Ryan Grim (Banking Meltdown - Is This 2008 Again?)
Russell chats to Ryan Grim reporter for the Intercept, writer of Bad News on Substack and host of Counter Points. They discuss the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, the big tech economy and whether this is similar to the financial crash of 2008 all over again. https://badnews.substack.com/ Get my new stand up special ‘Brandemic’ - available to order at https://russellbrand.locals.com/ Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Thanks for joining us on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
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of course you're worried that we're about to have a global financial collapse. Is the
collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank the in augur, the impriture of 2008 Part
2? Because you remember how they dealt with...
It can't happen again, can it?
Surely they learned their lesson.
Surely you couldn't get the very same people that were involved in clearing up that mess as the very people that created it.
Surely you wouldn't get people to introduce regulation, then reverse that regulation.
That would be absolutely crazy.
We'll be talking to Ryan Grimm.
From the intercept about the banking collapse and where it's likely to lead us all.
Then, once we're exclusively on Rumble, we'll be talking about all sorts of crazy stuff from Pfizer and January 6, all sorts of things that you're going to absolutely love.
I'll be talking about my appearances on Fox News, meeting Tucker Carlson, all of that stuff in our presentation.
Here's the news now, here's the effing news.
But, For a while, shall we just revel in the simplicity of the wonderful world of entertainment?
It was the Oscars.
Do you care about the Oscars anymore?
Do you care?
Did you ever care?
I think there will always be a bit of me that cares.
A little bit.
It's nice, isn't it?
Do you think me not caring about the Oscars is spite and malice?
Because I never got one, or the only time I was near one was when I was giving it to another person.
Did you want to give it to them?
I wanted to keep that but I thought I can't in good faith keep this Oscar for best short film as I haven't made any short films at all.
Well I think we've made lots of short films.
Well actually don't you think that those films we make every day where we do our level best to expose hypocrisy and corruption and bring people together in spite of cultural differences are worthy of an Oscar?
Well the Academy do not think that and that's why I'll be boycotting the Oscars, not that they've noticed.
Hugh Grant though, fellow Englishman and wryly intelligent Brit, was at the Oscars and of course he's... You can see that what's happened to Hugh Grant is he's stopped caring about things like this.
He's become weary, hasn't he?
Yeah, he's sort of... I'd say it's like Neo.
He's sort of woken up and he finds himself still at the Oscars, obligated I imagine to attend due to his commitments to certain projects that he's attached to and starring in.
But while there he's thinking, oh don't make me do this.
And that's really plain when you see him talking to this attractive journalist.
Have a look.
What are you most excited to see tonight?
To see?
Yeah, well, I know that you probably watched a few.
The spirit of the chat, has he?
Sorry, he's become a curmudgeon.
He doesn't even accept the premise.
To see?
The movies, are you excited to see anybody win?
Do you have your hopes up for anyone?
Hope's up!
Are they up?
The old hope or...?
Hope's down or normal.
You can just see that Hugh Grant is not connected to this scenario at all.
No.
No one in particular.
OK, well... I said I don't care.
I don't care about the Oscars.
I've woken up in the bubble.
What are you wearing tonight, then?
Just my suit.
Your suit?
Who made your suit?
You didn't make it.
I can't remember.
My tailor.
That's okay.
Shout out to the tailor.
So tell me, what does it feel like to be in Glass Onion?
It was such an amazing... What does it feel like?
Because what could you possibly say in response to the question, what does it feel like?
While you're being in Glass Onion, it feels like, wow man, I'm in Glass Onion.
I'm enjoying myself.
It's amazing because she's gone from, how do you feel about what you're about to see?
And he's not giving her anything.
And then she's gone straight to what are you wearing?
Which is obviously a standard question at these awards ceremonies.
It's kind of amazing that that's the second or often first question at most awards ceremonies.
What are you wearing?
Do some promotion, please.
It's because it's pageantry, I suppose.
People talk about nihilism and materialism and the meaninglessness of our contemporary culture, predicated as it is on consumerism and commodification, but we still intuitively reach for meaning and purpose.
Sort of set of signals that indicate to us that life is not just an empty, occasionally stirred morass of nothingness.
And the Oscars, like they were setting up for Oscars when we were recently in Los Angeles.
They shut down all of Hollywood Boulevard.
There's scaffold being erected.
There are billboards slung up.
And of course, we're all aware of this, aren't we?
We're telling you nothing new that there's a financial crisis apparently being precipitated.
There's a geopolitical disaster already happening for the people of Ukraine, but happening Elsewhere, a slow creep towards war with China.
The conditions of the pandemic being lived out, explored.
Is it leading to more centralisation of authority?
Are we being communicated to correctly and openly around that and a whole host of subjects?
Are we being bludgeoned with lies?
And obviously Hugh Grant, who I know a little bit, not very well, But he's like a very intelligent person who's having to answer questions about his clothes and not to discredit the other person, she's just doing what her job is.
Isn't it like, don't you think, tell me in the comments in the chat if you feel the same whether you're watching this on YouTube or if you're watching this with us now on Rumbles or our membership platform Locals.
Do you find it harder and harder to participate?
Like when I see stuff like this I'm like oh god is this still Going on, is this still happening?
Of course there was a time where I craved it, like I really wanted to be involved in that.
I remember standing backstage, there I am look without a beard, of course one of our mates says that when I don't have a beard I look like when Darth Vader takes his helmet off.
Like standing there backstage and seeing all their moscas lined up together.
It's weird to see a coveted item abundant, that's the That's the idea that motivates Andy Warhol isn't it?
If you endlessly repeat Marilyn Monroe or Elvis you recognize everything has become commodity or if you reify a can of soup you sort of say oh everything could be celebrated as a work of art and for me now I don't know about you guys I start to feel like is this still happening?
