Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect the hypocrisy of banning Russian oil while importing from Saudi Arabia, arguing this punishes American consumers and undermines the dollar. They critique the Libertarian Party's bylaws, challenge narratives on Ukraine's 2014 origins, and expose how sanctions crash the ruble for ordinary Russians while corporations profit. Ultimately, the episode suggests U.S. foreign policy prioritizes corporate interests and geopolitical leverage over humanitarian concerns or economic stability. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Roll Back The State00:15:04
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Dear host, Dave Smith.
All right, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith, most consistent motherfucker you know, Libertarian Tupac.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caucs.
COVID, Jesus.
What's up, my brother?
How you feeling?
I'm doing great.
Very good.
How are you been on some gigs over the last couple of days?
No, but I hit the road, took a little road trip to celebrate my freedom, the end of COVID, blew some truckers to show my support.
So I've been having a nice weekend.
Oh, so you just did, you were just on the road not working.
That's right.
Just hitting the road.
Just practicing my driving skills.
Just, you know what?
World War III is coming up.
I'm going to get out there before it all happens.
Consume gas while you can.
Yeah, there you go.
Okay.
I like it.
Yeah, really.
All right.
Consume gas while you can before it's fucking 32 bucks a gallon.
Okay.
So, well, I was at, I should say, I was going to talk about this a little bit more, but then a whole bunch of stuff came up today.
But this last weekend, I was in Pennsylvania for the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania's state convention.
Oh, man.
Such a great time.
Such a great time.
And there's me and Tom Woods both gave speeches at this theater together and then did a question and answer segment together.
It was incredible.
The energy was unbelievable.
I don't know if you guys remember.
I'm sure some of you will, but last year at Pennsylvania, we held this big Mises caucus counter event because they wouldn't have me at the convention.
And we had huge numbers.
And the next day, they was the convention and they invoked this bylaw that they have that they've never used before, but they invoked it or I should say invoked it, but they always waive it.
And every they like, this is on the books, but they always waive it.
And for the first time ever, they didn't waive it.
And it's a rule that says you have to have been a member of the party for more than six months in order to vote.
And a lot of we're the ones who keep recruiting.
National elections, you don't even need to be alive.
Yeah, that's what's weird.
You just have to get an envelope in.
No questions asked.
You don't have to have ever been alive is the crazy thing for presidential elections.
But anyway, so we are the ones who keep recruiting people and recruiting people.
We have all the new people coming in.
So it was designed to hurt us to keep the more recent people out.
And so we had the numbers there, but they used this bylaw to kind of keep us out and they barely won.
And so it was like a lot of people were upset, but I was kind of encouraged by it.
I was like, well, we're not going anywhere.
So this is a guarantee that next year we're going to, we're going to win this.
And not only did we win it the next year, but it was like, I mean, 80%, something like that.
It was all Mises caucus.
It was just like we dominated the whole thing.
Mises caucus took a clean sweep.
All of the positions, every single one, every single delegate, every single delegate, everything.
And so it was just really cool to kind of see that happen.
And a lot of great people out there in the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania, in the Mises Caucus and outside.
So anyway, just had a great time.
And I'll be out in Colorado this weekend and looking forward to a similar type of result.
So it's been a real fun thing.
If you guys aren't members of the Libertarian Party, we're doing something really cool there, like recreating like the kind of Ron Paul movement.
This is now the home for sane people who actually believe in liberty and oppose things like nuclear war.
Anyway, speaking of that, today Joe Biden gave a speech, made a pretty big and insane announcement.
And I thought we kind of have to respond to this.
So before we play the video, Rob, you haven't seen the speech yet, correct?
I have not.
I was blowing truckers.
Well, that's okay.
You're doing your part as a patriot.
It's just you either watch this speech or you go blow some truckers.
It's either way.
Either way, you're helping your country.
So I'll just give you a little bit of like, okay, I'll sum it up for you and then we'll watch it.
And you tell me how accurate I am.
Joe Biden was strong.
He was in command.
He seemed like a young, viral man who is definitely making his own decisions and not following what a bunch of people behind the scenes who are propping him up are telling him to do.
Fair?
Okay.
You tell me whether or not this seems accurate.
Here's literally a guy like holding him up.
When you introduce Joe Biden, you almost feel like, you know, you'd go, here's the president of the United States.
But with Joe Biden, you go, here's the president of the United States?
The president.
Okay, here he is.
Good morning, folks.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
All right, already stop it.
Stop it.
Already.
Joe Biden.
He just starts talking before he's even up to the microphone.
I'm sorry.
This is a very serious thing.
It's going to have huge ramifications on the country.
But it's so funny to me that Joe Biden just comes in and like starts talking here.
Hello, folks.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
He's like, dude, get to the microphone and then start talking to people.
You're the president.
Listen, in his defense, he's only had 50 years of practice.
It looks like someone's basement footage.
Like that does not look like a White House.
It looks like someone's making a home broadcast to spoof what the White House would look like.
This whole thing just feels like we're living in a weird timeline.
I don't know what's going on.
But anyway, back to the president.
The president?
I'm announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia's economy.
We're banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy.
That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin's war machine.
This is a move that has strong bipartisan support with Congress and I believe in the country.
Americans have rallied support, have rallied to support the Ukrainian people and made it clear we will not be part of subsidizing Putin's war.
We made this decision in close consultation with our allies and our partners around the world, particularly in Europe, because a united response to Putin's aggression has been my overriding focus to keep all NATO and all of the EU and our allies totally united.
We're moving forward with this ban, understanding that many of our European allies and partners may not be in a position to join us.
The United States produces far more oil domestically than all the European countries combined.
In fact, we're a net exporter of energy.
So we can take this step when others cannot.
But we're working closely with Europe and our partners to develop energy to reduce.
