fascinating to the idea 0:30:11.800 --> 0:30:17.160 that some apparently some secret service agent traveled secretly with 0:30:17.480 --> 0:30:20.440 a bunch of these documents from Washington, d C. And 0:30:20.480 --> 0:30:22.840 put them on a train out to Kentucky to go 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.280 to be held in Fort Knox during World War Two. 0:30:25.520 --> 0:30:28.120 I love it. That's really cool. And that was temporary. 0:30:28.160 --> 0:30:29.720 I think. Didn't they return them right afterward? 0:30:30.320 --> 0:30:33.480 Oh yeah, for sure. Apparently they dedicated the Jefferson Memorial 0:30:33.480 --> 0:30:35.120 in nineteen forty three and they're like, we need to 0:30:35.160 --> 0:30:38.640 get the Declaration of Independence out there. 0:30:38.880 --> 0:30:40.960 And they found out that the guards were using it 0:30:41.000 --> 0:30:44.280 as a place mat to eat their dehydrated foods. 0:30:44.520 --> 0:30:47.960 You know, they'd swapped it with something that they only 0:30:48.040 --> 0:30:51.920 used cryon to forge, kept the original themselves. 0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:55.600 So should we break now before conspiracies or weight and 0:30:55.720 --> 0:30:57.080 break before gold standard? 0:30:57.680 --> 0:30:59.480 We'll break now. And I'm not one hundred percent sure 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:00.800 I'm going to be able to come back from that 0:31:00.880 --> 0:31:03.320 Chicago Way thing, Okay. So it might just be you 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:36.120 and we come back from brain No never, okay, Chuck. 0:31:36.200 --> 0:31:38.520 So one of the things, one of the favorite things 0:31:38.560 --> 0:31:42.320 Americans love to do is to suggest, quite seriously in 0:31:42.360 --> 0:31:45.160 a lot of cases that there is no such thing 0:31:45.960 --> 0:31:49.440 as a gold in Fort Knox, and that there hasn't 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:51.320 been golden there for a very long time. And if 0:31:51.360 --> 0:31:53.560 you went there and you saw gold, well you're a fool. 0:31:53.560 --> 0:31:56.880 Because the best thing. The best possible scenario is that 0:31:56.920 --> 0:32:01.000 you saw something like tungsten that was spray painted or 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:03.880 plated in gold, and that the golden Fort Knox is 0:32:03.920 --> 0:32:06.080 not there and hasn't been there for a very long time, 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:10.480 and not only that it was sold for the most nefarious, 0:32:10.720 --> 0:32:13.240 outrageous purposes we can possibly come up with. 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:18.640 Yeah, so they audit Fort Knox and they count the 0:32:18.680 --> 0:32:23.040 gold allegedly supposedly, Dottie and Danny get in there with 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:28.480 their adding machine and they type everything out. And I 0:32:28.520 --> 0:32:30.280 love how Ed put this. He said that all the 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:35.040 conspiracy theories rely on quote, some fundamental misunderstanding of how 0:32:35.080 --> 0:32:38.640 currency works, how the gold standard worked, or just outright nonsense. 0:32:39.640 --> 0:32:40.600 But it's kind of true. 0:32:41.400 --> 0:32:44.080 Yeah, No, it totally is, because there's this call for 0:32:44.240 --> 0:32:47.240 which we'll talk about the gold to be used again 0:32:47.280 --> 0:32:49.600 the way originally was, which is the back our currency. 0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:54.040 If that's the if that's really the basis of your 0:32:54.080 --> 0:32:56.640 problem with the idea that the gold was secretly sold 0:32:56.680 --> 0:33:00.120 off in Fort Knox, then then yeah, you misunderstand and 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:02.800 how currency works or how economies work, and you probably 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:06.440 don't fully understand how the gold standard was not really 0:33:06.480 --> 0:33:10.040 great and that America actually blew up, and the whole 0:33:10.080 --> 0:33:13.640 world blew up after we switched off of the gold standard. 