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Nov. 1, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
32:15
Wall Street Eyes 'Explosion Of Profits' From Gaza Destruction

A new article in The Guardian details the enthusiasm among the masters of Wall Street for the wars in Gaza (and Ukraine), issuing "buy" orders all around for US weapons manufacturer stocks. Meanwhile, Gaza's largest refugee camp was blown to pieces yesterday. The Biden Administration is now considering sending US troops as "peacekeepers" once the smoke clears. Good idea?

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Time Text
Free Market Contradictions 00:11:36
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you.
Happy Wednesday, Dr. Paul.
It's Wednesday already.
It was a little chilly when we got up.
It's 39 degrees when I got to.
Oh, I can't see.
I'm sure I got it later than you, too.
I didn't give up on my swimming.
Ice fishing.
There you go.
No beach in today.
You know, what I want to talk about, you know, we're free enterprisers, you know, that free markets.
People are allowed to make profits, and, you know, they have to be creative and appeal to the consumer.
And the consumer decides how much profits are going to be made.
But I think what we're going to be talking about is sort of divorced from that principle of the entrepreneur satisfying the consumers in order to make a good living.
This one has to do with people making a good living off war.
At the same time, they're protecting their main interest in running their business, and they actually sign on to protection of human rights.
Human rights.
You know, make sure that the corporations don't overstep their bounds and they live within reason.
There's a bit of a contradiction.
That's what this article is about.
It comes from Responsible Statecraft.
And it is titled Wall Street Big Profits from Israel, Hamas War.
We've sort of been hitting to that.
Of course, every military adventure, we usually mention that.
And quite frankly, I've always thought Republicans missed the boat.
And the Democrats have forgotten about their principle because they used to criticize war at times and profiteering and pharmaceutical industries gouging the people.
No more.
You can't divide them up that way.
And some Republicans are improving themselves and some Democrats have become much worse on this.
And they play the game.
Even the famous senator from Vermont at times, although he's strongly against all this stuff, if it's in his district or in his state, they have to go along.
One of the reasons why, even like the F-35, it's not built in Texas.
It's built in probably 50 states.
Everybody gets a piece of the action, but none of the blame.
It's a jobs program.
Some of them actually admit it.
And that's part of this theory that when you have a bad depression or something, you get out of it by creating money and get into a war.
And all of a sudden, things get worse.
But anyway, this is an article that talks about that.
And they mention a few companies in there.
And I think this whole thing touches on the morality of it, but also the fallacy that this type of profiteering is actually good for the people.
It's good for a few people, but very bad for the innocent people, the middle class, who usually have to fight the wars and get the ultimate tax of inflation because the price increases for the middle class and the poor.
Much more harmful than for the price increases for bread for the wealthy people who make their money in the military-industrial complex.
Yeah.
Well, let's put up that first clip.
Now, that was simultaneously published in The Guardian.
I just grabbed the Guardian one, but it's originally from Responsible Statecraft.
Their title is Hamas has created additional demand.
Wall Street Eyes Big Profits from War.
And as you point out, Dr. Paul, we've talked about this on the Ukraine war, and now they're rubbing their hands at the prospect of another $106 billion to be spent for financing of Ukraine and the war in Gaza and Israel.
The subtitle, Morgan Stanley and TD Bank hope for aerospace and weapons boon after a 7% value increase from the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Now go to that next one.
This is the opening of the article.
The UN has warned that there was clear evidence that war crimes may have been committed in the explosion of violence in Israel and Gaza.
Meanwhile, Wall Street is hoping for an explosion in profits, and that's what we're seeing.
Go to the next one really quick.
The money could be a boon, and this is the $106 billion.
The money could be a boon to the aerospace and weapons sector, which enjoyed a 7% jump in value in the immediate aftermath of Hamas's 7 October attack.
Everyone was sad, furious, disgusted with the attack and with what happened and with the response a lot of the world is.
But there's one sector out there that's not as disgusted because they see the huge profit in it.
I think the word could is weak.
I think the word is will.
It happens that way.
And that's the way it's been going on.
Matter of fact, it's a tremendous political advantage that they get because that's how they do neutralize everybody and geography and everybody gets a piece of the action.
But then you end up with Democrats participating in it with Republicans.
They bring it together.
Yeah, we'd like to bring people together to do positive things.
But this is not a support for peace and prosperity or the Constitution or a bit of morality about when you start wars and all.
This is just pure political business.
But we're seeing the cracks.
And the cracks are expected because one reason why I think the cracks in these coalitions and this continuation has to do with the limitation of wealth.