Already what he said is that we have to stop Putin's war machine, The war machine of Vladimir Putin must be stopped by the United States of America's federal government.
Because, as you know, Vladimir Putin has just been invading countries and launching wars all around the world, left and right.
Like after Crimea had a referendum to be a part of Russia, he went in there in what was essentially a bloodless invasion.
I don't know.
You got to look this up.
I think maybe four people died when Putin took Crimea.
Like it was, you know, hey, that's still four people.
That's horrible.
That's slightly less than, say, like the hundreds of thousands that have died in American Middle Eastern wars.
And now you have this invasion of Ukraine, which is awful, but still far less bloody than any of our, but just imagine being the president, you know, like Obama's vice president and the current sitting president involved in all of these wars halfway around the world and calling, you know, referring to Russia's war machine for moving their borders, you know, basically to two neighboring countries.
It's just, it's pretty ridiculous.
Like the hypocrisy is pretty outrageous.
So anyway, okay.
Now he says there that, well, we are a big producer of oil, so we can afford to do this and not all of our allies can afford to do this.
What's that translation for, Rob?
Not everybody's with us on this.
Oh, translation, Germany's not going to stop buying oil from Russia.
You know, it's just kind of interesting to already go, okay, so basically, as he says, we're cutting off, you know, the lifeblood of Vladimir Putin's war machine.
Well, what does he actually mean by that?
We're going to punish the American people, even though the European countries whose defense we subsidize are not going to be on board with us doing this.
They're not going to do it as well, but we will sacrifice.
We will make the Russian people sacrifice.
And this is all to kind of roll back this whatever, to roll back the war, that somehow this is going to be enough to save some people's lives.
It's really something.
I said on Twitter before, I'm sorry, go ahead in a sec, but I said on Twitter before, I think this is a perfect example of government.
Here you have like this evil government of the United States of America, this evil government of Russia.
And they go, well, you know what a good solution is?
Let's make the people of both countries suffer who have nothing to do with what their governments are doing.
So just to expand on it a little bit, all of the sanctions without doing the oil ban, it's kind of a joke.
It didn't make sense because you're still buying their oil.
So like this, like being in this weird space where it's like, hey, we're not, we're not going to collaborate with them because we're evil, but we're still going to purchase this thing that we need.
So there is a little bit of a weird game here of like, like, what are the rules of not going to war?
Or what's the rules of, you know, purchasing and not purchasing goods for people?
Now, where this sounds like a tremendous mistake to me is that if there's, I mean, it's simple supply and demand.
If there's demand for the product and we're just going, hey, we're not going to purchase it, who's going to step in?
So does that mean that Chinese companies are all of a sudden going to have better, like they're going to have access to cheaper oil?
Are we just cutting ourselves out of a oil supply that we needed?
Or are other European people?
Or are you going to end up with the situation?
Because Shell, they did this funny thing where like they purchased, they're like, we need it.
So they purchased like 100 million or it was like some massive amount.
And people were like, wait, you can't do that.
So I promise you, some American company in some capacity is going to figure out how to purchase these things on the cheap.
Like, is this just a move by the governments that JP Morgan Chase has some sort of an inside scoop to buy this things at cheaper?
Somebody's going to benefit from this.
Somebody's buying assets for cheaper because the government's stepping in here.
Somebody's going to benefit.
Well, it's funny because I think it's they almost count on, or maybe they don't themselves.
Uh, but they count on people not having like, a basic understanding of economics.
I'm not saying you need a a, a master's degree.
I'm just saying like if you basically understand this stuff, you'd you'd see the holes in all of this.
So it's almost like they count on you going like, yep, Russia loves to sell their oil and now they won't be able to anymore.
So we got you, you know.
But if you just have a very basic understanding of economics, you'd go well, it's not just that Russia loves to sell their oil, it's that we like to buy it.
Right, there's a voluntary exchange happening here where both parties think they benefit from this exchange.
No one's forcing them to do it.
They wouldn't do it unless they both thought they'd be better off with it.
So you know, that's okay.
So if you, by the force of government, don't allow that to happen, then what does that mean?
That means you're punishing both sides, and both sides of this are not Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden.
The sides of these are, you know, the American consumers who use uh oil and the Russian workers who work to produce and export oil.
So anyway, you know okay right and, as you pointed out, okay well, if there's this demand for this.
This demand does not only exist in America, and if you're saying that our, our partners are not on board with this, then oof geez, that seems like maybe you're just punishing America more than anybody else, and even though I think uh, the American empire has been, our imperialism, has been dollar demand and basically, you know, making sure that people keep using our dollars so we can inflate as much as possible and print as much as possible, I don't agree with what we've done.
I think that's a lot of the wars that we fought.
It's not good, but just in terms of U.s strategic interests, i'm not sure that basically forcing people away from dollars and letting people know that if they do anything that we don't agree with, we're going to punish them in these ways if, like China and Russia or some of these other people, start interacting outside of the dollar, this might be catastrophic for us.
So we might just to give both sides, we might not be playing.
We might be playing like the worst game here, like this might be the worst blunder ever made by a president, where they actually really advance countries moving away from the dollar or and I don't see this as being it they actually have intelligence that you know, Putin' losing the war and is negotiating, and that this is like the last marker to kind of force something.
I don't think that's the way that this is playing out.
I highly doubt that that's what's going on here.
But just to be clear, I think you're really on something there.
America's Worst Blunder00:02:05
That this is, it does feel like, oh, we're kind of living through something major and historic here.
This isn't just like, oh, Russia moved in on a country on its border, that part of the country kind of maybe should belong to Russia.
The other part definitely shouldn't.
It's a little fucked up that they overstepped.
You see this move.
And look, you got to think like what you're talking about, how America has what they call hegemony, what me and you might call an empire that is largely based around or largely solidified by the dollar being the world reserve currency.