0:33:13.640 --> 0:33:16.520 That's how the global economy really started to take off, 0:33:16.920 --> 0:33:20.480 was when we decoupled our currency from being pinned to gold. 0:33:20.520 --> 0:33:23.720 So that's another It seems to be another factor in 0:33:24.480 --> 0:33:27.680 kind of banding about conspiracy theories about Fort Knox gold too. 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:32.800 Yeah, and a lot of these conspiracy theories are anti Semitic. Yeah, 0:33:32.880 --> 0:33:34.920 there are, believe it or not. There are some really 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:38.520 smart people who think who may or may not believe 0:33:38.520 --> 0:33:41.480 in some of these theories, and some that believe we 0:33:41.520 --> 0:33:44.960 should go back to the gold standard, including Alan Greenspan, 0:33:46.200 --> 0:33:49.600 a woman named Judy Shelton who Trump tried to push 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:53.840 for appointment to the FED to the Federal Reserve. And 0:33:53.920 --> 0:33:56.240 I'm not sure if she believes in the conspiracy theories 0:33:56.320 --> 0:33:58.000 or she just wants to go back to the gold standard. 0:33:58.480 --> 0:34:00.520 Yeah, they're not. I mean, it's not hand in hand. 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:02.560 It's just if you do think we should go back 0:34:02.560 --> 0:34:06.440 to the gold standard, it's basically impossible for your attention 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:08.839 not to fall on Fort Knox. And then you may 0:34:08.880 --> 0:34:10.560 be like, well, is there even gold there? 0:34:11.320 --> 0:34:14.919 Yeah? True, But there are some truly wackado things out there. 0:34:15.800 --> 0:34:17.680 This Peter Better guy. 0:34:18.400 --> 0:34:19.879 Oh is that how you're saying his name? 0:34:20.239 --> 0:34:21.760 What is it better? Better? 0:34:22.360 --> 0:34:26.120 If his name's not Peter Beeter, then I'm sad. 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:30.120 I am too. Peter Beeter, the et e r. That's 0:34:30.120 --> 0:34:31.120 what I'm going to call him, at least. 0:34:31.160 --> 0:34:34.160 Yeah, it's like Peter with a bee. Yeah, but his 0:34:34.239 --> 0:34:37.480 first name's Peter. It's magnificent, it's perfect. 0:34:37.840 --> 0:34:41.560 So he has thrown a lot of conspiracies out there 0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:45.720 since the seventies, including a popular one that we sold 0:34:45.760 --> 0:34:49.359 off all the gold to these global elites for next 0:34:49.360 --> 0:34:52.960 to nothing so they could hoard that gold and then 0:34:53.040 --> 0:34:56.560 one day just destabilize the economy of the world and 0:34:57.760 --> 0:34:59.920 you know, ascend to power basically. 0:35:00.400 --> 0:35:03.799 Yeah, because they would have all the money and they 0:35:04.040 --> 0:35:06.080 sunk the value of the money so they could buy 0:35:06.120 --> 0:35:09.120 everything else at rock bottom prices like they bought the gold. 0:35:09.560 --> 0:35:13.200 Apparently this involves the Rothschilds, which automatically makes the whole 0:35:13.200 --> 0:35:16.680 thing anti Semitic, because the roth Childs started out and 0:35:16.960 --> 0:35:18.400 you know, are still around as far as I know, 0:35:19.400 --> 0:35:24.160 as a Jewish banking family many many centuries ago and 0:35:24.320 --> 0:35:27.120 rose to power and wealth pretty quickly, and actually had 0:35:27.160 --> 0:35:30.960 a huge role in a lot of world affairs, like 0:35:31.680 --> 0:35:35.080 were able to bail out entire nations like France after 0:35:35.120 --> 0:35:38.359 they went into debt over war, like this family could 0:35:38.400 --> 0:35:41.320 do that, and it started a lot of conspiracy theories. 0:35:41.400 --> 0:35:45.560 So they're kind of like one of the og conspiracy theories. 0:35:45.560 --> 0:35:49.080 And usually it was based on a combination or it 0:35:49.120 --> 0:35:51.839 was based on suspiciousness of a combination of them being 0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:54.480 Jewish and them being extraordinarily wealthy. 