0:00

Hey, everybody, I'm really looking

0:02

forward to today's podcast. My

0:04

guest is really a Titan, somebody who

0:06

I spent a lot of my youth regarding

0:10

as the kind of Darth Vader of

0:12

cunning

0:13

social programs and environmental

0:16

programs for the Reagan White House.

0:18

But I now regard him, the

0:21

more and more that I see him recently. It's

0:23

very strange. I remember reading,

0:26

I think it was C.S. Lewis, who talked

0:28

about people of one generation

0:31

who are great enemies, actually find themselves

0:33

very aligned in the face of subsequent

0:36

generations. And I feel that we

0:38

have reached this kind of weird alignment

0:41

where every time I hear David Stockman

0:43

voice on TV or read an article

0:46

about him, I find myself nodding

0:48

my head. He's talking about the same kind of things.

0:50

I'm talking about this outrageous

0:52

debt that is destroying the middle class,

0:55

that is threatening American democracy,

0:57

the decline of America into a warfare

1:00

state abroad, an imperium abroad,

1:02

a surveillance state at home. There's

1:04

huge gaps in wealth, you

1:07

know, between the middle class and the rich that

1:09

I think democracy is makes

1:12

democracy unsustainable by

1:15

every kind of political science,

1:17

trends that's been done in history. You cannot

1:19

have a democracy when there

1:21

are these huge aggregations of wealth above

1:24

and widespread poverty below. I really

1:27

am looking forward to this talk. Let

1:29

me give a little biography. David Stockman

1:31

was elected

1:32

as a Michigan congressman in 1976 and

1:35

joined the Reagan White House in 1981,

1:37

serving as budget director. He was one of the

1:40

key architects of the Reagan Revolution plan

1:42

to reduce taxes, cut spending and shrink

1:44

the role of government. He joined Solomon

1:46

Brothers in 1985 and later became one

1:48

of the early partners of the Blackstone

1:50

Group. During nearly two decades

1:53

at Blackstone and at a firm he founded,

1:55

Heartland Industrial Partners, Stockman

1:58

was a private equity.

1:59

investor.

2:01

He is the author of three best selling books,

2:03

The Triumph of Politics, Why the Reagan

2:05

Revolution Failed. And that's 1986,

2:07

The Great Deformation, The Corruption

2:10

of Capitalism in America in 2013.

2:13

Trump, A Nation on the brink of ruin

2:15

and how to bring it back 2016. And Pete

2:17

Trump, The Undrainable

2:21

Swamp in the fantasy of MAGA 2019. He is currently

2:25

the publisher of a daily blog, Contra

2:27

Corner, the place where the mainstream

2:29

delusions and can't about the warfare

2:31

of state, the bailout state, the bubble finance

2:34

and the beltway banditry are ripped, refuted

2:36

and rebuked. Born

2:38

in Fort Hood, Texas, snuck

2:41

graduated from Michigan State University

2:43

and attended the Harvard Divinity School,

2:46

and then went on to Washington

2:48

as a congressional aide in 1970. David,

2:52

I can't tell you how happy I am to

2:54

have this conversation. Let me begin

2:57

by just asking you about the Harvard Divinity

2:59

School. What was your career

3:01

track trajectory at that point? I'm

3:04

glad you asked that question because it goes

3:06

right to your observations

3:08

that a lot happens in 50 years.

3:12

And I was in Harvard Divinity School

3:14

in 1968, because I didn't want to

3:16

get drafted to go to McNamara's

3:19

war. And if you were a

3:21

prospective clergy, clergy,

3:24

you got a deferment. So I went to

3:26

Harvard got a job as a lived

3:28

in house man. And the

3:30

family happened to be the Daniel Patrick Moynihan

3:33

family. So the next thing

3:35

I knew I was sort of connected to a

3:37

political system that Moynihan had been

3:39

part of your family during the 1960s during the

3:43

John Kennedy administration, he got

3:45

me a job on Capitol Hill. Next

3:48

thing I knew I was running for Congress

3:49

from my own district. But the key

3:52

thing was, I was in Harvard

3:54

because I was anti war. The

3:57

Vietnam War was just

3:59

a all

3:59

awful, terrible stain

4:02

on our history. We were all proven

4:05

right. And the first campaign,

4:07

that's why this discussion is so

4:09

interesting. The first campaign I ever worked

4:11

in, the doorbells I ever rang were

4:14

for your father when he declared his

4:16

candidacy in 1968 because

4:19

the war had to stop. And as a matter

4:21

of fact, despite all the

4:24

tragedy that followed, the war did

4:26

stop. Johnson didn't

4:28

run. And for a while,

4:31

we had a little peace in the world. But

4:33

the neocons got control of

4:36

the government during the Reagan administration.

4:38

They infiltrated the Democratic

4:40

Party, as well as the Republicans.

4:43

I call it the UNI party. And

4:46

we have been off to the races as

4:48

a global hegemon

4:51

with these forever wars, decade

4:53

after decade. And we have

4:56

accomplished nothing except

4:58

to alienate a good part of the world,

5:01

unfortunately kill and maim

5:03

hundreds of thousands, if not millions

5:06

of people. And we really have

5:08

to stop this. And that's why I think

5:10

the issue of 2024, and

5:13

there are a lot of issues, but the issue

5:16

of 2024 is we have to stop the war machine.

5:21

And that's so ironic because that was

5:23

our slogan. Back in 1968,

5:27

and the war

5:27

machine is still here. In fact, it's bigger

5:31

and more powerful than ever before.

5:33

I've made the point that if you add up everything

5:36

that we spend on defense,

5:38

and that's the defense budget proper, international

5:41

affairs

5:42

and all of the AID and

5:45

state department and national

5:47

endowment for democracy and all

5:49

of the broadcasting operations.

5:52

And you

5:53

also add to that the cost of

5:55

veterans, the VA, because that's the deferred

5:57

cost of war. We have, we have.

5:59

millions of men in America that

6:02

were injured, maimed, disabled

6:04

for life that we have to support. They

6:06

shouldn't have been in any of those wars, obviously,

6:09

but that's more than $300 billion just for veterans.

6:14

So when you add all that up, it's 1.3 trillion

6:18

going into this vast

6:21

war machine, and we really

6:23

have to stop it, because if we don't get- That's

6:25

the thing, I just want to make it clear that's

6:27

an annual cost.

6:29

Yep, absolutely, that's the annual

6:31

cost, and it's bigger

6:34

than Social Security. It's two

6:36

or three times interest payments

6:39

at the present.