And that is, of course, largely enforced by our military presence all throughout the world.
But you look at it and you go, okay, well, look, just in the 21st century alone, America has, you know, fought like seven wars and lost all of them, has lost tremendous influence around the world, has spent itself into tens of trillions of dollars of debt, is destroying the currency, which is the world reserve currency.
And then, oh, by the way, over the last two years, has just been on this insane, like totalitarian, but like not even just totalitarian, but totalitarian like idiocy, where you know what I mean?
Like we're having like all of these crazy policies that even the establishment has to admit don't work, follow the science, which is based on no science and all of this.
And it's like, have we humiliated ourselves to the world to the point that now when we assert our will, there's a lot of people going, no, I don't think so.
You know, there were reports out today that Saudi Arabia has not been returning Joe Biden's calls.
I don't know if this is true or not.
This was reported by one source that has been fairly accurate since I've been following them, but I don't know if this is true.
Avoiding Global Risk00:02:51
But he even said in his speech, he gave the caveat that not all of our allies are going to go along with this.
And there's something really interesting there.
And you go, so if China decides to back Russia on this, and then a lot of other countries, like maybe Germany and Saudi Arabia and some of these other countries, follow suit, it makes you wonder, maybe this is really something profound.
And it's not, obviously, you're flirting with nuclear war, which is very disastrous, you know, extremely.
But also the fact that you're like, oh, you, this might actually be the moment where America tries to like, you know, flex financially on the world.
And the world goes, no, we're not doing this.
And we figure out that we don't actually have as much power as we pretend to.
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And the reason why all these other countries might be saying that is because they realize that like they don't have a financial incentive to follow our lead because no one like we don't need this entire thing's ridiculous.
NATO Expansionism00:14:33
Putin's basically saying, I don't want NATO here, and we want to be able to sell oil directly to Germany.
And we're somehow putting ourselves into this situation to go, no, you can't just sell oil to Germany, even though they want it, natural gas, if you want to be accurate.
And NATO has to be there.
So everyone might be just looking at this and going, Biden, we're not disrupting world economies over your personal profit and over NATO that doesn't, you know what I mean?
There might be just be enough people looking at this and going, like, Biden, you're being ridiculous here.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not American strategic interest and it's not necessarily wrapped up in, you know what I mean?
It's not like Stalin or Mao is about to invade other countries and everyone else is spooked.
Hey, we better side with the Americans.
Everyone's looking at this and they're like, there's nothing, the ramifications here are not that bad in just saying NATO is not going to be there.
Well, imagine if Germany is not worried.
You know what I mean?
Like if they're not worried, like, what does that tell you?
They go, there's not really a threat here.
There's not, there's right, exactly.
Like, there's really not a threat here that they're like, yeah, I mean, look, the odds of like, it would be a huge if Putin were to take all of Ukraine and just claim that he's holding all of it.
What would his next ballsy move be?
Estonia or something?
I mean, again, I'm not saying any of these countries should be a part of Ukraine.
I mean, it should be a part of Russia, but what are we supposed to pretend here?
As like, as like honest people observing this, like, I'm not saying that the people of Ukraine should be forced to be part of Russia.
I don't think they should.
I think if they want to be, maybe they should be.
But outside of the Donbass region, I don't really think the people of Ukraine want to be a part of Russia.
I do think the people in that region overwhelmingly want to be.
So fine, let them be and let the others not be.
But we're supposed to pretend that like what Ukraine is like, well, they're just such a noble moral democracy of wonderful people or something.
You're like, I don't know.
It's a propped up puppet government that was installed after a 2014 coup led by the Obama administration with a serious Nazi problem.
It's pretty amazing, by the way, how that, you know, does not, you know, like, like this was widely reported before just now when this became the hot button issue and you're not allowed to talk about it.
But it is pretty crazy to me how like there's not more of a um Jewish pushback against this whole celebrating Ukraine thing.
You know, like I get that there's all like the accusations of Nazi when you hear them are like they're they're thrown out so constantly that you just kind of feel like oh, this is almost ridiculous.
You know what I mean?
Like everyone who you don't like is called a Nazi.
But I did kind of in a sense think that like, you know, there's enough there's enough of our people, Rob, in powerful positions that if there was actually a real deal, like Nazi-led, you know, like a, you know, coup, say, like in 2014, that you'd at least have some Jewish people who are like, hey, no, I don't want to side with them.
I don't like that because, but, but none of that is happening.
I guess the optics that Zelensky is in charge there kind of makes that to point to the Nazis in power problem, uh, which I really don't, I'm not following the Nazi narrative that well because the conspiracy theorists are even saying that like this whole fucking thing's fabricated and all the crimes you're seeing over there are the Nazis against their own people.
I have no fucking clue.
Post-I think that's that's an exaggeration, I think.
But there's post-Corona, like I, I, I, the dust is going to settle three months from now.
There's going to like, at least with Corona, I kind of figured out, well, they're putting out these medical documents and I can read through them and pick apart what's lying here.
They put out footage and then two days later, you find out that some of the footage is fake.
So it's not that easy to kind of decipher fact from fiction.
To me, though, there's no proof of this.
Like they're trying to paint that Putin is on this like messianic mission from God to restore the greatness of Russia and Ukraine's just the starting point, except that it's a little bit like blowback theory when they go, oh, but go read the documents.
They're telling you pretty clearly the reason why they're engaging in terrorism is because they don't like you in these areas.
It's not like.
And it's not to say, that's exactly right.
That's a great comparison.
And it's not as if to say that it's like, look, people, human beings in real life, not just on pieces of paper, have multi-you know, faceted motivations.
So it's not as if it's impossible to say that it's not all one.
Like it's not to say that Osama bin Laden didn't also have visions of like a worldwide jihadist caliphate or something like that.