0:35:55.200 --> 0:35:59.439 Yeah, there's this other guy. Is his name is Yan 0:36:00.040 --> 0:36:04.440 even Huis. I'm sure that's wrong. He had an alias 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:09.720 named kus Janssen Koos And I listened to and read 0:36:09.719 --> 0:36:13.279 some interviews with this guy and he did you check 0:36:13.400 --> 0:36:16.000 into him? He seems he seems like a pretty level 0:36:16.000 --> 0:36:20.319 headed economist, right that just seems to think that these 0:36:20.360 --> 0:36:24.040 audits aren't correct and there is something kinky going on. 0:36:24.320 --> 0:36:26.040 He didn't seem really out there though. 0:36:27.080 --> 0:36:30.399 No, but it seems like a case of paying too 0:36:30.480 --> 0:36:34.880 much attention to details and starting to see things that 0:36:34.960 --> 0:36:38.520 aren't necessarily there. Or if you do turn up a discrepancy, 0:36:38.760 --> 0:36:41.600 assuming that it does reveal some larger plot rather than 0:36:41.680 --> 0:36:44.280 just being a mistake or an accounting error or somebody 0:36:44.320 --> 0:36:47.160 forgot to carry the one. That's my impression. I could 0:36:47.200 --> 0:36:49.280 be wrong. I don't know much about kus Jansen. 0:36:49.760 --> 0:36:53.560 Yeah, but the interview just seemed very level headed. He 0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:59.239 wasn't talking about robotoids, which is what Peter Peter talks about, right, 0:37:00.120 --> 0:37:02.920 literally talks about stuff like that. 0:37:03.680 --> 0:37:06.040 Well, that's what makes it believable is the OIDs on 0:37:06.080 --> 0:37:07.920 the end. If there were just robots, it would just 0:37:07.920 --> 0:37:09.040 seem rather far fetch. 0:37:09.480 --> 0:37:11.399 What about Ron Paul, His is a little out there. 0:37:11.440 --> 0:37:12.680 He thinks it's all fake, right. 0:37:13.239 --> 0:37:16.560 So Ron Paul. I can't tell if Ron Paul is 0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:18.759 the source of a lot of this or was an 0:37:18.760 --> 0:37:21.920 amplifier for a lot of it, But he's tapped into 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:26.880 or is part of one of the larger kind of 0:37:27.640 --> 0:37:31.360 followings of conspiracy theories as far as Fort Knox is concerned, 0:37:31.360 --> 0:37:34.879 which is that either like I was saying earlier, there's 0:37:34.920 --> 0:37:37.719 either no gold there really, or the goal that is 0:37:37.760 --> 0:37:40.400 there is fake and the real gold has been sold, 0:37:40.880 --> 0:37:43.640 and that the US has been doing this for a 0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:49.680 very long time for all sorts of uncertain reasons like that, 0:37:49.719 --> 0:37:52.359 and that usually these days that China's been the big 0:37:52.400 --> 0:37:54.880 recipient of cheap gold, and maybe we've been doing that 0:37:54.960 --> 0:37:57.400 because if we sell China a bunch of cheap gold, 0:37:57.440 --> 0:38:00.920 it will actually keep the dollar low and we'll strengthen 0:38:00.960 --> 0:38:05.440 our exports. I'm not quite sure how that works. There 0:38:05.480 --> 0:38:08.160 also seems to be a certain amount of like national 0:38:08.239 --> 0:38:11.919 pride associated with it, where like, no, that's our goal, 0:38:11.960 --> 0:38:14.360 that's the people's goal. That can't be sold off secretly 0:38:14.400 --> 0:38:16.960 by the government. And here's to me where it's like, 0:38:18.480 --> 0:38:21.439 even if there isn't any gold in Fort Knox at 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:25.760 some point in the not too distant past, but the past, 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:30.359 for sure, we've gone so far beyond that having any 0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:33.719 importance whatsoever. Yeah, based on the dollar value of the 0:38:33.719 --> 0:38:38.080 golden Fort Knox that it legitimately doesn't matter. But that's 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:40.200 why I think some people are like, no, it does matter. 