I mean I do care about football though so I am still engaged in cultural ephemera and I know brilliant films are still made and beautiful artifacts emerge continually from the culture but I do Yeah, because it always does come back to the same thing.
What are you wearing?
friend holds true that primarily these festivals these ceremonies serve as a
kind of way of regalvanizing your interest in stuff that you sort of
shouldn't really care about. Yeah because it always does come back to the same
thing what are you wearing like it's a kind of reset of...
As you are aware we are all dying What are you wearing while you are dying right now?
At the end of it, Hugh Grant, like so if you could see he's sort of got this almost ennui and despair.
If you want to click over and watch us on Rumble right now you really ought because the second half of this we're talking about January 6th and the media's misrepresentation of it and the sort of Tucker Carlson controversy and how January 6th is being used.
We'll also be talking about some of Pfizer's new post-pandemic deals and I really loved it.
I love a thriller.
mendacity around those things. Of course on YouTube we are curtailed by guidelines
which I'm sure they put in place for the best of reasons but over on Rumble we
are free to speak as we would, as our consciences would have us. Let's see how
Hugh Grant wraps up this debacle.
I really loved it. I love a thriller. How fun is it to shoot something like that?
Well I'm barely in it.
I'm in it for about three seconds.
Yeah, but still, you showed up and you had fun, right?
Uh, almost.
Okay.
God, Hugh!
Nothing.
Nothing.
Oh, God.
I mean, like, he's actually unable to participate in this.
I would say, if I was working with or for Hugh Grant, I'd say, Hugh, you're not going to the Oscars no more.
You don't like it.
You shouldn't be forced to go.
I don't even think you like being in Glass Onion very much.
You're actually not doing us any favours here.
Although he is really good in films these days.
He's really good in that one with Wishaw.
He's really good in Paddington.
I think he's a brilliant actor, but he doesn't like the Oscars.
That's how I used to feel at those Oscars.
And things like that only went once.
That's how I used to feel at those things, sort of bewildered and overwhelmed.
And like, this isn't... Is this right?
Is this life?
Is this what's happening?
Remember, even when there's things like the British Comedy Awards, you say you don't know how to organise your face.
When you're sat on a table waiting for a nominee.
And the nominees for Best New Comedian, Russell Brand, some other people.
I won it.
Some other people.
I don't know what to do with my face, like, during it.
How should I look during it?
I've never been comfortable with that stuff, but let's just see that despair on Hugh Grant's face before clicking over into a financial crisis that might be a repeat of 2008, in which, of course, quantitative easing was introduced to bail out the big banks, even though Biden's saying taxpayer money won't be used.
Is that true?
Ultimately, let's see.
But first, Let's look at Hugh Grant experiencing despair at the Oscars.
All right.
OK.
Well, thank you so much.
It was nice to talk to you.
Yeah.
All right.
Back to you, guys.
That bit at the end is my favourite bit.
Yeah.
OK.
Oh, dear.
I hope he's all right.
I mean, he is OK, isn't he?
He's having a career renaissance.
Oh, yeah.
He's brilliant in film, so that's good news in some regard, I suppose.
Now, let's have a look at the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank.
The Silicon Valley Bank has collapsed.
There's a number of reasons for this, like there's been a 4.5% increase in interest rates, so bonds that they bought are now less valuable and stuff like that.
You know, Gareth and I, you may not know this, we're not financial experts, but sadly, neither are the people that are organising these bailouts.
They're usually lobbyists This story shows you everything you need to know about the symbiosis between Wall Street and Washington.
It tells you a lot about the lobbying industry.
It tells you a lot about the lack of lessons learned from 2008.
It tells you a lot about how convergent interests around both the Republican Party and the Democrat Party ultimately align when it comes to the big issues like finances.
And it shows you how the media will always lean into partisanship.
Do you think I've done the story justice there, mate?
You're right.
I mean, the kind of reporting of it, if you look at the right or the left, you know, from the right, it's focusing on like woke issues, which I don't think has anything to do with deregulation of the banking industry.
From the left, it's all about blaming Trump when actually what we know is the kind of deregulation of the regulations that were meant to be put up in 2008 to protect ordinary Americans were then, you know, watered down in 2018.
Only for medium sized banks.
Correct.
Medium-sized banks was never the problem.
Stadium banks, they were called.
They're all right.
It's those two big banks.
The two big to fail banks that did fail, they were bad.
But medium-sized banks that you make stadiums with, they need to be deregulated.
And as a result of lobbying, they were.
And now look what's happening.
Shall we have a look at the mainstream media reports on this story?
Yeah, absolutely.
We'll see how, you know, biased they are and how reductive.
Ultimately, what we always talk about is how reductive the mainstream media are.
And this is exactly what they do here.
This is the Republicans' fault because, of course, it's, I think, MSNBC's with a man who I believe is called Chris Hayes.
I get that impression.
I don't know why.
I mean, I'm an investigative journalist.
See if you pick up on it.
Five years ago, when Republicans were last in control of the House of Representatives, they used the opportunity to roll back banking regulations put into place after the 2008 financial crisis.
So it's Donald Trump's fault.
There he is being jostled by sort of, I don't know, Congress folk, lobbyists, bankers, whoever the hell those people are.
But let's have a look at the banking crisis timeline.
Let's see how this unfolded.
Check it out.
Let's have a look at that on the screen now.
Thank you.
Now, in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act was brought in, but I need that full screen to read it, please, if you don't mind.
The Dodd-Frank Act brought in by the Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd was designed to tighten banking regulations to prevent another 2008 crash.
It was supposed to prevent risky investments.
Note the names Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Try and remember them just for a few seconds.
In 2015, Greg Becker, Silicon Valley Bank's president, submitted a statement to a Senate panel pushing legislators to exempt more banks, including his own, from new regulations.
I'm here mostly on behalf of banks in general, but also the bank that I work at.
Passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
A couple of months later, SVB added the former Obama Treasury Department official Mary Miller to its board, noting she had previously helped oversee financial regulatory reforms.
So that whole revolving door idea that many of us think is significant when it comes to politics and finance is exemplified here in this story.
In 2015, Democrat Congressman Barney Frank.
Oh, I remember Barney Frank from the Dodd-Frank Act a second ago.
That's him.
Just, oh, he's cropped up again.
Well, he knows the most about regulation, Russ.
Oddly, he was pushed to ease banking regulations after joining the Signature Bank board.
I mean, it's another one of those stories that shows you that how you intuitively think these things work is exactly how these things work.
Over at Signature Bank or SVB or whatever bank, they go, I know how to get past some of these regulations.
Why don't we get hold of one of the Congress people that drafted the bill and get them to lobby on our behalf and say, You know, I know I drew up this regulation, but I was, you know, I was much too regulatory that day.
I was really regulated.
I was regulating everything.
I wouldn't let the dog out of the house.
I told my wife, put a longer skirt on.
I regulated the hell out of my kids.
And do you know what?
I thought, I wish I could turn back the clock.
Thankfully, I can.
Let's deregulate stadium banks or medium-sized banks.
These kind of banks that are failing right now.
That's old Barney Frank for you.
Barney Frank, apparently available for a million dollars.
That's an allegation.
I can't prove that.
No, you can prove that.
Allegedly.
Oh, I can prove that.
You can prove that.
He was paid a million dollars.
He got paid a million dollars.
Strike that from the record.
In 2018, the Trump administration, remember, bipartisan, everyone's involved, began to repeal the act.
Regulations for smaller banks were removed and lower capital for loans were required.
So you just saw the mainstream news saying, oh, it's Trump.
We saw him.
Just like Trump to be jostled by all those jostlers.
Then 2021, the Biden administration came in.
The regulations Trump had changed remained the same.
We beat Farmer this year, all of the excitement, all of the Sturm und Drang.
Yeah, 50 Republicans and 17 Democrats.
So, you know, it was a bipartisan effort to deregulate what we were told was put in place to protect ordinary Americans.
And now, not Obama, but Biden himself is saying that Taxpayers won't be footing the bill, but a lot of financial experts are saying that that's not strictly true.
Not strictly true, that tangentially they ultimately will be.
The final point on our little financial timeline, and why don't you take a screenshot of this, then you can do your own TV show to your pals.
President Biden has reassured Americans that, oh yeah, Gao just did that bit.
So let's check it out.
Let's have a look at Joe Biden now, looking all presidential and stuff.
Oh yeah, look, here's a bunch of people that voted for both Trump and Obama.
We know about all that kind of stuff, don't we?
So ultimately, it's the same sort of system, same sort of results.
And man, you know, even if you're a person that dislikes right-wing politics for your own reasons, or you dislike left-wing politics for your own reasons, you have to acknowledge that there's a symbiosis and a kind of flow between these administrations that Obama's actions in 2008 contributed to the election of Trump because of the alliance of the same financial interests that ultimately benefit whoever is in government.
Here's Biden trying to make it clear that we will not see 2008 Part 2 and that taxpayers won't foot the bill.
But some experts, even as this story breaks, are saying that's simply not true.
And we will tell you a little more about that after we watch the man himself this go.
I want to briefly speak about what's happening in Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Today, thanks to the quick action of my administration over the past few days.
It's been so quick.
Lightning!
Whoosh!
There he goes.
Yeah.
Making quick actions.
Let's see what these quick actions are.
Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe.
Your deposits will be there when you need them.
No losses, and this is an important point, no losses will be borne by the taxpayers.
Let me repeat that.
No losses will be borne by the taxpayers.
Now, what I take that to mean, and let me know in the chat in the comments if you think this means I've become cynical and jaded.
What I reckon that means is they now recognise that people don't like bailing out big banks after 2008.
So you have to explicitly say we won't be doing that.
But he uses the language, the nomenclature, taxpayer.
So you won't be via an over-observable tax be foot in the bill.
But Gail, do you want to read what them experts are saying?
Because it seems like there are tangential, indirect indirect ways through banking fees that will likely end up
with ordinary Americans that mean that you will all pay for the bill
simply because the bill's too big to be paid for by this fund that they're
saying is going to pay it.
Yeah so finance officials have said that covering depositor losses from the bank
failures will be met in part by the deposit insurance fund held by the FDIC
the government corporation that supplies deposit insurance the depositors in US
commercial banks and savings banks. Susan Streeter though who is head of money and
markets at Hargreaves Lansdowne said the wider banking system will bear the brunt
of the bailout of banking customers as the money will come from the fees
institutions pay into the deposit insurance fund.
If that happens, it will get harder to argue that the non-bailout bailout will not ultimately fall on US taxpayers.
Yeah, because, you know, I've noticed that there's not a tendency to pass on costs.
Like, for example, during this energy crisis, you'll have noticed that your energy bills stayed consistently low throughout it.
And energy companies' profits, they didn't increase either.
Oh no!
What actually happened was, is their profits radically increased and your bills went up.
So that's extraordinary.
Exactly.
Let's have a look at what happened.
This is a weird thing.
They've been printing money.
Some of this is about inflation, the recent increase in inflation.
And I'll be honest with you, I don't know much about finance and stuff.
I'm just trying to learn along with you.
And in a minute, we've got a guest on the show, Ryan Grimm, who's going to teach us a whole lot more about this subversive, sly banker bailout on the lowdown.
But have a look at this graph.
Look at this.
In 2020, look at that sharp increase of the number of US dollars in circulation.
And if you want to amuse yourself for a moment, you'll note that it's like a phallus suddenly emerging.
Like if that was in a physical landscape, that if you were like, you know, you're walking along, it's 1970, 80, 90, it's increasing a bit there, 2000, even 2010 and around the sharp increases of cash in circulation around the financial crisis.