Like maybe he did.
And maybe he did want to like, and maybe he did.
Yeah.
That's really what he didn't like.
He didn't like matching buildings.
The one or the other, but not right next to each other.
But you know what I'm saying?
So like he could have had all of that and he could have hated that Britney Spears was a pop star or like whatever else he hated about American values.
But the point is that if you listen to what he was saying and you listen to what his recruiting shtick was and how he got people to support him and what was clearly a huge motivating factor, it was American interventionist foreign policy in the Muslim world, propping up dictatorships, killing innocent people, supporting Israel, all of this stuff.
And there's a reason why he led with that in his declaration of war against the West.
And there's a reason why, you know, since 9-11, there's been a ton of these FBI, what they call FBI sting operations, which more accurately could probably be described as FBI entrapment operations, where they find young Muslim men who are like on these websites, you know, with terrorists and you're talking about terrorist shit, and they convince them to commit a terrorist act.
And then right before they do it, they arrest them.
Like it was fake explosives the whole time.
And then, and then the FBI brags about how they've thwarted a terrorist attack, even though it's not clear that this was ever going to be a terrorist attack, that they created the whole thing.
Anyway, but one of the things that's interesting is that in all of these FBI stings, or just about every single one of these FBI stings/slash entrapment, you know, acts, what they lead with is never like, you know, Muhammad wants you to blow up all of the infidels.
What the FBI, when you actually look through it and read the transcripts of what they said, it's always like, how do you feel about American foreign policy in the Middle East?
How do you feel about us killing all them, killing all of these innocent people?
This is how they recruit the people.
So even our own FBI knows that this is how when push comes to shove, this is how you really recruit people.
And this is just kind of human common sense.
How do you get someone to be willing to strap a bomb to their chest and go blow a bunch of people up and give up their own life?
Like, what, you know, ask yourself and people listening, ask yourself, what would you do that for?
Some abstract theory, your religion?
I mean, maybe.
How about your family is threatened?
How about your people are threatened?
The people in your neighborhood are being killed.
I think that might get you.
Rob, your sandwich shop.
Someone's coming after your sandwich shop.
There you go.
Okay.
So by the way, before we go back to this Joe Biden video, I also want to say that because Brian, I just emailed you this other video.
I forgot to fucking send this before.
But by the way, it's funny because all these people are going back and finding all this video, this idea that we're not allowed to talk about what you just said, what I was just saying, of what's actually motivating this stuff.
I just found this the other day, and it's really great.
There's this guy who blew the whistle in 1997 about what might lead to aggression from Russia.
And you probably don't even know who this guy is.
But if you don't know, this guy was a really big deal in the 90s.
So this is from 1997.
And listen to his prediction about what might lead toward Russia doing something like this.
Let's play the clip.
I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term for admission, having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the country to come in, would be to admit the Baltic states now in terms of NATO-Russian, U.S.-Russian relations.
And if there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction, I don't mean military, in Russia, it would be that.
So the way I look at the calculus here, I think.
So anyway, this guy, his name was Joe Biden.
In 1997, he really thought that bringing in Estonia and Latvia into NATO would really trigger a response from Russia.
So just saying, by the way, all the Baltic states have been brought into Russia.
He was a senator at the time, never moved up the chain of command, but that's where he started and ended his career.
And then, okay, fine.
80 years later, he became president.
I know it's only 30, but it feels like 80.
But you know what I mean?
So it's like the idea that what's so funny about this is when you'll even like, you know, once the war propaganda starts and everybody's all hysterical, if you go, well, you know, I think what really provoked Putin here was moving NATO into like the Baltic countries and then talking about bringing Ukraine into NATO and all of this stuff.
People be like, no, you're making excuses for him and blah, blah, blah.
But it's like, but even the people in charge said this before they did it.
You know, just saying, maybe that, like, if you want to understand, you could even be on the side of Ukraine, wave the Ukrainian flag all you want to, say that you're ready to go for to war for Ukraine, even though you're probably not ready.
You just want other people to go do the fighting for you.
But if you're serious about this, let's be honest and admit that, of course, this has to do with NATO expansionism or NATO expansionist policies.
Of course, it does.
It's right at the center of this.
Okay, let's go back to the Joe Biden speech from earlier today.
Well, long-term, he got old.
Their dependence on Russian energy as well.
Our teams are actively discussing how to make this happen.
And today, we remain united.
We remain united in our purpose to keep pressure mounting on Putin and his war machine.
This is a step that we're taking to inflict further pain on Putin, but there will be cost as well here in the United States.
I said I would level with the American people from the beginning.
And when I first spoke to this, I said defending freedom is going to cost.
It's going to cost us as well in the United States.
Republicans and Democrats understand alike, understand that.
Republicans and Democrats alike have been clear that we must pause for a second.
Isn't it crazy, Rob, when we're dealing with something so serious, how just painfully old and weak Joe Biden looks?
Just cutting back from a younger Joe Biden to that Joe Biden really brought that out in me.
But isn't it something that he goes, look, there's going to be pain for Vladimir Putin, but there's going to be pain for us too.
Well, let's, I mean, what pain is there really going to be for Vladimir Putin?
What pain is there really going to be for Joe Biden?
And Joe Biden's done quite well.
Have you looked at the numbers of what his family's made?
Even his crackhead son was pulling in bank.
I know his brother was making bank from the credit card companies.
He's quite comfortable.
Vladimir Putin's going to be quite comfortable.
Just to be clear, the pain here will be felt by the American people and the Russian people, not by Biden, not by Vladimir Putin.
Anyway.
All right, let's go back to the video.
Last week, I spoke with President Zelensky several times to hear from him about the situation on the ground and to consult and continue to consult with our European allies and about U.S. support for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
Thus far, we've provided more than $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine.