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:43.360 That is our goal, that's America's goal. I've seen it 0:38:43.400 --> 0:38:45.520 referred to I think Ed said somebody referred to it 0:38:45.560 --> 0:38:48.920 as the equity of our national wealth. And there seems 0:38:48.960 --> 0:38:51.320 to be like a certain amount of like American pride 0:38:51.400 --> 0:38:55.680 or patriotism in being really mad about the idea that 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:58.680 Fort Knox doesn't have any gold anymore, that the American 0:38:58.719 --> 0:39:02.120 people were duped by you know, whatever elites are running 0:39:02.160 --> 0:39:05.000 the show at the behest of whatever. Jewish people are 0:39:05.080 --> 0:39:06.320 running the elites. 0:39:06.280 --> 0:39:08.840 Right, because here's the deal, and this is where we 0:39:09.320 --> 0:39:11.960 kind of get in more to the of the gold standard, 0:39:12.560 --> 0:39:14.680 and we talked about this in currency and how both 0:39:14.680 --> 0:39:17.960 of us are kind of consistently blown away that money, 0:39:19.040 --> 0:39:21.840 all money is is just something that everyone is agreed 0:39:21.880 --> 0:39:25.280 on has value. Yeah, and that's what we've been doing forever. 0:39:25.360 --> 0:39:29.919 But yeah, since there has been little ingots and trinkets, Yes, 0:39:30.160 --> 0:39:32.080 as long as you agree, I mean, it could be 0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:34.640 a well, it could be a stick. It has to 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:37.240 be something that you can't just go out and forage, 0:39:37.280 --> 0:39:39.799 although you can with gold, which is a problem you can. 0:39:39.960 --> 0:39:43.160 I mean, like think about wampum that was extensively used 0:39:43.160 --> 0:39:45.680 and I believe the Pacific Northwest by more than one 0:39:46.719 --> 0:39:50.800 tribe and nation. Wampam was They were like little little 0:39:50.800 --> 0:39:53.200 seashells that you could go and collect if you wanted to, 0:39:53.280 --> 0:39:56.520 and they were considered valuable currency and were for a 0:39:56.600 --> 0:39:59.000 very long time too. So it could conceivably be a 0:39:59.040 --> 0:40:00.480 stick as far as you may he's. 0:40:00.360 --> 0:40:03.080 Concerned, right, But in our case, and in the case 0:40:03.080 --> 0:40:06.880 of paper money these days, it is we've had to 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:10.480 make it incredibly hard to recreate and counterfeit. You can 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:13.880 also listen to our counterfeiting episode. But what really struck 0:40:13.960 --> 0:40:17.319 me kind of with that thought experiment this time is 0:40:17.360 --> 0:40:21.360 that gold really doesn't have much value either as a commodity. 0:40:21.560 --> 0:40:26.120 It's it's nice for making pretty trinkets, but and they 0:40:26.160 --> 0:40:28.080 use it in some electronics and stuff like that. But 0:40:28.320 --> 0:40:30.600 we've also just sort of agreed that gold is valuable, 0:40:31.320 --> 0:40:36.640 and the only thing that really has true value is food, air, 0:40:36.760 --> 0:40:41.239 and water, if you think about it, and love, and 0:40:41.360 --> 0:40:43.480 the irony is is that we're doing our best to 0:40:44.239 --> 0:40:47.400 kill all that stuff away, you know, the stuff that 0:40:47.560 --> 0:40:48.400 really matters. 0:40:48.440 --> 0:40:52.680 Man, Bravo, Bravo. I want to give you a hand 0:40:52.719 --> 0:40:54.360 to help you down from your soapbox, and I'm going 0:40:54.440 --> 0:40:57.000 to put a king robe around you. Okay, okay? 0:40:57.280 --> 0:40:57.400 Is it? 0:40:58.760 --> 0:41:00.879 It's gold flecked and it's got like the little white 0:41:01.040 --> 0:41:02.440 leopard like. 0:41:02.600 --> 0:41:05.319 Yeah caller, yeah, yeah, whatever that is. 0:41:05.360 --> 0:41:07.120 You look great in it. That was wonderful. 0:41:07.920 --> 0:41:09.680 No, it's just it's just so funny. These things that 0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:12.520 we've agreed have value really don't. And the things that 0:41:12.600 --> 0:41:15.000 really truly have value are really just the things that 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:15.920 keep people alive. 