Nothing compared to this 2020 sharp incline like that.
Don't you feel that that's going to have some fundamental economic repercussions?
I mean, I'm not an economist, but I know that when you see something like that on a graph, it's not good news, is it?
No, I also worry, you know, there was obviously a lot of talk about how in the Obama years, Wall Street really went for Obama.
You know, they put a lot of money into Obama's campaign.
The same has happened with Biden.
It was with the Republicans between those two.
Well, I just think any, you know, any government that's in power who's taking so much money from the financial industry and Wall Street, are they ultimately going to punish the banks in the way that Biden's talking about?
Let me know in the chat in the comments.
If your funding comes from the banks, how likely are you to punish the banks?
Do you think there's a relationship between the way that the Democrat Party is funded and the way that the Democrat Party governs?
Let me know in the chat.
Let me know in the comments.
We'll read those out in a minute.
If you're watching this on YouTube, Join us on Rumble as soon as you can.
We're going to give you a great conversation right now.
I hope it's great.
I mean, I'm going to do my level best with someone from The Intercept.
And remember, the back half of this show where we're talking about January the 6th and some of the peculiarities around its reporting and the way it's being utilised to introduce legislation and different types of regulation will be discussed in the back
half of this show tonight as well as us looking at Pfizer's brilliant new not all heartbreaking and
potentially evil scheme to keep those profits up now that the pandemic is it okay to
say that the pandemic's over?
Careful.
What steady baby!
Steady!
Now, an actual journalist from the reputable organisation The Intercept, writer of Bad News on Substack and host of CounterPoints.
Is that on Breaking Point?
It certainly is.
I love this guy.
This is Ryan Grimm.
Welcome to the show, Ryan.
Hello, thanks for coming, mate.
Yeah, thanks for having me here.
Why don't you get yourself some earpods, mate?
Them type of headphones, people don't wear them no more.
What are you, from the old days?
I can't lose these because they're just stuck right in here.
They're always going to be here.
Ryan, it's not my business to ensure that you keep up with the mindless consumerism that drives us through life.
Now, Ryan, can you please tell me what's going on in this banker crisis?
Was you listening to me and Gareth for just then?
Do you think we did a good job of it?
And what are you going to add to it, please?
Yeah, that sounded pretty good.
I think what I would add to it is the stick side of it.
Like what does the government need to do to these bankers in order to, because they talk about this moral hazard.
And so they say, well, if you bail people out, then they're just going to be reckless.
And, you know, they're going to keep doing this just the way, you know, they did it in 2008, they did it in the 1930s.
If there's no penalties, then what's going on?
But the question is, are we really going to make the depositors suffer the penalties?
I might be fine with that if you're depositors who have millions of dollars and you're in a risky bank like Silicon Valley Bank.
But just realistically, from a political perspective, we're always going to make depositors whole.
So if we're going to make depositors whole, then thinking through this, how do we monkey around with this moral hazard?
And to me, it would be Not only do you wipe out all the shareholders of Silicon Valley Bank, not only do all the executives get fired, you also do something like bankrupt the executives.
So if you say, look, if you run a bank into the ground to the point where it's going to cost Taxpayers, and ultimately it's going to be taxpayers.
Taxpayers, you know, millions of dollars, we're going to you first before we hit up the rest of society.
Then I think you would have executives who all of a sudden are a lot more cautious about the bets that they're making and the way that they're running the bank.
The other thing I would, and we could talk about this too, is this wild tech chain among all of these tech founders and funders.
Did you see this?
This guy talked about it.
There were 200 founders who were in this text chain who on Thursday started saying, hey, maybe we should all take our money out of Silicon Valley Bank.
And if you really were scared that the bank was going to collapse, what you would do is you would go to the bank and you would take your money out.
You wouldn't text 200 of your richest friends and suggest Hey, maybe we should all take our money all at the same time out of this bank.
That makes absolutely no sense if your goal is self-preservation of your own wealth.
If you think the bank's going to collapse, you call the bank, say, here's my wire instructions, get my money out of that bank.
What they did is they created a bank run with that text chain.
And then you have to ask, why did they do that?
Please, speculatively, and I know it's purely speculation, Ryan, why would you do that?
Is it because you know that if the bank collapses you're going to be bailed out and ultimately it's going to be more beneficial than taking the money out in the first place?
Yeah, so one of the theories that's going around is that this entire tech economy requires low interest rates and massive amounts of quantitative easing.
That chart that you showed That money flows into asset prices, houses, that's why housing prices are going crazy, rents are going crazy, but really what it funnels is into big tech.
Without the quantitative easing the last decade, you don't have this big tech explosion over the last decade.
Now that they're starting to turn that spigot down, you're seeing all of these tech companies lay everybody off, you're seeing everything collapse.
So the speculation is, what could these tech bros do That would get the Fed's attention.
That would say, look, if you keep jacking up interest rates, you're going to blow the economy up.
You're going to cause real problems here.
And what could they do?
Well, they could blow up a tiny little bank.
I love this thing.
It's my new thing.
It's so that I don't have to sort of step over, you know, it can be embarrassing on Zoom calls.
So like one of the phrases we've picked up in this space, Ryan, is it's not a bug, it's a feature.
That things that sometimes that appear like aberrations or anomalies or flaws are actually design features of the system.
If the military, and this is obviously speculative, but it appears that the military industrial complex requires ongoing military conflict in order to underwrite its model and what you've just articulately explained to us and to our community.
is that the big tech model requires quantitative easing and and in order this is like a sort of warning shot you're saying this is a sort of a dialogue being played potentially I know you know you're not Nostradamus or whatever or some sort of soothsayer but but potentially this is part of a kind of dialogue taking place between the state treasury and the banking system that's letting them know that there are ways of precipitating financial disaster unless there's compliance and favorable legislation and regulation.