6:40

It dwarfs everything else, but

6:42

there's something worse than the pure size

6:45

or number,

6:46

and that is that both parties

6:49

have become addicted to what I call

6:51

the warfare state, to the forever

6:53

wars, and so we now have a bipartisan

6:56

consensus in favor

6:59

of every kind of really unbelievable

7:02

mayhem that comes along as

7:05

a result of the Washington Deep

7:07

State, if you want to call it that, finding

7:10

another crusade, as John

7:12

Quincy Adams said, another monster

7:15

to destroy abroad.

7:16

Ukraine is crazy.

7:19

What are we doing there funding,

7:22

promoting, instigating this

7:24

slaughter?

7:26

When it's very clear, there's a solution

7:28

here. Ukraine was never a country built

7:30

to last. It's divided down

7:32

the middle. It's far worse than red

7:34

state, blue state, between the Russian-speaking

7:38

provinces in the East and South and

7:40

the nationalists in the West and Center. So

7:43

the solution would be a peace conference,

7:45

partition the country, and move

7:48

along and stop the mayhem, but

7:51

the war machine wants a war. The

7:53

neocons have so demonized

7:56

Putin that they can't see straight,

7:58

and so now we have

7:59

a government in Washington

8:02

that should be attending to our

8:05

domestic affairs, that should be

8:07

a little concerned about 32 trillion

8:09

of debt, that should be concerned

8:12

about this massive disproportion

8:14

of wealth

8:15

that has been created as a result

8:17

of all this money printing and

8:19

borrowing that's occurred in the last two or three

8:22

decades. And yet

8:23

the big thing they like to do is

8:26

get in the planes and go on their junkets

8:29

and pretend that there's some

8:31

kind of latter day tribunes

8:34

taking care of the empire around

8:36

the globe. This is the big thing. This

8:39

is the heart

8:39

of the matter. Until we break the lock

8:42

of the warfare state, all these other things

8:44

that we might actually even disagree

8:47

about will never be addressed

8:49

in any productive or proper

8:52

way.

8:52

I want to point out a couple

8:54

of things before I move on to the next

8:57

question, which is that the people

8:59

of Dombas who are predominantly ethnic

9:01

Russians actually voted to

9:03

join Russia prior to the war. And

9:06

the Russians said, no, we don't want you. We

9:08

want Ukraine to maintain its

9:10

integrity as an Asian and just, you know,

9:12

let's make that part of the Dombas

9:15

region, an autonomous region so

9:17

they can maintain their language so they won't be

9:19

murdered, killed by government

9:21

policies,

9:22

but leave them part of Ukraine. So

9:25

that was the

9:27

Minsk accords and we could have settled it then

9:29

with no bloodshed. The Russians

9:31

wanted to do it.

9:33

This was an agreement that was worked out by

9:35

France, by Germany.

9:37

And actually, when Zelensky

9:40

ran in 2019,

9:42

he ran on a peace platform

9:44

and he got 70% of the vote. And

9:47

his promise was that he would ratify, sign

9:49

and ratify the Minsk accords. And something

9:51

happened.

9:52

And he got in there. He got surrounded

9:55

by White House neocons and

9:57

ultra-nationalists within Ukraine. Ukraine

10:00

and something made him change

10:02

his mind. Yes, I think on that,

10:04

it's a very important point. And I think you

10:06

can go right to the heart of it. It

10:09

was the Azov Battalion, the

10:11

sort of neo-Nazi forces

10:14

that became part of the government in 2014.

10:17

And they basically said to Zelensky,

10:19

who was born and lived in the

10:22

Russian speaking part of Ukraine,

10:24

the Donbas. His

10:26

language is Russian. He's a Russian speaker. And,

10:29

you know, he was famous because he had this

10:31

great comedy show on Ukrainian

10:33

TV, but you know, it was in Russian. It

10:36

had to be translated into Ukrainian.

10:39

That's where he came from. But he was told

10:41

by the ultra-nationalists,

10:43

the hardcore, that if you even

10:46

think about making peace with Russia,

10:48

you won't live to tell about it. That's

10:51

truly what happened.

10:52

So we need to understand

10:54

that this is a civil

10:56

war in what, you know what

10:59

Ukraine means in Russian? It means

11:02

borderlands. The whole territory

11:04

has been the borderland of

11:07

Russia for centuries and centuries.

11:09

Much

11:10

of it was part of the Russian

11:12

empire, or it was a vassal state.

11:15

What we're fighting for today, allegedly,

11:18

according to Washington, is to protect

11:20

borders that were actually

11:23

didn't exist until 1922 when

11:25

they were created by Lenin

11:27

out of administrative convenience

11:30

from the parts and pieces of

11:32

Tsarist Russia that he had taken

11:35

control of. And a little more was added by

11:37

Stalin during World War II from

11:39

Poland and Romania. And

11:41

then finally, in 1954, when

11:44

Khrushchev won the struggle

11:46

for succession, he gave

11:48

Crimea to the Ukrainians. It was Russian

11:51

speaking. It had been purchased by Catherine

11:54

the Great in 1783. It

11:56

was purely Russian, but as

11:58

a reward to his colleagues. helping

12:00

his Ukrainian colleagues, for

12:03

helping succeed Stalin.

12:05

It was a bloody struggle he gave him

12:07

Ukraine. So we're today

12:10

fighting a war, a devastating

12:12

war with the other major nuclear

12:15

armed power in the world. We're destroying

12:18

a country. We're slaughtering

12:20

a population so

12:22

that we can ratify the

12:25

work of bloody tyrants,

12:27

Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev,

12:30

that made the current borders

12:32

of Ukraine. But they have nothing to

12:35

do with the real history of population.

12:38

So if we could just see through

12:40

that,

12:41

and as you say, go back to 2014,

12:44

the coup in Kiev

12:47

was funded by the United States

12:49

Department of State, the National Endowment

12:51

for Democracy, the CIA,

12:54

we overthrew the duly

12:56

and appropriately elected government.

12:59

We didn't like the president because

13:01

he was Russian friendly. Well,

13:04

it wasn't our business to decide

13:06

who and how the Ukraine

13:08

is going to be governed on the border

13:11

of Russia. Now the other thing I want to say

13:14

is- By the way, let me

13:16

just add to what you're saying.

13:18

We put $5 billion through

13:20

the National Endowment for Democracy

13:23

and through USAID and all

13:25

these other CIA front groups into

13:28

those overthrowing Yanukovych.