And wealth is destroyed with the type of monetary system we have.
And you can't create wealth out of thin air just by the duplication of monetary units.
And we're still doing it because there's an illusion.
And there's a trust in the system that you can get very wealthy.
And I have to admit, these companies witness this and get excited about the amount of money just now going to be appropriated.
But there's a fight going on in the Congress still.
So that's the crack that is occurring.
And we hope to make that crack a little bit broader.
Yeah, well, I mean, if you had $10,000 and you put it into these places on October 7th, you would have made, what, 700 bucks profit or something?
So, you know, if there's money there, my math may not be good, but I think that's what it says.
Let's look for a couple more things from the article.
Digging a little bit deeper.
It's worth reading the article.
I think you can find it linked on NTLware.com.
But this is Christine Leewag, and she is head of aerospace and defense equity research at Morgan Stanley.
We're not singling her out, but that's her job.
And she says, looking at the White House's $106 billion supplemental funding request, you've got equipment for Ukraine, air and missile defense for Israel, and replenishment of stockpiles for both.
And this seems to fit quite nicely with the Raytheon defense portfolio, she said.
And the next one is Greg Hayes, and he's on the other side.
He's on the industry side.
He's Raytheon's chairman and executive director.
He responded to this saying, I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're going to see a benefit of this restocking on top of what we think is going to be an increase in the DOD top-line budget.
So they're already anticipating a bigger military bill for next year, and they're rubbing their hands together about this $106 billion.
Here's another sentence.
I think they could strengthen it, but they're making the point here.
It says, the comments are seemingly in contradiction to each company's statement on human rights.
You know, everybody has to be for human rights except the ones they want to kill.
And explicit endorsements of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN guiding principles of business and human rights.
And I get to thinking, you know, they'll say anything to pull the wolves over the eyes of the people who are paying the bills.
And of course, I'd like to think we're in the business of trying to wake people up.
And I think to some degree we reach a few now and then because they will be awakened someday when the whole thing goes bust.
But the big problem then is what are they going to replace it with?
And that's why I think these technicalities ought to be worked out.
Profiteering with war is a pretty bad thing to do.
And that's been going on for a long time.
It used to be just the grabbing up land.
It's still the grabbing up of land.
That's sort of what's going on in the Middle East right now.
It's as much about land as anything else.
Where do we have a place to live?
And then that is also artificial and put together by not so much voluntarism of two groups, but by international groups like the United Nations and the various military operations that have existed for 100 years that has created so many of the problems we're facing today.
Yeah.
Well, there's no question at all that the military industry in the U.S. does help promote war.
Now, they fund the think tanks, which come up with threat assessments.
The Chinese are coming, this, that, and the other.
We know that they fund those.
They fund campaigns of members of Congress and senators.
We know that's a fact.
We know that they also fund the NGO sector, the many other sectors of society.
So I really wonder what is the answer.
If you think about it, they socialize the costs and they privatize the profits.
What would you do, I think, Dr. Paul, in a free society with companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, how they operate?
If you want a simple answer, just bring the troops home.
Just stay out of this business.
And the second thing is to prevent the future problems like this.
People should be held accountable for their oath of office, which they don't because most of the people figure they're going to get a little bit of the action.
And in the short run, everybody benefits from this artificial monetary system.
And it just goes on and on.
This article concluded with something, same subject.
He says, these analysts can feel safe in the knowledge that the U.S. government is never going to interpret the law in such a way.
So you're putting pressure on me.
Never in such a way that they will be prevented from exporting weapons to a country that the U.S. doesn't have an outright embargo on.
In other words, we put the embargo on it, but we still sell them weapons.
You know, the underground, which has become the official military-industrial complex, how they get us into war and into trading, but on superficially, oh yes, we have to express, you know, we have to protect human rights.
We just don't protect human life.
Wolves Among Civilians 00:15:29
Well, we were talking about the prophets of war, but now our second subject is the realities of war.
And the realities of war, they probably should have to sit and watch these things happen.
But let's put that next clip up because this is something that happened yesterday.
The Israelis bombed the largest refugee camp in Gaza, Jabiliyah neighborhood, which lives north of Gaza city.
They bombed it, and they say hundreds are said to have been injured and killed in the attack.
It's one of the most densely populated areas in Gaza, which is already the most densely populated area of the world.
And here are a couple of pictures of the result of that bombing run.
And you can just look at this.
It looks like an absolute hellscape.
This was a neighborhood.
This was a densely populated neighborhood.
Go to the next one.