Yeah, nice little economy you've got going here.
Shame if there was a bank run and a bunch of contagion that just wiped it out.
So yeah, so now the New York Times is reporting just now that the FBI, Department of Justice are going to look into the causes of this meltdown.
And the 2018 rollback, the executives who cashed out a bunch of bonuses, that's all going to get looked at.
You know, to me, they ought to actually look at that text chain.
You got 200 people, you got 200 phone numbers, call those folks in.
Maybe it was completely innocent.
Ask them, you know, why did you tell your closest 200 friends to take their money out of here?
Why didn't you just take your own money out?
At the same time, Peter Thiel's, what's it called, his founder's firm, they did a call on that day where they called money in, like on that very day.
That required then a bunch of their partners, or urged a bunch of their partners to pull money out as well.
You could say, why did you do this?
Is this a total coincidence?
Did this have anything to do with this?
I think these are reasonable questions that investigators ought to be asking because the other explanations just don't make a lot of sense.
It's extraordinary that you say that.
So it's unlikely that the investigation will look into these aspects of the case.
What about Biden's public claim, overt, obvious and plain, that the consequences of a failed capitalist venture are bankruptcy?
Like you said, the bankers involved are unlikely to face bankruptcy.
You said that should be the first step and that the consequences of those actions should be felt.
Is this something where the right people will pay the price or will this ultimately, as them experts in The Guardian said, ultimately end up being the bill being footed by taxpayers,
if not directly through taxation, but likely through bank fees and stuff, simply because
there isn't enough money in that fund that they keep banging on about to cover a loss of this
scale. If it goes the way it went in 2008, then the bankers will just be fine. And they'll, you know,
they'll move on, they'll move on to other banks. And nothing will nothing
will get clawed back.
If you remember, AIG was paying out massive bonuses just months after their collapse that precipitated a global financial crisis.
Now, the politics have changed.
You're seeing a lot more anger about this.
And you're going to see, I think because of alternative media, you'll see the mainstream media also being unable to kind of move away from it as quickly as they might otherwise want to.
So we are in a slightly different place 15 years later than we were then.
And I think no politician wants to be on the side of bailouts.
And that's why you're seeing Biden do all of these semantics and gymnastics to try to say that actually, well, of course, this isn't a bailout.
Fascinating.
If both parties are pro-deregulation, and that is ultimately the way that it went when there was the opportunity to maintain regulation or decrease it, as has happened, and you see reductive reporting from both sides, i.e.
MSNBC, this is all about Trump, without saying, but we could say that the quantity of E's in the decisions made by Obama in 2008.
When you have this kind of systemic environment, How, Ryan, will there ever be disruption of these systems?
If you have a systemic problem of this nature, how can you alter it without significantly altering the system, please?
I don't know that you can, because you also saw this with the train derailment in Ohio.
The media ignored it for a very long time until They could find something that they could pin on Trump.
They're like, oh, wait, Trump did some deregulatory stuff when he was in office around railroads.
Then we had a train disaster.
Boom.
OK, now we can cover this story.
Then you've got other reporters saying, well, wait, the Obama administration also did this stuff.
And the Biden administration is currently in office.
But it feels like without that hook, You know, that the media doesn't know how to get into it.
And so now they've discovered this 2018 deregulatory action, which Trump took, which Trump should be criticized for.
But the media should note, it takes 60 votes in the Senate to get anything done.
They could only do it because they had the willing participation of plenty of Democrats.
Now, also fair to say, 50 Republicans is a lot more than 17 Democrats.
But in the end, it doesn't matter to people that the law, because the law got passed.
That's right.
And it seems to continually lead us, Ryan, to the obvious conclusion that neither party can meaningfully intercede when it comes to improving the lives of ordinary people, introducing the type of regulation, legislation, movement, systems, ideas that would alter significantly the lives of most folk.
That there's generally a consensus and a willingness within the media to keep the conversation framed in a particular way.
I mean, I know we're sort of straying from the territory of your expertise.
I mean, I'm assuming that we are.
But it does seem now that what's required is new political alliances and significant systemic change.
And neither party is offering that, right?
Yeah, and for a long time, to me, the way that you could most effectively influence politics was by kind of playing inside the Democratic Party in primaries, like the way that, say, Bernie Sanders challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, ran again in 2020, and by that way influenced the party.
But I now think that That opportunity exists in both parties.
And I think that, you know, regular people who consider themselves to be either independents or Republicans, but they are independents, but they vote in Republican primaries, you know, have an opportunity to influence the Republican Party too, and say, look, you voted for this Roll back in 2018.
I'm going to support a candidate that didn't do that.
None of that is going to work, though, unless you get some type of reform to the way that campaigns are financed.
To me, it's got to come from matching funds from the government, because the way the Supreme Court is now, they're not going to let you cap spending or cap the amount of giving.
And so all you can do is equalize things.
There was a bill that said that there would be a way that you would get a six to one match.
If you have 50 bucks, that actually becomes 300 bucks and that you can give it then to a couple of your
candidates of your choosing.
So unless you can like match corporations, you're never gonna match them dollar for dollar,
but if you can keep regular people in the game, then I think they're gonna win
because they have the more popular position.
Like a corporation needs 10 times the amount of money in order to get its unpopular position across the finish line.
Problem now is that they have 20 times, 30 times, 40 times more.
If you can get it down to 10 to 1, then at least it's a fair fight.
Okay, Ryan, that is somewhat promising, although I still prefer a revolution.
Ryan, thanks for joining us.
Ryan Grimm is a reporter for The Intercept, writer of Bad News on Substack, you can follow him there, and host of CounterPoints.
Ryan, thanks so much for joining us, that was a fantastic conversation.
Now, we're going to slink Offer YouTube right now for regulatory reasons.
The irony.
Some spaces need regulation.
Some people need, some places need less regulation.