13:30

So in 2014,

13:33

it was as you say, was

13:35

the democratically elected government.

13:37

We were supposed to represent

13:39

democracy, actually paid

13:42

to overthrow that government. In 2014.

13:45

Yes, and I think this goes

13:47

to a really important point

13:50

why this is such a tragedy

13:52

and such a crime, really.

13:54

And that is if you look at

13:56

the last election, which Yanukovych,

14:00

was elected. You look at that electoral

14:03

map and you would be astounded.

14:06

The East and South voted 90 to 10

14:09

for the pro-Russian

14:13

speaking candidate. The center

14:15

and West, the historic

14:18

Ukraine, voted 90 to 10

14:21

for the nationalist candidate. The

14:23

country was divided right

14:25

down the middle in ways that you rarely

14:27

see. It wasn't an aberration.

14:30

The same thing happened in several

14:32

earlier elections. What I say

14:34

is

14:35

the Ukrainian people have

14:37

already voted for partition.

14:39

They have said time and time again,

14:42

we don't necessarily all want

14:44

to be part of the same state,

14:46

of the same nation.

14:49

Why in the world we can't see

14:51

that and stop

14:53

the fighting, stop the slaughter

14:56

and begin a peace process

14:58

that could result in this very quickly is

15:01

really very hard to understand

15:03

except to realize that

15:05

Washington is so populated

15:08

with people who think that we need

15:10

to be running every square inch

15:12

of the earth.

15:13

If it's not run according to Washington's

15:16

specifications,

15:20

then we need to intervene. That is

15:22

so wrong. It is really

15:25

the opposite of that famous

15:28

statement that I just quoted from

15:30

John Quincy Adams that we mean

15:33

to have peace with all nations and

15:35

not to travel the earth seeking

15:37

monsters to destroy. Unfortunately,

15:40

that's

15:40

what our foreign policy has become

15:43

in modern times. One

15:46

of the ironies, and I'm thinking

15:48

just from what you said, is that

15:50

when we were fighting the Kosovo war,

15:53

we were actually on the side of partitioning.

15:57

Right, exactly. Exactly. Partitioning

15:59

to populations that had been

16:01

kind of artificially loaded into one

16:04

country through arbitrary drawn border

16:06

lines who couldn't get along with each

16:08

other, who were having trouble getting along. And at

16:10

that point, we took the position

16:13

and we, you know, we're militarily involved. And

16:16

actually, we bombed Serbia

16:18

for I think 82 straight

16:20

days as part of a campaign

16:23

to sever Kosovo

16:25

from Serbian Republic. But

16:27

the bigger issue is there have been a lot

16:29

of partitions in the world, both

16:32

in older times and more recent

16:34

times that prove beneficial

16:36

to the populations involved. It turned out

16:39

that Czechoslovakia was an artificial

16:41

state created by Wilson and

16:43

Versailles. They eventually parted

16:46

ways. There are two states there now. They

16:48

weren't just fine. The people were happy. Yugoslavia

16:51

was composed of eight or nine peoples

16:54

and nations historically that

16:56

didn't necessarily want to be together. They were put

16:58

together by Tito through, you

17:00

know, the iron fist. That is all

17:02

now been dissolved. It was kind of rough

17:05

and tumble getting there. But it's

17:07

a lot better off than it was under

17:09

one bloody tyrant. So what's

17:11

wrong with partition? If

17:14

there is good and substantial

17:17

reason and historic

17:18

basis for it, and there clearly is here.

17:21

The war was started by Kiev

17:25

in 2014 when it decided that the breakaway

17:28

republics in the east that didn't want to

17:30

be part of the new government, part

17:32

of the CIA sponsored

17:34

coup, had to be punished

17:36

for their attempts to break away.

17:39

That's when the war started. And

17:41

for seven or eight years prior

17:43

to the current war, Kiev,

17:46

you know, murdered something like 14,000

17:48

people in the Donbass

17:51

in areas that were trying to break away.

17:54

So besides that, and I'm

17:56

not making any brief for Putin, but

17:58

he said as early as

17:59

207, do not

18:02

bring NATO to my doorstep.

18:05

And this is so interesting, we're talking to you

18:07

about it, because to

18:09

him, putting NATO in

18:11

the Ukraine and U.S. missile

18:14

bases within minutes

18:16

of Moscow was really not

18:18

much different than what your uncle faced

18:22

in 1962 when Khrushchev put missiles in

18:24

Cuba, 90 miles away.

18:27

And we said, this shall not stand.

18:30

Eventually it was resolved

18:32

peacefully. But the principle

18:34

is the same. And

18:35

why we expanded

18:38

NATO to all these former Warsaw

18:40

Pact nations, when we had

18:42

promised to barbechop at the time

18:44

of things breaking up in 1991 that we wouldn't

18:47

move an inch

18:49

to the east in return for

18:51

his acquiescence in the unification

18:54

of Germany. All of these things are

18:56

so

18:56

well known. And yet

18:58

you have a population of

19:01

elected officials and permanent

19:03

government apparatchiks, as I call

19:06

them in Washington, who are so committed

19:08

to the global hegemony, to

19:11

these forever wars, to the

19:14

neocon creed, that

19:16

here we are with this sheer

19:19

madness, that you have

19:21

a democratic president

19:23

and a democratic majority

19:26

that insists must be carried

19:28

out to the last Ukrainian,

19:30

which is so ironic, because when

19:33

I started back in 1968, the

19:36

Democratic Party was the P-stick

19:38

Party. That's where all the doves

19:40

were, that we looked to in the

19:42

battle of the fight on Vietnam.

19:45

And somehow over the last five

19:48

decades, over the last half century,

19:50

it's turned upside down and switched.

19:53

And frankly, I think there are

19:55

more doves in the Republican Party today, not

19:57

many, but you know, Rand Paul

19:59

types.

19:59

There are more today than

20:02

in the Democrat Party, and that's

20:04

really part of what has to change

20:07

and change in a big way.