Shipments of defensive weapons are arriving in Ukraine every day from the United States.
And we, the United States, are the ones coordinating the delivery of our allies and partners of similar weapons from Germany to Finland to the Netherlands.
All right, let's pause it there.
I mean, Jesus, what is that other than announcing that we're already at war with Russia?
Isn't that kind of crazy?
They go, listen, we've given him a billion dollars.
We're shipping in weapons and we're coordinating all of the other weapons that are being shipped in.
Blinkett, the Secretary of State, said recently that he's completely on board with supporting Poland sending in fighter jets and that they would help them with that.
Like it really does seem like a whole lot of people within the federal government political apparatus are really excited about this being like the next war.
Now, they just think it'll be a proxy war and we'll just fight and we'll fund one side and arm one side and Russia will be on the other side.
And I guess we can hope that there's some kind of wink-wink, nod, nod agreement that no one's going to launch a nuclear weapon.
Try Headspace Today00:02:04
Seems like a pretty dangerous game to play, but it's just like, what are you like just bragging about?
Like, you're sending weapons into a hot war between Russia and Ukraine.
Why exactly?
Can you at least make an argument for why that's in our interest, the people of the United States of America?
You got to tighten your belt and pay higher gas prices, Lord knows what else higher prices of so that we can fight this war with Russia in Ukraine.
It's really just, it's madness.
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Escalation Fears00:05:35
There's also just something so odd.
I don't think it's going to escalate to nuclear war.
Maybe I'm just too much of an optimist.
I just don't think anyone wins there.
So I don't think it's going there, but I agree.
There's just something so funny that so Putin's sitting there and he's like, listen, if you guys come in here with your planes, then we're at war.
But if you hand the planes to them and then they hand the plans to them, then it's okay.
Hey, if you guys send weapons here or have NATO, we're in a war.
But if you give the weapons to someone else, it's like, this is like U.S. legal fiction, like when the Fed was able to give money to BlackRock through a special purpose vehicle.
Hey, we're not just giving them the money, but like that might work for the bullshit of our technical laws.
Right, right.
I don't know that if you're Putin, you don't just go like, this is the exact same thing.
It's just a very weird dance of fighting without fighting.
So it's okay if the, it would be a red line to Putin if we put, if we enforced a military ceasefire, uh, a no-fly zone, because that meant that NATO planes were in the area and then effectively NATO is in the area.
And so we're at war.
But if we're giving planes to Poland that then gives the planes, then we're not at war.
Like it's just a weird dance.
Yes, that's right.
And you're kind of like in essence already at war.
It's just what is the line that the other person isn't willing to tolerate anymore.
So, you know, if you like, I don't know, dude, if like, if someone's coming to kill you and your family, and I'm just outside the building handing them guns as they rush in, I don't think you'd look at me and go, well, Dave's not at war with me.
It's just the guys rushing in with the guns that Dave's handing to them to come kill.
You know what I mean?
Like you'd be like, oh, you're, I see you all in the same camp here.
And Just how reckless and dangerous of a game this is to play with all of humanity on the line is pretty incredible.
Um, Biden might lose out here because even with the corona stuff, he they sent checks, they pretended like there was a threat to you, and then they also paid for you know the vaccines, you didn't have to pay for that.
On this one, if all of a sudden you can't afford to get to work, like people just might not tolerate it.
It might be too much of a sacrifice.
Firstly, energy cost going up stalls the entire economy.
So it's not just like that you have a higher bill, it's that you know investments suddenly don't make sense, prices on everything goes up.
Like cheap energy is the backbone of economic growth.
That's right.
And Putin's already responded with his own fucking, you know, bans on exporting products to the United States.
And so you wonder, hmm, how far can they actually push this?
And what will the response be?
Also, what's kind of interesting is that, and maybe we won't have time probably today to get into this, but that they've been as everyone's focus is on this.
And of course, it has to be, but as that's happening, they're rolling back a lot of the COVID craziness.
And so in a way, I think me and you were really like, you know, we were thinking, oh, they're going to like transition from the COVID craziness to like some climate change craziness or something like that.
But now it seems like, oh, they're transitioning from that to this, which is quite a bit worse.
Well, the climate change thing, I mean, I'm not sure.
That's happening as well, to be clear.
I'm not speaking in absolutes on this.
That one they're actually losing the battle on a little bit because it's the largest banking apparatus.
And so there's an AG at the moment.
Like certain states start actually defunding their pensions from some of these companies.
And there's AGs that are bringing suits against like BlackRock saying that it's a like it violates antitrust.
There was actually some pushback on it.
And I think even though I was the one saying, hey, this is switching global warming, they're going to talk about the health of it.
I think people, since it's not as immediate or scary as Corona and the big banks were clearly profiting.
It just doesn't work.
Yeah.
It might just not.
Now we're talking in fiction.
Like we're theorizing what they can and can't sell.
And I don't think they're done with global warming.
I don't think they're not going to transition.
No, no, no, no.
I agree, but it's just, but this is actually a lot worse.
It's like, ah, shit.
I thought they would transition to climate change and they're transitioning to nuclear war.
Like, fuck, that's actually a lot worse.
But it is interesting that so, so many of the mandates are being lifted very quietly, very quietly while all this is going on.
Like, where's Fauci been?
You know, all of a sudden he's not on TV all the time.
All of a sudden, we're not, we're just like, you know, that whole vaccine passport in New York thing.
Now, we're not going to do that anymore.
That's okay.
Oh, the kids being masked.
Yeah, we're not going to do that anymore.
Or they are still for five and under in New York, which is insane.
I had a weird experience two weeks ago.
I went to get tested.
I had tickets for a concert.
I got the tickets like three months ago.
I was like, fuck it.
If they're taking, if you can get a test, I was like, I'll do that.