Some places need trust, faith, that content creators are speaking honestly and openly.
We're not trying to lobby government to be fair though.
I am.
I'm lobbying for radical change in every conceivable area.
So if you're watching us now on YouTube, we're about to slip off exclusively onto Rumble because we're going to be talking about Pfizer's latest sly little move.
And I mean, sly, I suppose is... Allegedly.
It might not be sly.
Maybe it's just simple good business.
We've got a fantastic story.
Then we're going to be moving on to January 6th. So if you're watching us anywhere else, join
us exclusively on Rumble right now and I'll tell you how you can watch my stand-up special,
Brandemic, which is a real ball-breaker, a glorious thing. I'll tell you more about that as well. So
join us on Rumble now.
Pfizer CEO Albert Baller, heard of that guy?
He's not going to like your stand-up special.
No, he won't. He'll score.
There's a real one in the eye for Albert Baller in there.
Now, one of the things, this is some bad news, since the end of the pandemic, if indeed it's ended, things ain't been going quite as well for Pfizer because they were dead by coincidence.
By coincidence alone, they did really well.
One of the inadvertent side effects of there being that terrible pandemic that ruined your life, ruined your kids' education, locked you up in your home was, it's not all bad, Pfizer did very well.
Sadly, now people aren't gripped by continual perpetual terror locked in their homes.
It has had a negative impact on Pfizer stock prices.
But the good news is this.
Cancer.
Cancer is the good news.
People get cancer.
Perhaps because they're stressed.
Perhaps because they're eating bad food.
Perhaps because they're living spellbound in a terrible illusion.
Baller has spotted that and he's found a way.
Perhaps because they don't do any exercise.
Could that help?
What contributed to that?
Were you locked in your home lately?
Unable to do even the merest amount of exercise?
The good news is your cancer is Baller's dollar bills.
So Pfizer CEO says it will be able to deliver Segan's cancer therapy at a scale not seen before with a 43 billion dollar deal.
Of course they're gonna sell that as old whoop-dee-doo.
We're all gonna get access to this new cancer drug.
Pfizer CEO Albert Baller said that the pharmaceutical giant will be able to deliver Segan's cancer therapy to the world at a scale that's not been seen before.
Well you've had some practice delivering medicines at scale.
Also, for a price that's not been seen before, I would imagine.
It is going to be a little bit more pricey.
And you'll be taking this cancer medication, whether you want it or not!
How about that?
What about... Hey, what would be a good idea?
Why wait till people have got cancer?
Get everyone to take it!
What if they don't want to take it?
Make them take it, that's what I say.
Look at you, you've been off YouTube for about a minute.
Freedom baby, this is the sweet sounds of freedom.
Glory in here, glory in the sweet sounds of freedom.
Segan is a leading developer of a medicine called antibody drug conjugates which are designed to directly kill cancer cells and spare healthy ones.
Thanks.
Baller called ADCs one of the greatest technologies to battle cancer and likened them to mRNA for vaccines.
Okay.
Well, luckily, there's no problems there.
For example, myocarditis, pericarditis, people in their 30s dropping dead.
Don't roll your eyes at me!
You've been aired!
You've been aired by the system!
In other news, the Queen, was she a lizard?
Will we ever know for sure?
Let's have a look at Albert Baller cropping up on the mainstream media on a puff piece, presenting this financial news about how he's going to profit, trying to dress it up like we live to help people who have got cancer.
They probably really take him to task, I would imagine, though.
Right, this is the mainstream media.
I think they'll be saying, you know how with the vaccine that you profited 100 billion last year, you know how you're talking about putting it up by 10,000% of what it costs?
People aren't being forced to take it, so we've got to raise the price.
Would you do the same thing with this life-saving cancer drug?
No!
It was so unsuccessful for us, these near-mandated medicines, where like 34,000 nurses in New York lost their job.
We really learned a lesson.
So this is just voluntary.
We make drugs now for love.
Love drugs.
Let's have a look at the mainstream media coaxing Albert Baller to near-ejaculation over his profiteering from cancer.
Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, joins us now.
Albert, great to see you this morning.
40.
It's like as if she's meeting George Clooney.
Matthew Merton, like it's Albert.
Like look at him.
She's more enthusiastic than Hugh Grant at the Oscars.
Like I'd like Hugh Grant to interview.
Yeah.
Okay, Albert.
So seems I've got to ask you some questions.
Where have you got all this money from, you bastard?
Are you going to give people any of their money back, you swine?
That's what you want, Hugh Grant on the bloody news, not this darling, grinning, innocent, lovely woman who's obviously an expression of the limitless light of the Lord trying to do her best in the dog-eat-dog world of CNBC.
Uh-oh, I pressed the wrong button, guys!
Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, joins us now.
Albert, great to see you this morning.
$43 billion, a huge price tag.
Tell us why CGen is worth it for Pfizer.
It's funny, isn't it?
Because it's prioritising the money, but this is cancer.
Like, who in the world don't know someone that's got cancer or is already dead because of cancer?
It's not like a jolly subject.
This is where I think, like our chat with Ryan there, when you recognise, oh no, the system is really rigged.
In order to cause all sorts of problems, you could sort of see it, even if you don't understand it.
Same with the pharmaceutical industry.
I don't think anyone begrudges people making a profit out of entrepreneurship and ingenuity, even though there's certainly an argument that there might be a better way of organizing society in reality.
Of course there are.
But even if we just say, let's have a slightly more reasonable reform system, The idea that people are grinning from ear to ear about cancer.
This is corporatist propaganda.
This is when we talk about the mainstream media, when we get criticised for going on Fox or going on and having discussions about how both sides are as bad as each other, when the mainstream or from the left criticise about that.
And then they get on Albert Baller to basically give him some propaganda, give him a puff piece.
They've done it all the way through the pandemic.
Now they're going to do it about him making probably massive profits off people having cancer.