20:09

Yeah, and I agree with you. I think particularly

20:11

in the rank and file Republicans and the independents,

20:13

that kind of populist wing is very,

20:16

very anymore. I think we're in the same way

20:18

that we were in the 1960s. It's really

20:22

interesting, but the rest of the population

20:24

has succumbed to this comic

20:27

book narrative that the Neocons are

20:30

so adept at generating. Good

20:33

guy, evil guy, bad guy, we've

20:35

got to go in there and fix it, and then they didn't

20:37

rack. They

20:41

hypnotize people with it and nobody

20:43

is looking at

20:44

the facts and I'll just mention

20:46

this that, as you mentioned my

20:48

uncle, you know his most important

20:51

speech is present. The 60th

20:53

anniversary is coming up on June 10th of the American

20:55

University speech,

20:57

which was the speech where he turned our nation

21:00

around on the on the nuclear test

21:02

ban treaty and had the first atmospheric

21:04

test ban treaty, you know the nuclear age.

21:07

What he did in that speech is the

21:09

exact thing that you're doing right now is

21:12

it was a talk to the American people asking

21:15

them to put themselves in the shoes of

21:17

the Russians. Right. And

21:19

he said you cannot have peace if

21:21

you're not able to put yourself in the

21:23

shoes of your adversary. And he

21:26

reminded people something that we never, you

21:27

know I, I grew up watching

21:30

Vic Morrow on combat and

21:32

you know Americans. We

21:34

won the war against Germany and Americans

21:37

didn't realize that the war was really

21:39

wrote on by the Russians. Yeah,

21:42

and that the Russians made this incredible

21:44

sacrifice to be Hitler including 23

21:47

million, you know, you hear numbers

21:50

up to 70 million people Russians were killed. But it's

21:52

one out of every seven Russians 13% of their population died. Right.

22:00

Third of the country was reduced to rubble. And this

22:02

is when my uncle said you have to put yourself

22:04

in their position and see how they view the

22:06

world. He said, it's like

22:09

if all of our country was reduced

22:11

to rubble

22:12

from the east coast to Chicago.

22:15

And yes, how would we feel about

22:17

hostile forces

22:20

lining up on our border then? He

22:23

had developed this great friendship with Gruschev

22:25

and they were corresponding with each other secretly

22:28

through a Soviet spy, a KGB,

22:31

GRU spy called Georgi Bolshikoy,

22:33

who used to come to our house and he would hand

22:35

letters to try to end run the CIA,

22:38

and run the State Department.

22:40

26 letters that my uncle and

22:42

Gruschev exchanged

22:44

and they found themselves that they

22:46

were both in the same position. They were both

22:48

men who had fought in World War II. Gruschev

22:51

had seen this incredible brutality

22:53

at Stalingrad, probably the worst battle

22:56

in, arguably the worst battle in history.

22:58

And my uncle had been lost,

23:00

declared dead and seen the brutality

23:03

of war. And both of them had a no horns

23:05

for war. But they were surrounded

23:07

by intelligence apparatus and a military

23:10

brass who saw the war not

23:13

only as inevitable, but desirable.

23:17

Right. They knew they

23:19

had to talk to each other or the whole place

23:21

was going to be burned to the whole world. And

23:23

that's why my uncle and Gruschev

23:25

privately agreed to install the hotlines

23:28

because they didn't trust their own people because

23:31

they were surrounded. And one of the things

23:33

I want to ask you about, because you had a front

23:35

row of this, because a lot of those neocons

23:37

and a lot of philosophy came out

23:40

of the Reagan White House. And then,

23:42

you know, they really blew up during

23:44

George W. Bush's administration.

23:46

But there was that kind of Zbigniew

23:48

Brzezinski and the Carter White House was

23:51

probably the granddaddy of the neocons,

23:53

arguably. And he actually says in

23:55

his book, our strategy

23:58

should be to draw the. Russia

24:01

to wars in Afghanistan

24:03

and other places where we

24:05

can get other people to fight the war and we'll

24:07

supply them and that's how we'll bring down Russia

24:09

and that's been their blueprint

24:12

from the beginning and they just rolled

24:14

it out the same people. But how did

24:16

you watch that evolution? Yeah,

24:19

I'm glad you brought this up and I want to go back

24:21

to where you started because I truly

24:24

think

24:25

that John Kennedy's American

24:27

University speech is one of the

24:29

greatest speeches, most inspiring

24:32

speeches by any president

24:35

at any time and that

24:36

people can easily find it on

24:38

the internet today. They should click

24:41

on and listen to it because

24:43

it was powerful and it was

24:45

moving and potent. Now

24:47

what's interesting about that

24:50

is that the other great

24:52

speech given right before that

24:54

was by Eisenhower, his farewell

24:56

address and

24:58

just as John Kennedy tried

25:00

to open the door to negotiations

25:03

and reducing the tensions in the Cold

25:05

War in the arms race,

25:07

Eisenhower had also made

25:10

enormous strides in

25:13

the friending

25:14

Khrushchev and they had several

25:16

summits which were productive and as you

25:18

know the last summit in the

25:21

spring of 1960 was

25:23

going to be the breakthrough. It really would

25:25

have ended the arms race and

25:28

on the eve of that summit, Alan

25:30

Dulles in the CIA sent

25:32

the U-2 spy planes right

25:35

over Russia, Gary Powers, it's a

25:37

very famous episode. They

25:39

shot down the spy plane and

25:41

that was the end of the summit,

25:43

you know it was the CIA.

25:46

So your uncle said after

25:49

the day of pigs he'd like to smash

25:51

the CIA into a thousand pieces

25:54

and ironically he was right

25:57

and the same thing actually happened.

26:00

Eisenhower. Now, the key reason I'm bringing

26:02

this up is that if you look at 1961,

26:04

Eisenhower was

26:07

the president. He was the greatest general

26:10

we ever had in the White House. And he

26:12

said, the defense budget we have

26:14

today is more than enough and we

26:16

should be alert to the danger that

26:19

they'll try to make it bigger. Now, I bring this up

26:21

because in today's dollars, that

26:23

defense budget that Eisenhower said

26:25

was adequate was 400 billion.

26:29

Our defense budget in the same purchasing

26:31

power dollars today is 800 billion

26:34

going on 900 billion.

26:35

In 1961,

26:36

when Eisenhower

26:39

said our defenses are adequate,

26:42

the

26:42

triad nuclear deterrent

26:44

that we had would keep the peace.

26:47

We were

26:48

up against Russia at the

26:50

peak of its industrial might.

26:54

They had 2,000 warheads.

26:56

They had 7,000

26:56

aircraft.

26:59

They had 60,000 tanks

27:01

and on and on, 4 million men under

27:03

arms. But Eisenhower said 400

27:07

billion is enough even then.

27:09

Well, where are we today? The Soviet

27:11

Union has disappeared from the pages of history.