0:41:16.520 --> 0:41:19.719 Right, right, But even like taking that hippie stuff out 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:24.560 of the equation, there was a time where people said, no, gold, 0:41:24.680 --> 0:41:28.200 gold actually is valuable. People have value gold for eons now, 0:41:28.360 --> 0:41:30.839 like it's one of the first things humans agreed had 0:41:30.920 --> 0:41:33.960 inherent value, even though it doesn't really have inherent value 0:41:34.000 --> 0:41:37.759 because it was yeah, and so it made sense that 0:41:37.960 --> 0:41:41.960 we we would say, Okay, gold's really hard to lug around, 0:41:42.040 --> 0:41:45.440 and like it's you just you don't want to actually 0:41:45.600 --> 0:41:49.040 trade gold. How about we make paper that represents a 0:41:49.080 --> 0:41:52.480 certain amount of gold. And so that's kind of where 0:41:52.520 --> 0:41:54.960 we got paper currency in the world, and that's what 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:57.720 we've been using for a very long time. But over time, 0:41:58.200 --> 0:42:01.640 the problems, the issue that can arise from pinning your 0:42:02.000 --> 0:42:08.359 currency to gold, they became apparent. For one, you're you're 0:42:08.400 --> 0:42:10.960 limited to the amount of gold that exists in the world, 0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:13.480 which is substantial. I mean, all the golden Fort Knox 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:16.440 is only two and a half percent of all the 0:42:16.440 --> 0:42:18.200 gold that was ever mined. So there's a lot of 0:42:18.239 --> 0:42:20.879 gold in the world, but that's a finite amount, which 0:42:20.920 --> 0:42:23.200 is why some people are like, yeah, that's why we 0:42:23.239 --> 0:42:26.200 should pin our currency to gold. It prevents it from 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:28.160 getting out of hand, and you can't just print however 0:42:28.239 --> 0:42:31.600 much you want. The problem is, it's like you were saying, 0:42:31.840 --> 0:42:33.640 like with a stick, you can go in the forest 0:42:33.680 --> 0:42:36.880 and go get a bunch of sticks. Conceivably, you a 0:42:36.920 --> 0:42:39.880 private company could go mine a bunch of gold that 0:42:39.960 --> 0:42:44.440 you found. You found a horde, and you can mine it, 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:48.280 and that will affect the value of not just gold, 0:42:48.280 --> 0:42:52.160 but of entire national economies in the global economy as 0:42:52.160 --> 0:42:54.600 a whole, if everybody's pinning their currency to gold. 0:42:55.520 --> 0:42:58.359 Yeah. And the thing is it also like, if your 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:01.960 economy is backed only by gold, it's really tough to 0:43:02.000 --> 0:43:04.719 make adjustments to the economy as a government, which is 0:43:05.640 --> 0:43:08.800 something as things have become more complicated over the years 0:43:08.800 --> 0:43:13.759 with finance throughout the world we've relied upon and I 0:43:13.760 --> 0:43:15.560 don't eve think we even mentioned that. The reason we 0:43:15.600 --> 0:43:17.760 did this to begin with is because when we first 0:43:18.160 --> 0:43:21.800 had the idea of paper currency, people are like, I 0:43:21.840 --> 0:43:25.040 don't trust that at all, Like coins that people were 0:43:25.080 --> 0:43:27.719 kind of used to because they've been using trinkets and 0:43:27.760 --> 0:43:30.160 gets and coins for many, many years. But when they 0:43:30.280 --> 0:43:34.160 brought out paper dollars, and part of this was understandable 0:43:34.160 --> 0:43:36.520 because private banks and I think we talked about this 0:43:36.600 --> 0:43:41.080 in currency, and especially in the South pre Civil War South, 0:43:41.560 --> 0:43:45.320 there were all kinds of values for their paper currency, 0:43:45.360 --> 0:43:46.680 so none of it really meant anything. 0:43:47.200 --> 0:43:50.920 Yeah, a bank, a company, a town could print their 0:43:50.960 --> 0:43:54.080 own money. There was no federal monopoly on printing money 0:43:54.080 --> 0:43:56.960 in the United States until some time after the Civil War, 0:43:57.000 --> 0:43:57.400 I think. 0:43:57.600 --> 0:43:59.960 So people just said, yeah, we don't like this paper current. 