I've been getting tested everyone.
I was like, no big deal.
I'll go get the test.
When I went to get tested, it was like a different, I've been to this place four times to get tested.
They treated me like an asshole for getting tested.
And this time I had to get on with the doctor.
They didn't want to process the insurance.
And I'm like, oh, this is different.
Like they, they want dumb with Corona.
Like a month ago, like they would run tests all day, no problem.
I don't know what the marching orders are.
Now I'm telling you, I showed up to test.
I had to lie on a call with the doctor about the symptoms.
I was like, they were treating me like, hey, why are you in here with symptoms?
Why do you need to get tested?
Pretending To Care00:07:53
What do you think?
Like, I'm telling you, like a total reversal from like processing it is important for you to get tested to them busting your balls on like, why are you getting tested right now?
What do you like?
That is, that is interesting.
Huh, yeah.
No, there's a move happening there for sure.
And it's it, I think it's very convenient that while everybody's looking over there at Ukraine, okay, this is our opportunity to bail on a lot of this stuff.
All right, let's keep playing.
We're working that out.
We're also providing humanitarian support for the Ukrainian people, both those still in Ukraine and those who have fled safely to a neighboring country.
We're working with humanitarian organizations to surge tens of thousands of tons of food, water, and medical supplies into Ukraine.
And with more on the way, over the weekend, I sent Secretary Blinken to visit our border between the border between Poland and Ukraine and to Moldova to see what the situation was firsthand and report back.
General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of our Defense Department, is also in Europe, meeting with his counterparts and allies on NATO's eastern flank to reassure them, those countries bordering Russia, NATO countries, that we will keep our NATO commitment, a sacred commitment of Article 5.
The Vice President Harris is going to be traveling to meet with our allies in Poland and Romania later this week as well.
I've made it clear that the United States will share in the responsibility of caring for the refugees so the costs do not fall entirely on the European countries bordering Ukraine.
And yesterday I spoke with my counterparts in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom about Russia's escalating violence against Ukraine and the steps that we're going to take together with our allies and partners around the world to respond to this aggression.
We are enforcing the most significant package of economic sanctions in history, and it's causing significant damage to Russia's economy.
It has caused Russian economy to fight frankly crater.
The Russian ruble is now down to 50% by 50% since Putin's announced his war.
One ruble is now worth less than one American penny.
One ruble is less than one American penny.
And we're preventing Russia's central bank from propping up the ruble.
All right.
Let's pause it there.
What a thing to brag about.
Just to be clear here, and I know I've kind of said this already in the episode, but really think this through that, you know, he's bragging about destroying the lives of innocent Russian people.
And I know we have that.
He's risking power by 50%.
A guy who could go with milk, now he can't afford the milk.
Yeah, literally, that's what you're talking about.
And you're talking about like as if because Putin, you know, took this action on Ukraine, that he invaded Ukraine.
Now, the same Russian person, just some random person there, who wasn't doing anything differently this month than he was last month.
Now we're going to ruin his life.
Somehow that's justified.
This is the mentality.
This is like almost the essence of why I'm a libertarian, like why I hate governments.
Like that you go, wait, so that person, I'm supposed to cheer now.
I'm supposed to pretend that that person who has nothing to do with any of this is my enemy.
You know, just think about like, think about like someone you know.
Think about someone maybe like vulnerable who you know, whoever it is, like the old lady in your apartment building or the old lady who lives like a few houses down from you, you know, something like that.
I don't know.
Someone vulnerable who you could think of who's like in your town.
And think about like Joe Biden does something.
And then you go, okay, well, the answer for what Biden did is to crush that old lady.
And I'm supposed to sit here and just go, good.
Yeah.
That's a fair response.
Like this, there are people in Russia.
Look, Russia's entire GDP was 1.5 trillion before any of this.
At this point, who knows where it is?
I don't know.
According to Biden, it's cratered and their currency has lost 50% of its value.
The ruble is worth what, you know, what did he say?
One penny of what the dollar is worth.
Okay.
So who knows what it's at now?
Their entire GDP is probably less than our military budget.
Just think about that, right?
That's crazy.
But we're supposed to just what root for the suffering of the Russian people because we think their government did something bad.
Sorry, forgive me, but I don't.
I think that's horrible, horrific.
I don't root any more than I root for the suffering of the Ukrainian people or, you know, the American people or anything.
But don't worry, we won't buy oil from them anymore.
We'll only buy oil from the good guys in Saudi Arabia, who, by the way, are launching a war of genocide against the people in Yemen.
There is no objective measure by which you could even pretend that what Russia is doing to Ukraine is worse than what Saudi Arabia is doing to Yemen.
And yet we have no interest in boycotting Saudi oil, right?
Oh, we might also start buying Venezuelan oil.
Oh, yeah, there you go.
Okay.
But I'm just saying, forget even that.
There's no interest in boycotting Saudi oil.
So don't tell me for a second that this is about the humanitarian impulse.
There's nothing to do with that.
That's not what this is.
Don't tell me that the people who support the genocide in Yemen who are waving Ukrainian flags are somehow the humanitarians.
Oh, and by the way, if you're interested in what's going on in Ukraine, there is a great article that was just posted today.
Let me find it over at antiwar.com.
It was posted by Dave DeCamp.
And I highly recommend people go read it.
I just retweeted the article.
But Yemen has been under their longest period of Saudi heavy bombing since 2018.
There's been 200 air raids in Yemen in February and 716 individual airstrikes.
So there's been, I mean, the violence has been escalating in Yemen, where there's already been, I mean, bare minimum, hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died since this war and the blockade and all of that.
My guess is that it'll be well over a million by the time it's all over.
You know, the numbers, just to be quite frank, the numbers in Ukraine are just nowhere near anything like that.