27:14

There

27:14

is no big industrial power

27:16

that's even threatening our homeland

27:19

security and safety. And

27:21

certainly it's not China

27:22

because China is one

27:25

great big bonsey scheme that couldn't

27:27

survive without the export markets,

27:30

without the 4,000 Walmarts

27:32

in America, the Chinese communists

27:35

would be in a hard way to stay

27:37

in power as well.

27:38

So why do we have double the

27:40

defense budget today that

27:42

Eisenhower said was adequate

27:45

when we had a real enemy and when

27:47

he was in the middle of trying to open

27:49

the door? Now, the last point on your

27:52

question, what was going on in 1980 is

27:54

really also highly relevant

27:57

to where we are today. The

27:59

case that the

27:59

the neocons were making

28:02

in 1980, and you'll probably remember

28:04

it, is that we were in danger

28:07

of the Soviet Union developing

28:09

a nuclear first-strike

28:11

capability, and that

28:14

it would only be a matter of time, and they

28:16

would say, you know, game over, surrender.

28:18

Well, that was complete baloney.

28:21

There was never a Soviet

28:23

first-strike either in tension

28:26

or capacity. But here's

28:28

the thing. They were able to use

28:30

that fear to take the defense

28:32

budget that we got handed to us from Jimmy

28:35

Carter at $140 billion and to take it to $350 billion

28:37

over a four- or five-year period,

28:42

and in today's dollars, it's a lot more than

28:44

that. What did they buy? Here's the key

28:46

thing. What did they buy with

28:49

that doubling, almost tripling

28:51

of the defense budget? They didn't buy

28:54

anything that had to do with

28:56

the so-called first-strike threat

28:58

from Russia because of their Soviet Union. There

29:01

wasn't

29:01

one. What they did was

29:03

create a vast armada

29:06

of conventional forces,

29:08

the 600-chip Navy, thousands

29:10

of new main battle tanks, thousands

29:13

of new aircraft fixed, rotary,

29:16

all kinds of sea lift, air lift capacity,

29:19

all kinds of missile

29:21

capability, cruise missile capability.

29:24

What was all this used for? It

29:26

was used for wars of

29:28

invasion and occupation

29:31

in the Middle East. It's being used in the

29:33

Ukraine today. In other words,

29:35

you know, these forever wars were

29:38

an accidental outcome

29:41

of a massive conventional

29:44

buildup that was unnecessary that

29:46

happened during the 1980s. Because

29:49

I'm pretty sure of this,

29:51

that had not that huge buildup

29:54

happened under the false guy's

29:57

threat of a Soviet first-strike

29:59

capacity.

30:00

it would have been very hard to have

30:03

the first Gulf War, the second Gulf

30:05

War, to take the battle

30:08

to Libya, to Yemen, and

30:10

to all the other places in the world if

30:13

presidents had to go to the Congress and ask

30:15

for huge appropriations to

30:18

buy the military capability. They already

30:20

had it.

30:21

This is another important

30:23

part of history that I

30:25

think is important to lay out,

30:28

because it's

30:28

why we're in the mess we are today. If

30:30

we didn't have all these stockpiles of

30:33

weapons that really came out of

30:35

that conventional force buildup,

30:37

we wouldn't be running a

30:39

genocide, which is really what

30:41

it is in the Ukraine today.

30:44

So I think it's a key part of

30:46

understanding what has to change

30:48

in a very big way.

30:50

We don't need that conventional

30:52

force. We need a triad

30:54

deterrent, nuclear deterrent. We have

30:56

it. It's bought and paid for. It's

30:59

relatively cheap. We could get

31:01

by with a $200 to $300 billion

31:03

defense budget, not an $800 billion one. We

31:06

would then not be, we could defend the

31:09

homeland.

31:09

No one's going to penetrate

31:11

the Atlantic and the Pacific with the homeland

31:13

defense. All of that would be

31:16

possible. And yet the

31:18

military industrial

31:18

intelligence complex,

31:22

the neocons, and all of the,

31:24

I don't know if you remember the name

31:26

of the labor, but there's so much loose change

31:28

in this massive 900 billion

31:31

defense budget

31:32

that it's basically like what I call

31:34

a self-licking ice cream cone. It

31:37

pays for itself. There is so much

31:39

money that goes to all these think tanks,

31:41

all of these NGOs,

31:43

all of these operations

31:45

that spend their life coming up

31:47

with reasons why we should be

31:50

in the Ukraine or why liberating

31:52

Libya was a good idea or why

31:55

Yemen makes a difference when

31:57

none of this is true, but it all

31:59

comes up.

31:59

out of this massive budget.

32:02

The most dangerous thing in the world is the 900

32:05

billion defense budget, to tell you the truth, because

32:07

there's so much money, so many

32:10

arms contracts

32:11

built into that, that it's

32:14

almost self perpetuating, very

32:16

difficult to stop.

32:18

And you have the media involvement too,

32:20

and you go on CNN and the people

32:23

you're seeing who are urging us

32:25

to increase our

32:27

commitment to Ukraine are all retired

32:30

generals who they don't tell you, but

32:32

they're working for those Lockheed

32:34

and the military contractors and those

32:36

think tanks, and their whole function is

32:39

to try to keep us at this constant state of war.

32:41

And you talked about the

32:44

expenditures. We now

32:45

spend 40% of the world's budget,

32:49

the entire global budget

32:51

for military is coming

32:53

from the United States. We spend more than the

32:56

next 10 top nations, including

32:58

Russia and China combined. My

33:01

grandfather said that the real strength

33:03

of a nation does not come from projecting

33:06

military power, it comes from economic power,

33:08

it comes from building a strong economy,

33:11

a strong middle class at home. He said,

33:13

we should build fortress America, make ourselves,

33:16

arm ourselves to the teeth around our border, make

33:19

ourselves too expensive to conquer and

33:21

then focus our money on building

33:24

infrastructure, making our country the shining

33:27

city on the hill, and

33:29

strengthening our economy

33:30

and we're not just bankrupting ourselves. I

33:33

talk often about Paul Kennedy, who

33:36

is a Yale professor

33:38

who wrote this book, this analysis of the

33:40

last 500 years of how

33:43

empires rise and fall. And every

33:45

single empire in that book, every

33:48

single empire in the last 500 years

33:50

of history, half millennium, the

33:52

death knell has come from over extending

33:54

its military abroad. And we've just followed

33:56

that formula. I remember at

33:59

the end of the cold.

33:59

war and disentangling

34:03

that we were promised a peace dividend.