It's quite incredible. They do the same things with the military industrial complex.
And yet, apparently we're the conspiracy theorists.
The conspiracy theory is this. Let us plainly state it.
That the media operate in conjunction with corporate interests to present an agenda
that's favorable to their profits and dominion in a light that is appealing to ordinary people
so that we don't rise up in angry unison against their agenda of corruption and division.
That's the conspiracy theory.
Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments if it makes sense to you.
But meanwhile, let's see the mainstream media massaging Albert Baller into a few more billions from your cancer.
Look, Meg, very nice to see you, but cancer... Don't flirt!
Don't flirt about cancer money!
...is one of the biggest therapeutic areas and...
the pope. That's when I met the pope. Would you like another jab? How about another boost?
How about another boost? I'm okay. I've been praying. You pray for this one, baby.
Right now, one in three people in the world are going to have cancer in their lifetime.
Unfortunately, the number of people who have cancer is not going to be the same.
Which is great for us.
We're hoping to make it one in two!
Your cancer is our money!
If we keep you anxious and distressed the whole time, look at the line getting higher and higher!
Look at the numbers, they're green now!
The numbers that people are affected is even larger, because people, if not as patients, they will be affected as husband or wife, they will be See that, isn't it, Gal?
It's like Pfizer's profits.
Oh, look, they're going down almost at the exact same time that it was near mandated that you have to take their products.
And then who's this little guy, Segan?
They seem to be on the climb.
Why don't we piggyback to a new dimension on their profits?
Like with the banking crisis, we're told all of this financial industry is really complicated and we wouldn't understand it.
And that's why quantitative easing, we had to do it.
And that's why you had to foot the bill for all of it.
Actually, you look at that graph and it's pretty simple.
Pfizer's profits are going right down because people don't want to take the vaccine anymore.
So we need to get this cancer drug, which their profits are going right up.
And what about the argument that you continually made, and I know that David Sirota at The Leathermaid, that Pfizer are presented as this sort of bunch of geniuses, people getting tattoos and buying jackets with Pfizer on it, but all they'd done was bought up BioNTech, developed the vaccine, using taxpayer money in Germany, and now they're buying up this cancer drug, not with the goal of helping people with cancer get better, but with the goal of increasing profit.
Well, the point is, Hopefully it will.
Hopefully it will help people with cancer and that's a great thing if it helps people with cancer but if the byproduct of that is that they're charging exorbitant rates for this cancer treatment and people can't afford to get it or are basically for the rest of their lives tied to a drug that they can't afford.
And they're monopolizing and managing profits and prices through their practices.
I would go so far as to say, and let me know if you agree with this in the chat and the comments, particularly if you're on Locals, if you're a member of Locals, I see your comments first, that you getting better from cancer is an inadvertent side effect.
Of course.
Of their business practice.
Not the focus of their business practice.
Look at their opioid crisis.
They will make decisions that lead directly to your death if there's a profit in it.
That's just based on the opioid crisis, that comment.
And even for me on Rumble, where I'm free.
By coincidence, a couple of years ago, dear old Jill Biden cropped up on your TV set saying that cancer was, look at that, and they're even using the words there, cancer moonshot, which is a phrase they introduced during the pandemic to say, somehow, maybe, maybe if all the stars align, We'll make a hundred billion dollars from you being locked in your home with a disease with a very low fatality rate that Matt Hancock's texts reveal that even Chris Whitty, who was the scientific advisor and leader in our country, he's our version of Fauci, even that dude was saying, oh, I'm not sure you need to vaccinate a population for something with such a low mortality rate.
So the moonshot they're talking about is the moonshot of taking public money and putting it into private hands.
And if you, when you run out of pandemic, You better jump aboard that cancer train, baby, because cancer ain't going anywhere as long as you live in a culture that essentially causes you cancer.
Let's have a look at Jill Biden's new initiative to massage cancer policies into the public consciousness.
Check it.
So nice and there's someone in a white coat and there's a woman of colour and we're being all friendly and stuff and I don't know man, aren't you tired of this?
Don't you want to be told the truth?
Aren't you ready for the truth?
Aren't you ready for nuanced reporting?
Aren't you ready to participate in a truly democratic conversation?
Aren't you ready for politicians that represent your interests and stand up to corporate interests?
Are you ready?
Are you?
Because, baby, I'm ready.
If you want to be part of our growing community, join us right now on Locals.
Do not delay.
For the small annual fee, you'll get all of our content, additional ad-free content, as well as my stand-up special, Brandemic, which you will enjoy as I skewer some of these corporate interests.
Time now, though, for a little look Look at the type of alliances that we are trying to cultivate.
While we were in your country, America, we met people from, as Gareth said, apparently so-called right-wing news organisations.
Now, the idea of me going on Fox a little while ago, and I asked you guys if you thought I should go on Fox, it would have been unimaginable, inconceivable, and yet I went on Fox.
I've got to say, Greg Gutfield, bloody lovely.
Tucker Carlson, I can't see Tucker Carlson's face now without feeling my heart swell with love.
People say, oh Tucker Carlson, he's a white supremacist and obviously white supremacy is wrong.
I don't feel like Tucker Carlson is a white supremacist.
People right now are saying he's reporting on January 6th, he's irresponsible.
I feel that people should be able to deal with the facts for themselves.
It's possible to go, no, I don't agree with that.
You've edited that footage to make it look not as bad.
What about that when they're smashing up them windows?
You're an adult, right?
You can have that conversation.
You can decide for yourself whether or not January 6th is being used to amplify regulatory measures.
Can you decide that for yourself?
Or would you like some corrupt person to come on your TV set and blag you?
I don't know.
It's up to you.
Let us know in the chat.
When we went on Tucker, what I was able to do, and one of the things that I was most pleased with is like, because I chatted to my mates, Conventional Dems, you know, like Shepard Fairey and that.
