Foreign Fighters Join Ukraine War On BOTH SIDES, Billionaire Says World War Three Likely Has Begun
Foreign Fighters Join Ukraine War On BOTH SIDES, Billionaire Says World War Three Likely Has Begun. As international forces join both sides the war has become some kind of quasi-international war which some are predicting its already world war three.
Russia has begun recruiting Syrians to fight in Ukraine as US and British veterans arrive in Ukraine to fight for a "global effort" to stop Russia
But the idea of foreigners in Ukraine risks escalating the conflict as NATO is already preparing to send weapons and fighter jets to Ukraine.
If the west is arming Ukrainians and foreign citizens with weapons how is it not direct NATO involvement. It seems that the Biden administration and Putin are playing some weird game of chicken where neither will call this war but we all know it is
#Ukraine
#Russia
#WorldWarThree
Become A Member And Protect Our Work at http://www.timcast.com
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Foreign fighters have joined the Ukraine war effort on both sides, with Russia recruiting Syrians and U.S.
Special Forces veterans and even Latvian citizens joining the fight in Ukraine, creating some kind of quasi-international conflict.
And billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman says, World War III likely has already begun.
But maybe he's wrong, and hopefully he is.
In our next story, Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal have cut off Russia.
And in our last story, hold on to your wallets.
Gas prices are heading to an all-time record high, and we're facing potential double-digit inflation.
Now, if you like the show, give us a good review.
Leave us five stars.
It really helps, especially countering the naysayers who don't like us.
Well, I would appreciate it.
Now, let's get into that first story.
It was previously reported that some 16,000 foreign fighters would be joining the Ukrainian war on the side of Ukraine.
We're now getting reporting that Russia has recruited Syrians specializing in urban warfare to join them in their fight against Ukraine.
Now, of course, the Russians aren't calling what they're doing in Ukraine a war.
It's a limited or special military operation.
But of course, We are dangerously close to war.
We've got this guy.
Let me show you this guy.
Bill Ackman says Russia's attack on Ukraine means World War III has likely already started.
I know there are a lot of people who don't like the phrase.
I don't know what to tell you when people are saying that, and there are very disturbing signs, including Foreign individuals joining one side of the war effort on either side.
Now, of course, with Russia, they're recruiting Syrians specifically.
But this is bringing in Syrian nationals into the war effort on the side of Russia.
When it comes to Ukraine, there was a vote in Latvia allowing Latvian civilians to join the Ukrainian war effort.
And now we are hearing that even U.S.
veterans will be joining the war on the side of Ukraine.
At what point Do we just say this is international conflict?
NATO is already set to be providing jets to Ukraine.
They're already helping in Poland.
And on the cyber war front, it seems the West is fully engaged.
Now let me show you where it gets personal.
In this story from Daily Mail, there are no words to express the pain.
Wife of WNBA star Brittany Greiner, arrested on drug charges in Russia, says she's in pain as she anxiously awaits to hear from her.
Now, I'll get into this story later on.
I want to focus on the foreign fighters who are joining the fray, but the point is, this woman, this WNBA star, was arrested, apparently for having a vape pen.
Many believe that this, in fact, is an attempt by Russia to get an American hostage.
Decently high profile, not gonna pretend like the WNBA is the epitome of American culture, but this is someone who took that insane risk of going into Russia at a time of war.
So, is it World War III?
Far be it for me to say exactly, definitively, that it is.
Do we have a quasi-international war happening?
Yes.
Literally.
That's only a matter of time before this escalates because there's no signs that anyone is backing down.
The latest news reports are that Putin is shelling civilians.
Vladimir Putin, or I should say Russia, has issued demands that Ukraine give up any chance of ever joining any kind of bloc like the EU or NATO.
They give up the Donbass region and Crimea.
Ukraine is basically saying, never gonna happen.
But then we're hearing the leadership in Ukraine call out to NATO saying, defend us.
And they've already applied to join the EU, which of course, as I stated to many others, was a provocation.
Maybe it was legitimate.
Ukraine really does want to be in the EU.
It'll be great for their economy.
But of course, that was spitting on Putin at a time when he was invading their country.
If more foreigners keep joining this fight, then basically what we have is both sides kind of playing the stupid game of chicken.
Nobody really wants to say that they've declared war or it's getting to that point, but when American veterans, when citizens from a NATO country are joining the effort and NATO is supplying weapons, please tell me how this doesn't make it international war.
Is it because NATO has to formally state it?
Or that troops under the command of a government officially must do it?
Well, that's ridiculous.
You could just have any NATO country be like, okay, you guys are all, like, top-ranking special dudes in the military.
We're just gonna call you civilians.
Go fight.
It makes no sense, if you were to ask me.