34:06

That peace dividend was supposed to cut

34:09

our budget, I think it was something like 600 billion

34:12

then, and that they were going to cut it

34:14

to 200 billion.

34:15

That's what we're talking about. And instead,

34:18

it's doubled essentially. It's

34:21

gone up to, as you say, if

34:23

you add in everything, it's 1.3, and with the

34:25

Homeland Security, it's 1.3.

34:28

And we wouldn't need all this Homeland Security

34:30

if we weren't stirring up trouble in

34:33

the world. The reason we have to go through

34:35

X-ray machines to the airport is because

34:38

the military is not protecting us, it's

34:40

actually making it more dangerous to live in

34:42

this country.

34:44

I would just add that

34:46

they almost had a peace dividend

34:48

for a few years. And then, unfortunately,

34:51

the Clinton administration got

34:53

taken in by this Republican

34:56

drum beating about being soft

34:58

on defense. And they came up

35:00

with this stupid idea really

35:02

bad, and this is important to get into

35:05

the mix here, of expanding

35:07

NATO to include the former

35:10

Warsaw Pact nations, and then

35:12

even some of the republics that

35:15

spun out of the Soviet Union itself.

35:17

And at the time, and this was quite

35:20

clearly,

35:20

even then there was a public debate

35:23

in the New York Times, George Kennan,

35:26

the father of the containment doctrine,

35:29

the intellectual really

35:31

who helped create the whole

35:34

Cold War containment doctrine,

35:36

and that led to NATO, and

35:38

that led to the Marshall Plan, and

35:41

all the others, said, this is

35:43

a folly. This is the

35:46

wrong thing to do. You're simply

35:48

going to stir up the

35:50

bear, and sooner or later

35:52

the Russians will react.

35:55

Now, going back to your point

35:56

earlier, you know, Russia

35:58

has a case,

35:59

I mean, they never should have invaded

36:02

this country. I agree with that. But

36:04

they have a case that in the last

36:06

two centuries, they'd been invaded

36:08

by the West three times. Napoleon

36:11

came in. They were invaded

36:13

by the Germans in World War

36:15

I, decimated. They were invaded

36:18

in World War II in a horrible

36:21

way, and they stopped the invasion

36:23

at the Battle of Stalingrad.

36:26

But after that kind of history,

36:28

they have a different mentality. And

36:30

when

36:30

we said we're bringing NATO to

36:33

their doorstep, okay, to Lithuania,

36:35

to Poland, that we were going to put

36:38

missiles in NATO in the Ukraine

36:41

and in Georgia,

36:42

which is a former republic of the

36:44

Soviet Union, it became

36:47

too much. And since 2007,

36:50

at these international security conferences,

36:52

Putin had been saying over and over again,

36:55

that's a

36:55

red line. You can't put missiles

36:58

on my doorstep in the Ukraine

37:01

or in other parts of my neighborhood.

37:04

And, you know, they didn't listen. And

37:06

finally, there was a negotiation

37:08

in December 2021. It

37:11

could have led to a breakthrough in

37:14

an agreement to keep NATO out of Ukraine

37:16

and some kind of autonomy under

37:18

Minsk for the Eastern and Southern

37:21

provinces.

37:22

But it was all vetoed, shot down,

37:24

and totally kicked away by

37:27

the neocons. This happened in

37:29

a Democrat administration. This happened

37:32

on Biden's watch. This

37:34

never should have happened. It shouldn't have

37:36

happened in any administration, but

37:39

certainly it shouldn't have happened in

37:41

the former peace party that

37:44

is part of the war party now. So the war

37:46

party is the problem. That's where we started

37:49

our conversation today. And

37:52

we've got to do something to break

37:54

it up, to break it up. Let me

37:56

add a couple points. My uncle would

37:58

have invaded Cuba.

37:59

if they didn't remove those

38:02

missiles. And he got them to remove

38:04

those missiles in a secret deal with my father

38:06

and Ambassador Dobrenin, where

38:09

we removed our Jupiter missiles

38:12

from Turkey because Russia and Khrushchev

38:14

had gone into Cuba. Well,

38:17

you got them in my doorstep. I need to have

38:19

them at your doorstep. Otherwise you got

38:22

the first strike capability that will

38:24

destroy us. And so- But can

38:26

I just throw something as I could because

38:29

I've sort of studied

38:29

this too and it's very interesting that we're

38:32

into it. When he was suddenly confronted

38:34

with this crisis and then was

38:37

told that Khrushchev was making

38:39

the point you got Jupiter missiles

38:41

in Turkey, they weren't even supposed to be there.

38:44

Oh, he could've always ordered them. He

38:48

famously said there's always some basket

38:50

that doesn't get the word. And

38:53

the point was time and time

38:55

again and all these inflection points

38:58

in history,

38:59

when people were trying to do the right

39:01

thing, President Kennedy, President

39:03

Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter with

39:06

the arms control agreements,

39:08

time

39:08

after time, they're undermined.

39:11

I mean, I have no great beef for Donald

39:13

Trump, but he was actually trying to

39:15

roll back the umpire a little bit

39:18

and he tried to get out of Syria. They said,

39:20

no way Jose. He tried to

39:23

defuse the tensions in Korea and

39:26

his own people shot him down. So we're

39:29

up against something that's pretty

39:31

insidious, pretty powerful, pretty

39:33

deeply entrenched. That's why the

39:35

deep state isn't a bad metaphor

39:38

even if it's exaggerated. And

39:40

somehow it's a lock

39:43

on the two political parties has

39:46

to be broken if we're ever going to move

39:48

into a more enlightened form of

39:50

policy. Yeah, and

39:53

let me just finish that thought about putting

39:55

yourself in the adversary shoes in

39:57

exchange for moving for you.

39:59

them find Germany and moving

40:02

out 400,000 German troops who, I mean,

40:05

Russian troops who were there and moved in

40:07

NATO. Imagine that when you

40:09

know, what up below to the to the pride

40:12

and to the national security of the Soviets.

40:14

They got us to promise we wouldn't move one inch to

40:16

the east. We then moved a thousand miles

40:18

to the east. We took in 14 of

40:21

their countries, George Kennan, and said, why

40:23

are you treating them like an enemy? They

40:25

lost the Cold War. The people who are running it now

40:28

are the people who were on our side

40:30

during the Cold War. We should

40:32

be treating them like we treat the Marshall Plan.

40:34

You know, we should be helping them transition

40:36

to democracy and making them part

40:39

of the brotherhood and sisterhood out of Europe.