It's almost hard to imagine the destruction that we're seeing here.
And the resulting is unsurprisingly the deaths of probably hundreds, which we can see in this next clip.
And this is only a part of this.
This is the realities of war, the realities of the bombing.
Apparently, the Israelis dropped six one-ton bombs made in the U.S., of course, and destroyed this neighborhood.
So it's a pretty grim picture.
And you brought this up this morning, which is that Wolf Blitzer, who is not a peacenak by any stretch of the imagination, he had a really interesting interview with the spokesman of the Israeli Defense Forces.
And this is a longer clip than we usually run.
This is a minute and 51 seconds.
But I think it's an interesting exchange between Wolf and this IDF guy.
let's put our earpieces in and listen to this again with wolf and the idf guy yes i can we went we were focused again on our target a senior senior commander wolf And we'll be updating you with more data as the hour moves ahead.
But even if that Hamas commander was there amidst all those Palestinian refugees who are in that Jabalia refugee camp, Israel still went ahead and dropped a bomb there, attempting to kill this Hamas, this Hamas commander, knowing that a lot of innocent civilians, men, women, and children, presumably would be killed.
Is that what I'm hearing?
That's not what you're hearing, Wolf.
We, again, were focused on this commander, again, who you'll get more data who this man was.
Killed many, many Israelis.
We're doing everything we can.
It's a very complicated battle space.
There could be infrastructure there.
There could be tunnels there.
We're still looking into it, and we'll give you more data as the hour moves ahead.
But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians, men, women, and children in that refugee camp as well, right?
This is the tragedy of war, Wolf.
I mean, we, as you know, we've been saying for days, move south.
Civilians are not involved, Hamas, please move south.
Just trying to get a little bit more information.
You knew there were civilians there.
You knew there were refugees, all sorts of refugees, but you decided to still drop a bomb on that refugee camp attempting to kill the Samas commander.
By the way, was he killed?
I can't confirm yet.
There'll be more uh updated.
Yes, we know that he was killed.
About the civilians there, we're doing everything we can to minimize.
I'll see you again.
Sadly, they're hiding themselves with.
Okay, that's enough.
That was a pretty remarkable exchange for Wolf.
I was very impressed with that.
And I've known Wolf for a long time because he's interviewed me many times.
And he's not bashful.
He's very challenging.
He's always been a gentleman.
And this brings out, it's almost like a memory of what it was like at one time.
Because I saw him acting like a journalist.
You know, and on CNN, you know, I just think this is remarkable that the conversation lasted like that.
But Wolf is not weak on his support for Israel.
We know that.
But he was strong on trying to get information.
And I think that's remarkable.
And because of his demeanor and because he's always been a gentleman, even when he was challenging me on some interviews, he was always very dignified.
So he deserves a compliment on that.
Because if more people approach things like this, you know, if you or I were doing the interview and we did it, they have a biased opinion.
But here, he is very independent-minded, and he makes this point, and he's astounded.
He doesn't even have his own conclusion, but all he was doing was asking the right questions.
You know, does this mean that you went ahead anyway?
And then you hear the typical excuses, this is war, this is war, you know, and this is a reason why we shouldn't have war is because of this type of thing.
So, but right now, to see interviews like this on the major networks, I think is going to be difficult to find.
But I sort of thought Wolf was sort of on this episode, was he the voice in the wilderness, you know, because it's so rare that we get to hear this.
I mean, you hear more challenging things on Fox, but I don't put it in the same quality as this, you know, because this was more, you know, straightforward, diplomatic type of question to get information.
So I may be overstating it, but I have to admit, you know, I sort of have a lot of respect for Wolf.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it was a good question.
And, you know, the thing is, and we both read this separately because we talked about it this morning, that a lot of Israelis are pushing back, saying, don't talk to us about collateral damage because you're the guys who dropped bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and et cetera.
And so we're not necessarily singling out the Israelis because that's a pretty good point.
You talk about Fallujah, you talk about all the places that the U.S. has done this.
So there is a good point.
But the reality is this is a horror and there's no way of getting around it.
Six one-ton bombs on a neighborhood is not very good at all.
Now, this is an interesting point, though.
I just wanted to bring this up.
This is an account that I follow on Twitter because it's very insightful.
He doesn't seem to be very biased.
Armchair warlord.
And he made the point.
Earlier today, the IDF dropped six 2,000-pound J-Dams on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, killing and injuring some 400 civilians on sketchy intelligence that there was one Hamas officer there.
And go to the next one.
He continues by saying that the United States has literally developed weapons to allow us to kill a single bad guy in a crowd of civilians from 10,000 feet.