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:02.120 So we came along said all right, well, what if 0:44:02.120 --> 0:44:05.440 we back it by gold and in theory all the 0:44:05.520 --> 0:44:08.759 money as a real gold value attached to it, and 0:44:08.800 --> 0:44:10.400 you can even come trade it in for gold if 0:44:10.440 --> 0:44:10.920 you want. 0:44:10.719 --> 0:44:14.440 To, right. So that's that's how we went forward for 0:44:14.480 --> 0:44:16.600 a very long time, and then kind of slowly but 0:44:16.719 --> 0:44:20.400 surely we started to move away from it, particularly starting 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:26.719 in nineteen thirteen where the Federal Reserve was established, which 0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:28.799 a lot of people, especially ones who think we should 0:44:28.800 --> 0:44:30.640 go to the gold standard and people who think that 0:44:30.680 --> 0:44:33.520 we shouldn't have or that there's no golden fort Knox 0:44:33.960 --> 0:44:38.120 believe kind of ruined the world when we established the 0:44:38.120 --> 0:44:42.839 Federal Reserve, and one of the first steps that said 0:44:42.960 --> 0:44:46.520 was like, okay, we need to maintain forty percent of 0:44:46.560 --> 0:44:49.640 the value of all of our currency in circulation in 0:44:49.800 --> 0:44:53.560 gold as a country, which was a lot different from 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:56.640 one hundred percent. That's a huge amount of money that 0:44:56.680 --> 0:44:59.839 can can now be printed, and more money that's out there, 0:45:00.239 --> 0:45:02.759 more things can be bought because that money can be 0:45:02.840 --> 0:45:05.720 traded for services and goods, and you can employ people 0:45:05.719 --> 0:45:07.640 with it, and all of a sudden, your economy can 0:45:07.640 --> 0:45:09.920 start getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And that's exactly 0:45:09.960 --> 0:45:12.720 what happened. And as that became more and more evident, 0:45:13.680 --> 0:45:16.680 we started moving further and further away from from the 0:45:16.719 --> 0:45:17.520 gold standard. 0:45:17.960 --> 0:45:20.120 Yeah. And like I said earlier, kind of joke that 0:45:20.200 --> 0:45:22.840 Roosevelt they allowed him to urinate in person on the 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:27.800 gold He really led the charge in the thirties because 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:30.680 of World War One and the Great Depression, and said, 0:45:30.719 --> 0:45:32.120 you know what, we really kind of need to get 0:45:32.160 --> 0:45:34.719 away from this gold standard officially, and I'm going to 0:45:34.760 --> 0:45:39.440 take a series of actions weakening that link between gold 0:45:40.080 --> 0:45:44.240 dollars being backed by gold, and you can't exchange it anymore. Everyone, 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:48.279 so don't even think about that. And not only that, 0:45:48.400 --> 0:45:51.560 you can't hoard gold, like we basically want all the 0:45:51.600 --> 0:45:54.160 gold and they all want to hang on to it. 0:45:54.719 --> 0:45:57.120 Yeah, And so for a very long time. The only 0:45:57.239 --> 0:46:01.680 reason people maintain gold, or countries maintained gold, or the 0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:06.600 United States maintained gold, was to pay off foreign debts 0:46:06.719 --> 0:46:10.319 if need be. And then Nixon said nuts to that 0:46:10.480 --> 0:46:13.160 in nineteen seventy one, and from that moment on, the 0:46:13.280 --> 0:46:17.960 United States currency and economy was decoupled from gold and 0:46:18.080 --> 0:46:22.040 has been ever since. And you again, you can look, 0:46:22.160 --> 0:46:26.400 I'm not a wroth child robot oid. I just believe 0:46:26.440 --> 0:46:29.120 in progress, basically. And if you go back and look 0:46:29.120 --> 0:46:31.319 at the world economy, in the United States economy since 0:46:31.400 --> 0:46:34.560 nineteen seventy one, it's made some pretty impressive gains since then, 0:46:35.280 --> 0:46:39.160 and that's largely due to decoupling from gold and being 0:46:39.160 --> 0:46:41.680 able to print money. Now that said, and this is 0:46:41.719 --> 0:46:43.840 an entirely different podcast that I think we need to 0:46:43.840 --> 0:46:49.000 do sometime. There are massive problems with paper money, paper 0:46:49.000 --> 0:46:52.960 currency what's called fiat currency or a fiat system of currency, 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:57.520 where by fiat by proclamation, we say our currency is 0:46:57.560 --> 0:46:59.919 worth this amount, and that's what we do now, which 0:47:00.120 --> 0:47:02.279 is totally made up and totally in the air. But 0:47:02.320 --> 0:47:04.800 as long as people have faith in the government and 0:47:04.840 --> 0:47:09.520 the economy and the workforce, we can survive those ups 0:47:09.520 --> 0:47:13.440 and downs through that that that sense of faith not 0:47:13.600 --> 0:47:19.320 just among our citizens, but also people around the world understand. 0:47:20.040 --> 0:47:22.839 Yeah, I mean, let's let's just all keep agreeing. Let's 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:26.400 keep that pinky squear going exactly. So why do we 0:47:26.400 --> 0:47:29.160 still have value? Why do we still have Fort Knox? 0:47:29.280 --> 0:47:32.960 And if we don't need the gold, well, I mean 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:37.000 they're not just gonna give it away. You still got 0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:39.400 to keep it in one in a couple of places, right. 0:47:40.040 --> 0:47:42.040 That's I mean, that's one thing I think there is 0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:44.239 a certain amount of that national pride to even among 0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:46.440 the governments. Yeah, we got we got a bunch of gold, 0:47:46.760 --> 0:47:48.960 and it's in Fort Knox, and it's almost like symbolic 0:47:49.040 --> 0:47:52.239 of America's wealth and strength. One thing I did see 0:47:52.280 --> 0:47:54.960 is there are like lots of other countries have lots 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:59.280 of other gold hords themselves. And although the gold market 0:47:59.440 --> 0:48:02.360 is basically separate, it's like its own thing. That's you know, 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:09.440 it responds and reacts to the stock exchanges and other markets, 0:48:09.440 --> 0:48:12.040 but it's not it's not you know, entangled with it's 0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:15.520 its own thing. So really, if you released a bunch 0:48:15.520 --> 0:48:17.440 of gold, you're really going to mess with the gold market. 0:48:17.480 --> 0:48:19.319 But it's going to have a ripple effect through the 0:48:19.520 --> 0:48:24.600 through the world, in the other markets, in the global economy. 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:27.600 So it would be really foolish to release a bunch 0:48:27.680 --> 0:48:30.359 of gold onto the market for the US to sell, 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:32.480 or any country to sell its gold hoards off. It 0:48:32.480 --> 0:48:35.040 would be a real big problem that you don't need 0:48:35.040 --> 0:48:37.360 to have. It's easier to just keep the gold in 0:48:37.440 --> 0:48:42.160 Fort Knox instead, agreed, that's why it's still around. 0:48:42.200 --> 0:48:42.480 You're not. 0:48:42.760 --> 0:48:44.879 This turned out to be a pretty good aside from 0:48:44.960 --> 0:48:48.040 soaka juwiyah and now I'm wondering if I even pronounced 0:48:48.040 --> 0:48:52.840 wamp them correctly. Well, how humiliating, chuck. 0:48:52.800 --> 0:48:54.120 Wampum was the real thing? You know? 0:48:54.880 --> 0:48:57.240 Uh, if you want to know more about Fort Knox 0:48:57.280 --> 0:48:59.239 and start looking at pictures of it, you'll you'll see 0:48:59.239 --> 0:49:01.319 what we're talking about. And since I said you'll see 0:49:01.320 --> 0:49:03.160 what we're talking about, it's time for listener mail. 0:49:06.080 --> 0:49:10.919 I'm gonna call this Wetlands follow up from Donna. Hey, guys, 0:49:11.000 --> 0:49:13.040 been listening for many years and always enjoy the shows 0:49:13.040 --> 0:49:16.120 in the banter. Today, out of my morning walk, I 0:49:16.160 --> 0:49:21.040 was listening to Wetlands, Wetlands, Wetlands, and serendipitously came upon 0:49:21.280 --> 0:49:25.319 Cattails just as you brought them up. Wow, we love 0:49:25.360 --> 0:49:27.440 this stuff, these little coincidences. 