40:41

Why are we treating them as enemies? If you treat them

40:44

as enemies,

40:44

as Kennan said,

40:46

it's got to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

40:48

They're going to turn eventually. They're going to

40:50

see this unyielding hostility.

40:53

They're going to be resentful because they did everything

40:55

we asked them to do. They dismantled the empire

40:58

and they are going to, the bear is going to wake

41:00

you up, you know, and they're going to fight back.

41:03

We put Aegis missile systems in

41:05

Poland and in Romania

41:07

and those missiles can carry domahawk

41:10

missiles, domahawk, which

41:12

are nuclear, you know, and Ukraine

41:15

is 400 miles from Moscow. We

41:17

have a rule in our atmosphere, called the Monroe

41:20

Doctrine, that says nobody can put anything

41:22

anywhere near us.

41:24

Yeah, including Patagonia.

41:27

Exactly. Let me ask

41:30

you this.

41:31

Assume I get into the White House,

41:33

okay?

41:34

I hope you do. I'm

41:38

going to get your help if I do. Okay.

41:41

What do I, you know, and I'm on a close, as many

41:43

as I can, of the 800 bases abroad, bring

41:49

people home in China and start unraveling

41:52

the warfare state. You know, what happens

41:54

to our economy in this country? Because

41:56

those are a lot of jobs that are lost. Those are

41:58

people now who don't have jobs. There are people who

42:00

are armed, maybe, who

42:03

could be prone to violence or whatever. And

42:05

this is always the worry when you dismantle

42:07

the military. And then there's a,

42:10

you have a huge cohort of people who

42:12

are deeply resentful because they want this

42:14

to continue, the gravy train to continue. And

42:18

then how do you employ those people

42:20

and what does it do to our economy? I

42:22

mean, is there, how do

42:24

we spend that piece of it on to start

42:26

reducing debt and start rebuilding

42:29

our industrial infrastructure at

42:32

home? Well, I think that's an important point

42:34

that we can exaggerate how

42:36

crucial it is to the economy. Because

42:38

even though we have this monster defense budget

42:41

at 900 billion, it's actually

42:43

only about 4% of GDP

42:45

today. It's not nearly as a share

42:48

of the economy, but not nearly the

42:50

seven or 10% that we had during

42:53

the sixties and seventies during the peak of

42:55

the Cold War. That's the first thing. The second

42:57

thing is we've had successful demobilizations

42:59

after major wartime

43:02

spending

43:03

three or four times in the last century.

43:06

And we made the adjustment quite

43:08

rapidly when there was no

43:10

reason to keep it going. There was

43:12

a massive number of men under arms

43:15

and the whole country was

43:17

mobilized for war in 1917 and 18. We

43:21

did have a recession in 1920. And

43:24

by 22, we were booming. It was the roaring

43:27

twenties. We had the big economy.

43:29

After 1945, everybody said, this

43:32

was totally a war economy. You couldn't

43:34

buy a car, you couldn't buy furniture. Everything

43:37

was refocused on war production

43:40

and that when the war ended in 1945, there

43:43

was going to be a long lasting

43:45

depression. That's what some of the paintings

43:48

were saying. It didn't happen. By 1947, 1948, the economy

43:50

was back on its feet as

43:54

the civilian economy was doing well. Same

43:56

thing the lesser way after Korea. Same

43:59

thing after Vietnam.

43:59

So I think

44:02

what we need to do is recognize

44:04

that more spending

44:06

is an economic negative

44:08

in the long run. It produces no

44:10

goods or services that are of value

44:13

to anybody. It is ultimately

44:16

a form of economic waste. We don't

44:18

get capital goods. We don't get consumer

44:20

goods. We just get an arsenal,

44:23

you know, most of which we don't need. And

44:25

when

44:25

you stop spending money

44:28

on waste, on things

44:30

that we don't need, either for defense

44:32

and certainly for civilian life,

44:35

the economy itself has great

44:38

powers of adjustment and regeneration. Maybe

44:41

we have some kind of federal readjustment

44:44

programs. We've had those before. I

44:46

don't think you need much. I think

44:48

you have to basically say

44:51

we're going to change

44:53

the predicate.

44:55

We're going to have first an

44:57

international push for new

44:59

treaties, for arms control

45:02

and arms reduction treaties. We've

45:04

mentioned that our 1.2 trillion

45:07

defense budget is a high share of the

45:09

world.

45:09

But there's $4 trillion

45:13

being spent in the world today on

45:15

arms that doesn't need to be

45:17

spent. And at least in 1920,

45:20

our leaders

45:21

tried to, you know, there was the famous

45:23

Naval agreement in 1922 that

45:27

attempted to reverse

45:29

the Naval arms race. We

45:32

tried to have agreements, obviously,

45:34

in the 60s and 70s, and did.

45:37

Your uncle led that process.

45:40

So what we need to do is basically

45:43

let the American people know that

45:45

we're in the process of making

45:47

peace with the world and negotiating

45:49

with the world, reducing

45:51

the massive expenditures on

45:53

both sides on arms. And

45:55

I think a lot of the rest of it will

45:58

take care of itself.

45:59

we can just change the

46:02

fundamental direction.

46:04

Let me add to this switching

46:06

subjects. We're gonna reduce expenditures

46:08

for the military and that deals

46:11

with some of this huge momentous,

46:14

a trillion dollar budget deficit. So yeah,

46:16

but it's $32 trillion is, is

46:20

so massive compared

46:23

to GDP.

46:24

And then you have the companion problem

46:27

of this giant gap between

46:29

rich and poor.

46:31

Can that be remedied? Can those two

46:33

issues be remedied? And then, and how

46:36

do you do it? Well, there's big changes we

46:38

have to make and I'm glad you brought this

46:40

up. When I became budget director in 1981, the

46:43

public debt was 980 billion. It's

46:46

now 32 trillion. It was 30%

46:48

of GDP. It's now 130%.

46:52

That has all happened within one

46:54

lifetime, in four decades.

46:57

So that's what we're up against and it has

46:59

to change. The second reason

47:02

that we need to focus, what we need to focus

47:05

on is it happened because the

47:07

Federal Reserve became perverted

47:10

in its function and

47:12

started to monetize all

47:14

of this debt

47:15

that was being created

47:17

to fund both a burgeoning welfare

47:20

state and a big bloated

47:22

warfare state at the same time. We

47:24

didn't have enough money or taxpayer

47:27

willingness to fund both. And so

47:29

we borrowed like crazy 30 trillion

47:32

of new debt in a lifetime. So

47:35

what we need to do is basically

47:38

recognize that

47:40

two trillion annual debts

47:42

are built in. They're baked in the cake. If

47:44

we continue with the warfare

47:47

state that we have today and all the domestic

47:49

programs we have, and that

47:51

we, if we can at least

47:54

bring this defense budget down dramatically,

47:57

we can begin to chip away at that.