And I'm guessing we'd be happy to lend some.
But apparently the Israelis prefer Mark 84 bombs.
And I think he's referring to, he has a picture of a Hellfire missile, which is exactly what the U.S. used to kill Soleimani, if you remember.
They used a hellfire and they killed Soleimani and five other people.
And that was, of course, a stupid, terrible, terroristic act by the U.S.
But at the same time, using that hellfire and killing those five is a heck of a lot different than using six one-ton bombs and blowing the whole city to pieces.
You know, we make the point that although we don't have troops on the ground, but we have CIA agents and special forces and that inconsistency.
But the troops on the ground would be guns and people coming back in body bags like they did in Vietnam.
But that's been avoided.
That scene has been avoided.
But that doesn't mean that we don't have responsibility.
And you've already alluded to it.
Whose bombs are they?
Whose information is it?
And who has set the stage for this?
Whether it's in the Middle East or any place in the world, because we're in the business.
It goes back to that financial thing.
People make money delivering message.
We have a right to earn our money.
But when the person was being interviewed about the Pentagon there, the Pentagon spokeswoman, I want to repeat that, she said, we are not putting, she was being asked whether they have some condition.
You know, we're going to give you $10 billion.
Evidently, we don't even know where the money goes.
Yeah, of course.
Even if we put conditions on it, we are not putting any limits on how Israel uses weapons that it has provided.
So other words, it's just throwing the money out there.
And the big issue was, did any benefit?
Yes, the military-industrial complex benefited.
And we see all this suffering.
Right now, it's recognized that one half of the population of 2 million people are homeless right now, and they've been displaced.
And that's no small number.
And it's done in an attitude of patriotism.
And many Americans are very determined to participate in that sense of patriotism that under these conditions, this is okay.
And they have decided how they're going to paint the picture.
And I think that deserves some thought.
But we don't deserve a privileged position that we should finance and pick and choose and make money off it for 10 or 15 years.
And then all of a sudden there's an explosion of problems.
But it's for us getting involved in too early or ever because there have been times when things happen around the world.
We just stay out of it.
But now everything is in our empire and we have to deal with it.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's very safe to say that the Hamas attack would not have happened were it not for decades of U.S. influence and meddling in the region.
All those lives would have been saved.
But, you know, we choose our story order for a reason.
We probably spend more time on what goes next than anything else.
And so the reason we're moving to the next one after this is because of actually what you just said in your last segment.
You said, whose bombs are they?
Whose money is it?
We're not putting any limits on how Israel uses its weapons.
And these are serious questions.
And the answer, at least in the Arab and Muslim world, is that it creates a huge anger.
It's our money, our weapons.
We're telling them, blow up as much as you want.
We don't care.
We're not going to stop you.
So into this cauldron of hatred and resentment toward the U.S., here is the brilliant idea of the Biden people.
This is from Bloomberg.
Put this on.
This is a cauldron of resentment.
And here's what they say.
U.S. and Israel wait peacekeepers for the cause of this trip after Hamas.
This is Bloomberg.
The U.S. and Israel are exploring options for the future of the Gaza Strip, including the possibility of a multinational force that may involve American troops.
Putting troops right there in the middle of this.
Not a good idea, to say the least.
And it's happened a lot over history, especially in the 20th century, that we've had so many peacekeeping movements made.
And it shouldn't be that you shouldn't look at this, but right now, I mentioned the other day that the leaders of both the factions that we're dealing with, they were totally 100% at the point right now that we reject even talking about it or thinking about a ceasefire or negotiation.
So they're locked in until they run out of foot soldiers and money that they are going to continue to just fight the war.
We've already mentioned how Zelensky is running out of steam and running out of money and running out of friends.
And so something will happen there.
The Middle East just got started in a way, currently started, which means that the military-industrial complex will not run out of work.
Yeah.
Well, here's Blinken in that same article.
And here's his rationale for putting American troops.
He says, we can't have a reversion to the status quo with Hamas running Gaza.
Blinken said, who's traveling to Israel on Friday?
He told the Senate Appropriations Committee, we can't have Hamas running it.
We also can't have the Israelis start, we also can't have, and the Israelis start with this proposition themselves, is Israel running or controlling Gaza.
So we can't have Camas because of the bad guys.
We can't have Israel running it because it's going to be way too dangerous for them.
So I've got a brilliant idea.
Let's put a bunch of Americans in the middle of it so they'll be the ones who'll be shot at and killed.
Because we're so neutral and willing to look at both sides of the issue.