And that's not to say one is okay because the other one is really bad.
But if we're boycotting somebody's oil or we're not going to do business with somebody, it's just interesting how you see even as we feel like people are waking up and the corporate press's ratings have been so down for so long and all this stuff.
Price Equilibrium00:16:36
It's like, wow, they can really still control the narrative, can't they?
Not like they used to be able to, but still you go, wow, they just decided this is the thing you got to care about.
And now so many people are pretending like they care about this.
At least the thing that is encouraging is that it doesn't last for nearly as long.
People start figuring this shit out quicker and quicker these days.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's play a little bit more of Biden.
They're not going to be able to do that now.
We cut Russia's largest banks from the international financial system and has crippled their ability to do business with the rest of the world.
In addition, we're choking off Russia's access to technology like semiconductors and sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come.
Major companies are pulling out of Russia entirely without even being asked, not by us.
Over the weekend, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, they all suspended their services in Russia, all of them.
Joining a growing list of American and global companies from Ford to Nike to Apple, they've suspended their operations in Russia.
The U.S. Stock Exchange has halted trading of many Russian securities.
And the private sector is united against Russia's vicious war of choice.
The U.S. Department of Justice has assembled a dedicated task force to go after the crimes of Russian oligarchs.
And we're joining with our European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets, and all their ill-begotten gains to make sure that they share in the pain of Putin's war.
These, by the way, are giant yachts.
You put some of them in your press.
I mean, some of them are, I think I read one was over 400 feet long.
I mean, this is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The decision today is not without cost here at home.
Putin's war is already hurting American families at the gas pump.
Since Putin began his military buildup on Ukrainian borders, just since then, the price of the gas of the pump in America went up 75 cents.
And with this action, it's going to go up further.
I'm going to do everything I can to minimize Putin's price hike here at home.
In coordination with our partners, we've already announced that we're releasing 60 million barrels.
All right, let's just pause it there.
Let's pause it.
That's wonderful.
You got to give him credit on that one.
Prices weren't going up, and it's got nothing to do with inflation in any capacity or supply lines.
It's just Putin's price hike.
But he has got to make their donations to our war effort.
And if it means you got to spend $10 on a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk, it's your contributions to the people who can have, it's Putin.
Putin did this to you.
It's really, it's so precious because it's not only that, You know, it kind of reminds me of like the thing where the people who supported Trudeau in Canada, where they, you know, the people who like kind of supported the COVID regime in general, where they would be like furious at the truckers and they'd go, they're blocking the borders or they're blocking the roads.
They're not letting people get to work.
You're like, oh, that's your issue?
That they're not letting people get to work.
So you're really, really concerned with people being able to work, right?
Oh, okay.
Because that's kind of been the whole thing over the last two years that we were all really concerned with that you said you didn't care about at all, right?
Oh, okay.
That's all of a sudden you're really concerned with everybody being able to go and do their job and no one being stopped from doing that.
Okay.
All right, fine.
But it's kind of the same thing as like, oh, all of a sudden, Biden, you're really concerned with rising prices, right?
All of a sudden, this is like a really big issue.
And of course, we'll blame it all on Putin, but he even admitted there that he said this act is going to increase prices.
Like this is, he basically said this is going to hurt Americans, but then he's like, and this is Putin's act, you know?
So it's all Putin's fault that we're banning Russian oil from being sold into the United States of America.
Like, okay, but it really is something to just see these people who will like never suffer the costs of this say, no, you know, it's like, it's like, Rob, I'm going to, you know, you're going to get your ear cut off, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.
You know, it's like, yeah, okay, that's nice that you're willing to pay that price.
Is anyone in your family going to suffer, Biden?
And then, and you see how he tried to even sneak in there that he's like, don't worry, there'll be like some oligarchs who will have a yacht seized or something like that.
Oh, okay.
Oh, great.
I mean, great.
So that oligarch who's worth, you know, $500 million will have what, one less yacht?
Okay.
Wow, he's really suffering.
But the people who is going to destroy, who you know who it's going to destroy, are not oligarchs.
They're regular people.
But that's a price we're willing to pay.
To what?
Deter Vladimir Putin from fighting a war in Ukraine, although he's already fighting the war in Ukraine.
So I guess that's happening either way.
But I guess we're just kind of willing to like ruin that average Joe Sixpack's life to maybe make it seem like we're deterring him from fighting this war, which he's going to fight either way.
And clearly, this won't be enough to actually stop him from fighting the war.
Sure, we're willing to do that.
So I just thought it was a crazy admission right there that he's like, no, look, this is going to hurt.
Hey, I wonder, you know, with Joe Biden already having such low approval numbers, will Americans really take him saying, look, I know your life's going to suffer.
I know I'm going to hurt you with this, but understand Ukraine can't be a part of Russia.
Just like, how does that actually?
I know there's all the propaganda coming down right now, but how does that actually play with the average American?
Like, you know, Ukraine, what did you ever know about it?
Well, I knew that it used to be a part of Russia and it's not anymore.
Right, right, exactly.
It's going to be a part of Russia again.
Are you willing to make a huge sacrifice to make sure that doesn't happen?
Wouldn't the average American's response be like, no, no, I'm not.
I don't know.
Maybe not, but that seems so far-fetched to me.
I guess we'll see.
I got to do some homework on these like global financial systems because I remember a couple years ago, there was a story with LIBOR.
Like Libra was like the benchmark, I believe, interest rate for everything for a while until there was some sort of a scandal where people were basically manipulating it and making money.
So they switched it to there's some new thing, which is like the benchmark interest rate.
Now you got like the Swift system, which I don't know how the world revolves around this SWIFT system, that that's what's necessary in order to engage in financial transactions.
That even if you're a country, you're stuck in sort of some sort of legacy system in order to transact.