47:59

and get back to some level of fiscal

48:02

sanity, but none of it can happen

48:04

until we bring the Fed

48:07

back under control. They have printed

48:09

so much money. They have created such tremendous

48:12

bubbles, such tremendous

48:15

imbalances and exaggerations in

48:17

our economy. And it's not helped

48:20

the, you know, main street. It's not helped

48:22

the average guy. This has all

48:24

been, as I said, the thing I wrote recently,

48:27

it wasn't like President John Kennedy

48:30

said when he, you know, introduced

48:32

his new economics, and he said, the

48:34

rising tide lifts all boats. That

48:36

was the idea. We're gonna cut taxes and get

48:39

investment, and the economy's gonna perk

48:41

up, and everybody will benefit.

48:43

The kind that we have today is

48:46

a rising tide that lifted all yachts,

48:48

okay? It

48:50

went to the 1%. In the

48:52

last 30 years, the net worth

48:54

at the top 1%

48:56

has gone from 4 trillion

48:58

to 44 trillion. If you can imagine

49:00

that, 4 trillion to 40, a 40

49:03

trillion gain. The bottom 50% went

49:06

from one to four, okay? So they've

49:08

gained 3 trillion, 50% of

49:10

the households in America, the top 1%

49:12

have gained 40. Now, this

49:15

isn't because of wild

49:17

West capitalism. This is because

49:19

of wild money printing.

49:21

Too much liquidity. Too

49:24

much, you know, monetary

49:26

stimulus in the system. We

49:28

have a situation today where the

49:30

top 1% average net worth

49:33

is 38 million. The bottom 50%

49:35

average net worth is 56,700 to one.

49:39

That's

49:41

not free market capitalism. That's

49:44

not the natural order of-

49:46

Just repeat that so people can hear it, because

49:49

what you're saying is, the bottom 50%

49:52

of the country that

49:55

the average net worth is- Is 56,000.

49:59

The top 1% is 38 million, rough ratio 700 to 1,

50:02

double what it was as recently as 1990.

50:05

So

50:12

this is not the natural evolution

50:15

or outcome of market capitalism,

50:17

even though some, you know, leftists

50:20

want to say that. This is because

50:22

we've had a central bank both

50:24

here and around the world that

50:26

has put so much liquidity

50:29

into the markets. And that

50:31

liquidity has never left the

50:34

canyons of Wall Street. You know, it

50:36

didn't cause a acceleration

50:39

of investment or job growth or

50:41

living standards. No, actually in

50:43

the 60s and 50s, 60s and

50:45

70s, median real family

50:48

income grew at 2.5% a year. Since

50:51

the year 2000, it's grown at 0.5. In

50:55

other words,

50:56

a half a percent, not 2.5. That's

50:58

a huge difference if maintained,

51:01

you know, year after year over time, it's

51:03

five to one. So what

51:06

has happened is that these bad

51:08

money printing policies of the central

51:11

banks have created this massive

51:13

windfall of financial prosperity

51:17

to the top 1%, even as the real

51:19

growth rate

51:21

and investment rate of the economy

51:23

is slowed to a crawl, which

51:26

has left the middle class or

51:28

main street as we might want to

51:30

call it high and dry. That's

51:32

another whole part of this syndrome

51:35

that we really need to correct in a big

51:37

way. You know, what happens when

51:39

you try to fix that? I mean, it's,

51:42

you

51:42

know, because of if

51:44

they just stop printing the money the way that

51:46

they're doing it, there's a bubble at that

51:48

point, right? And it breaks.

51:51

Yeah. It's like, I'm just

51:53

asking this, the president who tries

51:56

to mess around with that bubble is,

51:58

you know, he can cause.

51:59

or she going to cause the collapse of the entire

52:02

economy to anybody who tries to fix it.

52:04

Yeah. You

52:06

know what I would say is the

52:09

president should stop trying to take

52:11

credit for a artificial

52:14

fantasy land economy

52:16

that can't be sustained and

52:19

instead come into

52:20

office telling the people that

52:23

this is a fantasy. It's not sustainable.

52:26

We have these massive bubbles. They're unfair.

52:29

The benefit is going to a very small

52:31

fraction of people.

52:32

So we're going to have to go through a

52:34

cleansing process. But

52:36

I think frankly, a big impact

52:39

is going to be to the 1% when the bubble

52:42

is finally and fully

52:45

punctured by a change at

52:47

the Fed. So I think anybody that

52:49

really wants to get a

52:51

grasp on this needs to go

52:54

into office saying

52:56

we're going to have a house cleaning at the

52:58

Fed

52:59

the stock market is likely to go

53:01

down. Get your money into

53:03

something safe, not in these go-go stocks,

53:06

not in the tech stocks, not in

53:08

the NASDAQ 100. Get

53:10

prepared because we have got

53:13

to get back to a reality

53:16

into something that's sustainable and fair

53:18

and having our capital go

53:21

into

53:21

productive investment, not

53:23

financial engineering. That's where it's been

53:25

going into financial engineering.

53:28

We've had 25 trillion,

53:30

a

53:30

staggering number of financial

53:33

engineering

53:33

stock buybacks, big

53:35

M&A deals that have accomplished nothing

53:38

over the last two decades instead

53:41

of that money going into real

53:43

investment has been flat for two

53:45

decades. Real investment

53:48

after you take the needs

53:50

for a depreciation out of the equation.

53:53

And that just tells you this

53:55

isn't working.

53:56

And I think someone has to tell

53:58

the public it's not working.

53:59

We can change. We used

54:02

to know how to do it. We had prosperity

54:04

in the 50s and the 60s and into the 70s And

54:08

we weren't printing money like crazy

54:10

then we weren't running three

54:13

four or five percent of GDP Deficits

54:16

we weren't trying to even be the hegemon

54:18

of the world

54:19

and that was in you know in the time of

54:21

the Cold War So we would

54:23

go back to basics. I think that's what the

54:25

theme needs to be. We've done it before

54:28

we can do it again There

54:30

might be some bumps

54:30

and grinds