And now, of course, we're hearing from China.
China says that if Taiwan tries doing anything like what Ukraine did, or, let's just say, they're warning the US and Taiwan, Because maybe there's going to be a Pacific defense pact.
I don't, I mean there are certain agreements for sure.
But what China is saying, Taiwan better not play that game.
And of course we're seeing the financial, the collapse of these financial ties between these countries.
And it seems like we very well may be looking at international war.
Maybe not World War III, I don't know, but some people certainly think so.
Well, let's get started with the first story.
Before we get into the, you know, predictions by Bill Ackman, or the story of this WNBA star, let's take a look at what's actually happening with Russia bringing in the Syrians.
Before we get started, head over to TimCast.com and become a member if you want to help support the work that I do with these videos, as well as our journalists.
Go to TimCast.com, check out our reporting.
We've got tons of great journalists working day and night to get you awesome stories.
Not always political, not always pessimistic.
Hey, here's a story.
You can now spend the night with monkeys, tigers, and chimps at a sanctuary in Ohio, written by Cassandra Fairbanks.
We've also got a lot of big, important news.
We have reporters on the ground right now at the Trucker Convoy, and if you like the work we do, become a member, and you will also get access to exclusive podcasts from TimCast IRL.
You can find them on the website.
Don't forget to smash that like button, subscribe to this channel, share the show with your friends.
Let's read this story from the Wall Street Journal.
Russia recruiting Syrians for urban combat in Ukraine, U.S.
officials say.
I don't want to bury the lead too much, so we'll read this, but I also want to highlight this story from BuzzFeed News.
A team of American and British Special Forces veterans are preparing to join Ukraine's fight against Russia.
And now we have a photo.
First, foreigners have already joined International Legion, Ukraine's volunteer military force, and are fighting outside of Kiev.
According to the Ukrainian ground forces, the volunteers come from the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Lithuania, Mexico, and India.
How is this not international conflict?
It's weird, isn't it?
I think the idea of limited warfare, or this idea that we have to play a game of chess, is apparent in everyone's minds.
Well, the US can deny involvement.
These are just random people.
Don't blame us.
We didn't endorse or support this, but I gotta stop.
The Wall Street Journal reports, Moscow is recruiting Syrians skilled in urban combat to fight in Ukraine as Russia's invasion is poised to expand deeper into cities, according to U.S.
officials.
An American assessment indicates that Russia, which has been operating inside Syria since 2015, has in recent days been recruiting fighters from there, hoping their expertise in urban combat can help them take Kiev.
And deal a devastating blow to the Ukraine government.
According to four American officials, the move points to a potential escalation of fighting in Ukraine, experts said.
It is unclear how many fighters have been identified, but some are already in Russia preparing to enter the conflict, according to one official.
Officials declined to elaborate on what else is known about the deployment of Syrian fighters to Ukraine, the status or precise scale of the effort.
According to a publication based in Der Ezor, Syria.
Russia has offered volunteers from the country between $200 and $300 to go to Ukraine and operate as guards for six months at a time.
I gotta pause and say, I hope it's on a one-time flat fee, because that doesn't seem to be worth it.
Chechen forces have also been deployed to Ukraine, according to a Reuters report, citing Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechen Republic and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Fighters are also pouring into the country to fight on the side of Kiev-based government.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that 16,000 foreigners have volunteered to fight for Ukraine, part of what he described as an international legion.
With volunteers from other countries flowing into Ukraine, the conflict there could become
a new center of gravity for foreign fighters, said Jennifer Caffarella, National Security Fellow at
the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. Quote, The Russian deployment of foreign
fighters from Syria into Ukraine internationalizes the Ukraine war and therefore could link the war
in Ukraine to broader cross-regional dynamics, particularly in the Middle East.
Tens of thousands of troops are inside Ukraine, and mortar missiles and other attacks are occurring daily in the northern, eastern, and southern regions of the country.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have fled the cities, which were home to roughly two-thirds of the population before the invasion began on February 24th.
Ukraine remains in the hands of Mr. Zelensky's government, and the largest cities, Kiev, the capital, and Kharkiv in the east, remain under government control.
Russia has taken over the port city of Kursan, and Ukraine's other cities now face an assault from Russia.
Syrian fighters have spent nearly a decade fighting urban warfare, while Russia's largely conscripted force lacks this skill set.
Ms.
Carfella said, I'm sorry, Ms.
Caffarella said, Syrian forces deployed to Ukraine could also be asked to work a support role.
Based on how they worked in Syria with the Wagner Group, a mercenary force that some see as a proxy for the Russian government.
Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, questioned how useful the recruits from the Middle East could be in Ukraine.