Like it just seems like in the world of crypto and in the world of like decentralized finance or my ability to just Venmo somebody cash, how are these, how are the, they're like these rigid legacy systems that I like, I would think if you're the fucking Fed and Gold and Sachs, you're like, why are you fucking with Swift?
Like this is our, this is our bread and butter money right here.
Why are you going to let some competitor just pick this up?
Like we've got a good legacy system running here.
There's a, I really don't know if they're going to win on this one.
Yeah, it's, it, it's very interesting to see.
It does feel like we're kind of in uncharted waters here and we're really pushing it.
But I don't know.
It makes the conspiracy part of your brain just kind of goes nuts with all this.
Like, what's really going on here?
What's really the plan here?
Is it that?
Is it that the entire monetary financial system is just completely falling apart?
And so we need kind of a reset.
We need a great reset in that department.
And this last great reset didn't work.
So maybe that's like kind of the next plan.
I don't know.
But I guess we'll try our best to follow this.
All right, let's play a little bit more of Biden and then we're going to wrap this up and call it an episode.
Our joint oil reserves.
Half of that 30 billion million, excuse me, is coming from the United States.
And we're taking steps to ensure the reliable supply of global energy.
We're also going to keep working with every tool at our disposal to protect American families and businesses.
Let me say this.
To the oil and gas companies and to the finance firms that pack them, we understand Putin's war against the people of Ukraine is causing prices to rise.
We get that.
That's self-evident.
But, but, but, but, it's no excuse to exercise excessive price increases or padding profits or any kind of effort to exploit this situation or America or consumers, exploit them.
This is the core of Biden's economic policy is that we're going to have price controls to try and ensure that prices don't go up, which will be, it's going to be rationing.
That's what he's been talking about in every single one of these speeches is where we're going to do what we can to make sure that your prices don't increase price controls.
Good luck.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Well, you can see he's already setting up who the fall man's going to be.
Like he kind of admitted that his policy is going to cause all this harm.
But then he goes, but you know, if there's excessive harm, it's all because of these greedy corporations.
So just so you know, okay, we're keeping an eye on you.
You better not raise prices.
All right.
Right.
Exactly.
Okay.
So we're going to have price controls.
So you're going to cut down the supply of a product, in this case, oil.
But even though I cut down the supply and the demand is still the same, there better not be an increase in prices.
Oh, okay.
Well, now you've got a problem because the thing about economic laws is that even if you try to will them away, they still exist.
So, and then Biden thinks that because there's news of the fact that prices are going to go up, they're all going to collude with each other to not compete and raise above a like.
That's not the way it works.
If you raise the prices too much, then there's going to be less demand for the product.
There's some sort of a, I think they call it an equilibrium of the price you can charge and that people will still pay, and that you have to increase your costs because like it almost sucks.
Well, like as if you lose as if before you put this embargo on Russia, there was no desire amongst these companies to just make more profits.
This is now they go, ah, yeah, now's our opportunity to make more now that people are hurting and have less money.
It's my opportunity to take more profits.
It's funny for us to charge more.
This really is like the left-wing view of economics.
And it's like you see Elizabeth Warren and like some of these people parrot these like talking points where it's almost like they go like, you know, you know, all of a sudden corporations figured out, you know, here's a great tool we have.
Raise prices.
Before that, they were never like, oh my God, we could charge more money and just make and make more.
They never figured that out.
I don't know why it is all of a sudden they figured that out.
It's like, yes, as you mentioned, like there is an equilibrium and there is like this, like, there are all these natural forces already.
Look, corporations want to charge as much for their product as possible.
That's always true.
That's always that desire always exists at the maximum amount it can exist.
Everybody wants to make the most they can make.
Me and you want to make the most we can make off of this podcast.
Like right now, we want that.
You know what I mean?
Everyone who does anything wants to make the most amount of money that they can make.
Always.
It's not like they just figured that out.
So the idea that Biden would go, well, I'm, you know, I'm invoking this new policy and I'm going to not allow oil, one of the biggest, you know, exporters of oil in the world.
I'm not going to allow them to sell us oil anymore.
But if I see you guys raising prices, that's because you're greedy.
It's just, look, this is this is the latest step.
This is what we're dealing with.
Don't believe any of the bullshit here.
I guess we won't play anymore that we kind of, you kind of got the point.
Biden's old and weak and making the most retarded decision ever.
But it's like, yeah, we're not going to, you know, we're doing this thing that is going to clearly, even as he admits, is going to cause suffering to the American people.
It's clearly going to cause massive suffering to the Russian people.
Will it stop the war in Ukraine?
Seems to be no indication of that.
But we're, don't worry, we're willing to sacrifice, you know, the American people and the Russian people to, I don't know, send a message.
Maybe it'll slow down the war.
The other thing about it is maybe it'll speed it up.
You know, who's to say that the idea of, hey, we're going to destroy Russia's economy will make them go, then I guess we better not fight this war.
Maybe it'll go, well, then I guess we're at war totally and we have to fight it harder.
It's a very risky game to play.
And it's not clear at all, you know, that you're giving even like a plausible out to Vladimir Putin here, where he can't go, well, now I have to fight with everything I have.
So buy Russian bonds, support cheaper gas prices globally.
There you go.
All right.
Well, anyway, look, I wish I could bring you better news, but this is not good so far.
But we will keep it.
I got good news.
Yeah, okay.
What do you got?
People can check out the Run Your Mouth daily briefing on a daily basis for more information.
And I'm in Philly doing a gig this Saturday.
And then next weekend, Steamboat, come ski.
Okay.
Well, that's great.
That is good news.
And I'm going to be in Colorado for the LP Colorado convention this weekend.
So, you know, there is some good news in the world.
People can come have a good time.
And we'll do our best to fucking keep calling out these blood-soaked monsters as best we can.