Yeah.
Also, it's kind of possible, like, Tucker can have... He's allowed to have views that are different from yours as well.
I think that is the point.
It's allowed!
That's called democracy, isn't it?
I mean, one of the things that we kept pushing when we were on these conversations with, like, Ben Shapiro, who I actually think he's a good guy.
Like, he's got a different perspective than me, but I think he's acting in good faith.
And, like, if you... This is what I believe, and this is... I think this might be the secret.
This might be the main thing we can offer together.
Let me know in the chat and the comments if you agree.
I said to Ben, would you stand on a platform with people from Black Lives Matter, with trans rights activists, the people that on your show you continually are in adversity with, would you stand on a platform with them to confront centralised power?
He said, yes, of course.
I said to Tucker Carlson, I'm not at ease with some of the stuff you said about homeless people because I feel like that's condemning the most vulnerable people in society.
And Tucker Carlson's response was brilliant.
So many comments from you guys.
Thank you for contributing to the conversation.
Amy Bogovila, the lines are blurred now.
Highlander79, Russell has to go through the BBC.
They play ball different over there.
Kelly P. Russell, I'm learning so much about how to have Respectful conversations with diverse people.
Then she says a compliment that I won't read out loud, otherwise it looks like I just used the comments to... We'll discover that you actually wrote it.
Oh, Russell!
I am so... I mean, you are so great!
Oh, sorry, I don't know who wrote that.
Yeah, loads of you.
Some great stuff.
Some people saying like that Tucker was charming there, but they don't trust him.
Other people saying they love Tucker.
Me and Gareth were chatting about it and we were saying like, oh, maybe what it is is like the right or the Republicans, let me know if you agree with this, benefit from voter apathy and disinterestedness in partisan politics.
So ultimately, if everyone thinks the whole system's corrupt and stop voting, old people will still vote because they love it.
And right wing politicians will get in.
But hey, man, you know, you can't make an omelette without What?
Shitting in the woods?
I can't remember the details.
There's something that has to happen for an omelette to happen.
I can't remember.
It's complicated stuff.
Have you ever made an omelette?
It's not very nice.
It smelled disgusting!
And it had a stool in the middle of it, Gareth!
A stool, I tell thee!
Anyway, loads of lovely comments.
And if you want to get involved in these comments, join our locals community.
You can join it for free, but if you become a member, you get ad-free content.
Imagine that.
What a glorious thing that is.
Also, you get the weekly show, Stay Connected, where me and Gareth show you how we make this show and respond directly to your questions, as well as getting my new stand-up, Brandemic.
Have a look at a little clip of that.
It's only a minute long.
It's pretty funny, I think.
Yeah, I remember this bit.
You'll love this.
Have a look at a clip from my stand-up show right now.
Remember the feeling you had, because I fucking do, the first time you saw people queuing up outside the supermarket.
I see people queuing up outside the supermarket and I thought, fuck off!
There's no way that I will ever queue up outside a supermarket!
Like it's a nightclub!
It's not like Phil will be roving a geezer in a stab fest!
And I'm not joking!
The supermarket!
I won't do it.
But I fucking did.
I stood there like an obedient prisoner of the state on my little fucking sticker circle.
And waited till the person on that sticker had moved along.
Then I took my turn nicely.
Like Twister for wankers.
[laughter]
[applause]
[applause]
You can buy that for a one-off fee of $20 on Locals right now,
or for $50 you get access to everything.
Just want to reassure people who might buy it, though, there's not a countdown clock in the corner the whole way through.
Right, no, because that undermines me, that countdown.
It does a little bit, doesn't it?
Like, when's this guy going to shut up in 46 minutes and 32 seconds?
That's when he's going to shut up.
Also, if you join us on Locals, check this out.
You're going to love this.
We're having a podcast with Graham Hancock, the amateur Egyptologist and studier of arcane systems.
Right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Also that, like everyone.
I don't know how he's a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
I think his wife's a black woman.
I feel like he's a pretty cool guy, as a matter of fact.
I've never heard him do or say anything right-wing.
He's the most dangerous man on television, apparently, I think, according to The Guardian.
What's the problem?
All he's saying is there might have been earlier civilizations, he's challenging the archaeological
convention.
You are able to just go, "No, I don't agree with that."
You can just go, "No, I think the archaeological conventions are fine."
It's not like saying, "I'll kill you if you don't agree that archaeological conventions must be challenged."
Anyway, if you want to come and see me, actually in real life...
Chat to Graham Hancock.
We're going to give away a few sets of tickets, but only to people that are on local.
So join it now.
If you're already a Locals member, you'll be able to watch it stream online or win these tickets and actually come here to Stay Free HQ and join us.
Be among us.
Imagine seeing Gareth in the flesh.
Stroking him.
Some of the other people back there that are working so hard to create this content.
You can look at them, study them, prod them.
You can even use my Please Can I Talk Now stick to poke at them.
To goad them.
To goad them into violence.
See how they respond under pressure.
I try every day to give them a little bit of pressure just to see how they cope.
Join my community, sign up to Locals.
There's a red button if you're watching on a laptop.
On a phone it's a bit different, but you know, join up.
You understand tech, right?
You're watching this now.
On the show tomorrow, we've got a city trader turned inequality campaigner by the name of Gary Stevenson.
I've seen this guy on Instagram talking about how the system works.
You'll love it.
He's just talking about the corruption of it.
Sort of an extemporisation on Assange's edict that the function of government is to take public money and to put it into private hands.
He explains how it works.
Like, as Seinfeld famously says, it's like someone who's read the inside of the Monopoly lid, you know, and so knows what community chest means.
What is community chest?
Does anyone really know?
So, join us on the show tomorrow.
Well done today, Gareth.
Great show.
Thank you so much.
You did really well.
That's enough out of you, thanks.
I'm going to talk now.
Join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