And the one issue they're looking at is what's it going to do for jobs and money and profits, which is so sad.
And the extension of that sadness is that the people just want to believe.
And they hear the propaganda.
And, oh, well, they talk about human rights.
I think they're serious.
They want to protect human rights.
Some of these wars you just can't avoid.
You know, they rationalize and talk themselves into it.
And that's why I think the founders were so precise.
I think they understood exactly what we're talking about.
And they just, you know, go and want to pass over and let it happen.
And maybe it'll go away.
And it will go away.
But I don't think it's going to go away.
I'll mention this many times.
I don't think it's going to go away if we just got 10 more members of Congress because it's so ingrained in a system.
There has to be a revamping and there has to be a restoration of a belief and confidence that we need guidance if we decide that we want to live in a society that promotes liberty.
Realizing that under those conditions, it's the best chance you have for having prosperity.
Everybody should be for that, but they dismiss it.
That sounds, oh, no, it won't work.
The Internet's Role in Liberty 00:04:55
Well, I tell you what, what we have now is not working so well throughout the world.
Yeah, no kidding.
I mean, the whole idea, this is painting a target, literally, on the soldiers, the backs of American soldiers in that region.
Everyone who's lost a family member in the Middle East at the hands of U.S. aggression, Iraq, Syria, Libya, you name it, the whole greater Middle East, every single person there is now going to say, now I can finally get back at the Americans, you know.
And the idea that you would put your fellow citizens in harm's way for something that has nothing to do with the American interest, it literally doesn't mean anything, despite some people's attachment to countries in that region.
It literally means nothing for us.
We're oceans away to put Americans at risk there for something that doesn't affect us.
I would say it's un-American, right?
Sometimes you wonder what the real motivation is, you know, this thing about Biden saying, even putting a small number out there is so dangerous, Americans.
But I wonder if they say, well, no, you're wrong.
Putting a few soldiers in there and us dealing in the peacekeeping movement, it's necessary.
Or are they saying, well, this will just prolong this a while and it may help or work out.
Or this is what we want.
So sometimes there was a time in my life that I absolutely refused to believe the governments could be as evil as they have been, that they would deliberately start war.
And we have participated in that.
And that to me is so difficult because we have so many great things in our country.
We have a great history.
But it's sort of sad and it's very damaging the fact that we have drifted so far from the intent of what the founders wanted.
And to me, in looking at this history, I think the founders were rather remarkable.
And they looked, but they also warned us, you know, if you don't have a moral society, it won't work.
And I guess we're there.
We're there.
We're there.
Well, I'm going to close out thanking all of our viewers.
We also always like your comments.
We read your comments.
Dr. Paul and I both read your comments.
If you have any suggestions or criticisms, put them down there.
We've got thick skin, don't we, Dr. Paul?
We can take it.
We can take it.
Put on that last clip, though, and I'll remind you this is our last couple of weeks offering Dr. Paul's book as a free thank you to those who participated in our fall fundraiser, making a tax-deductible contribution to the Ron Paul Institute.
A couple weeks left.
I will put a link in the description on how you can participate in this.
And I will again, please ask for your patience.
We're trying to keep up with a massive demand with a very limited staff.
One of the reasons why we need to raise some money is we have a limited staff.
So I've gotten a lot of emails from folks who haven't gotten their books yet.
We're doing our best.
They're in the mail.
The post office is not being very helpful.
I won't say anymore.
But yeah, anyway.
So thanks for participating.
A couple more weeks left, so don't forget about that.
And Dr. Paul, over there.
Very, very good.
I want to once again thank our viewers for tuning in today because without you, we don't have much of a program.
We keep plugging along and we do see signs and hear from people who are optimistic enough to say, keep going, keep going.
And I think the realization that it's a message worth working with and promoting at the same time recognizing that there's no magic about it and that everything will be changed tomorrow and all for the better.
But I do strongly believe in the power of ideas and that once an idea is spread one way or the other.
The founders, all they had were pamphlets.
And today we have the internet.
And that's great.
We use the internet.
It's also can be, it also can be our obstacle, too, because the internet may be contradicting some of the fundamentals that we believe in.
So we have a job ahead, but it's not complicated.
And I used to say in the campaign, freedom is popular and it's easily understood.
And why we don't do a better job in promoting liberty, because I see it as the opportunity for the creating the most free society and the most prosperous society.
And you have to give up all these faulty ideas of false prosperity and funny money and wars around the world as the road to opportunity.
See, it seems like people should accept the logic of a free society, and that's what we're going to continue to promote.
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