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:30.320 She's like, now, I'm listening to the four Knox episode, 0:49:30.400 --> 0:49:31.120 so lay. 0:49:31.000 --> 0:49:35.120 It on me. I'm tunneling in as we speak. It 0:49:35.200 --> 0:49:37.279 was one of those weird coincidence moments that I just 0:49:37.280 --> 0:49:39.600 had to record. I walked off the path into the 0:49:39.600 --> 0:49:43.040 grasses and took a quick cattail selfie, which I included 0:49:43.040 --> 0:49:46.720 in this email. Lovely picture. Growing up in New Jersey 0:49:46.880 --> 0:49:50.480 in the eighties, cattails were called punks, and my dad 0:49:50.520 --> 0:49:53.440 would take the dried out plants and light them to 0:49:53.520 --> 0:49:56.640 keep away mosquitoes. That's what a punk is. Yeah, I've 0:49:56.640 --> 0:49:58.919 never heard of that. Have you heard of that? Uh huh, 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:01.759 never heard of that. Back then, it seemed like a 0:50:01.800 --> 0:50:03.959 normal thing to do. But having grown up and moved 0:50:03.960 --> 0:50:07.120 away from New Jersey, who I have never come across 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:10.520 anyone that ever partakes in this practice anymore. With such 0:50:10.520 --> 0:50:12.680 a huge part of my childhood summers, I'd forgotten about 0:50:12.680 --> 0:50:15.279 it until now until listening to the episode, and then 0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:19.480 I happen to walk upon some in the adjacent marshes 0:50:19.520 --> 0:50:22.680 in that moment truly delighted me. Mosquito season is over, 0:50:22.760 --> 0:50:25.560 where I live now in DC. But on next summers 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:27.560 to do list is to cut some cat tails from 0:50:27.600 --> 0:50:31.239 the Parkland and introduce my two teen sons to that 0:50:31.320 --> 0:50:32.839 distinctive punk smell. 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:36.560 That made me against federal law. Now though, oh, really 0:50:37.400 --> 0:50:41.640 taking punks from the Parkland, it seems like against the law. 0:50:41.880 --> 0:50:44.440 Well, I'll tell you what, Donna H. Look into that. 0:50:44.600 --> 0:50:46.839 We don't want you to get in trouble, that's right, 0:50:47.239 --> 0:50:49.680 or to do anything you shouldn't do. But I get 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:52.840 the urge to want to introduce things to your children 0:50:52.880 --> 0:50:55.360 that you did back then that weren't necessarily proper. 0:50:56.080 --> 0:50:58.799 Yes, but the nanny state will say no and throw 0:50:58.840 --> 0:51:00.680 you in jail. Try it, Donna. 0:51:00.840 --> 0:51:03.240 Yeah, maybe, I mean where I saw the wetlands recently 0:51:03.239 --> 0:51:05.320 where I was hiking here in Arabia Mountain. You can't 0:51:05.640 --> 0:51:09.880 beautiful granite outcroppings part of Stone Mountain actually, and you can't. 0:51:10.320 --> 0:51:11.640 My daughter wanted to take those rocks. 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:14.319 If you can't take the rocks, you go get thrown 0:51:14.360 --> 0:51:15.439 in jail by the nanny state. 0:51:15.480 --> 0:51:17.120 You can't do it. You gotta leave those rocks. 0:51:19.000 --> 0:51:20.480 What else did Donna say anything else? 0:51:20.560 --> 0:51:22.240 No, that's it. That's from Donna H. 0:51:22.360 --> 0:51:24.480 That was great, Donna, thank you very much. Be careful 0:51:24.520 --> 0:51:26.839 with the cattails. We won't tell if you do, but 0:51:26.960 --> 0:51:29.759 we just don't want you to get in trouble. We're 0:51:29.760 --> 0:51:32.799 no snitches. If you want to get in touch with us, 0:51:32.840 --> 0:51:35.440 like Donna did, we want to hear from you, and 0:51:35.520 --> 0:51:38.080 you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at 0:51:38.120 --> 0:51:42.760 iHeartRadio dot com. 0:51:42.960 --> 0:51:45.840 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:51:45.960 --> 0:51:50.120 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:51:50.239 --> 0:51:52.080 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.