Mr. Lister said, there are some Russian trained Syrians who were involved in hunting members of
the Islamic State who might be in Ukraine, but generally Moscow didn't consider Syrian fighters
to be good at urban warfare. Quote, bringing Syrians into Ukraine is like bringing Martians
to fight on the moon. Mr. Lister said, they don't speak the language, the environment is totally
different. Russia has been a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since it entered the
conflict largely through airstrike, as well as Russian armed forces.
The Wagner Group, which arrived in Syria shortly after Russia entered the conflict on behalf of the Assad regime, has conducted support operations such as seizing oil and gas fields and securing other government infrastructure, such as airports.
Russia, which positioned nearly 200,000 troops along Ukrainian border in the weeks leading up to the invasion, Hey it's Kimberly Fletcher here from Moms4America with some very exciting news.
unidentified
Tucker Carlson is going on a nationwide tour this fall and Moms4America has the exclusive VIP meet and greet experience for you.
Before each show, you can have the opportunity to meet Tucker Carlson in person.
These tickets are fully tax-deductible donations, so go to momsforamerica.us and get one of our very limited VIP meet-and-greet experiences with Tucker at any of the 15 cities on his first ever Coast to Coast tour.
Not only will you be supporting Moms for America in our mission to empower moms, promote liberty, and raise patriots, your tax-deductible donation secures you a full VIP experience with priority entrance and check-in, premium gold seating in the first five rows, access to a pre-show cocktail reception, an individual meet-and-greet, and photo with America's most famous conservative and our friend, Tucker Carlson.
Visit Moms4America.us today for more information and to secure your exclusive VIP meet and greet tickets.
A website to guide foreign fighters to enlist with the International Defense Legion of Ukraine was launched on Sunday night by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
The enlistment website includes a step-by-step guide on how to join the Legion, including specific contact information for individual countries.
Israel was one of the countries included with detailed contact details.
Volunteers were instructed to contact the Ukrainian embassy in their country for an interview.
After filling out documents, they would get instructions on how to travel to Ukraine and join operational units.
President Zelensky has created the International Legion of Ukraine, consisting of foreign citizens wishing to join the resistance against the Russian occupants and fight for global security.
Join the Legion and help us defend Ukraine, Europe, and the world.
We're, uh...
We got a rock and a hard spot on our hands.
There's many who have said that if we do not save Ukraine, we are signaling to China that Taiwan is fair game and we will not save them either.
I'm not entirely convinced because, well, the U.S.
has already shown willingness to defend Taiwan, particularly when Chinese destroyers or fleets move through the South China Sea or, you know, between Taiwan.
What is it?
The Strait of... I can't remember the name of the specific body of water.
But the U.S.
does send naval vehicles in the area to maintain the peace, as it were.
With Ukraine, the U.S.
is more reluctant to get involved.
But there's an inverse here.
If the U.S.
does get involved with Ukraine, China will see an opportunity, and they will move in on Taiwan.
Now, I don't know exactly what will happen.
I think it's fair to say, as I often do, I can't see the future.
I did not foresee this.
I did not think this was going to happen.
But take it from me.
Don't take it from me, right?
If I tell you, here's what I think may happen because of something that's happening, take it with a grain of salt.
Maybe slightly leaning towards, I get some things right sometimes.
We talked about the culture war, the escalation, and what was gonna happen.
We get some of these things right.
But honestly, I don't know everything.
There are a lot of variables here that I don't see.
What I can tell you is, let's bring all these pieces together.
Ukraine is overtly trying to bring in foreign citizens.
American and British Special Forces are reportedly already on the ground.
What do you think Russia is going to say when you've got US, UK, Sweden, Lithuania, Mexico, and India sending in fighters on behalf of Ukraine?
Now, the reason why I say it's quasi-international war is because India is officially neutral, and in many ways, they do side with Russia.
As part of the BRICS nations, they kind of go either way, right?
Some Chinese banks have said no to Russia, some are going to allow the mere payment system to move forward.
to counter visa and mastercard shutting down operations in Russia. At the same time, TikTok,
which is basically China, is backing away and saying we're not going to allow operations.
It's hard to know how this goes, something many of us didn't expect. Take a look at this story
from February 28th, Reuters. Latvia allows its citizens to fight in Ukraine.
Quote, our citizens who want to support Ukraine and volunteer to serve there to defend Ukraine's independence, our common security must be able to do so, said Juris Rankinis, a chairman of the Parliamentary Defense, Home Affairs, and Corruption Prevention Commission, which drafted the law.
Latvia's parliament voted unanimously on Monday to allow its nationals to fight in Ukraine if willing, the parliament said in a statement.
Well, Russia has responded.
Russia vows prosecution of foreign fighters after 16,000 join Ukraine.
Russia threatened to bring criminal prosecution against any foreigners who travel to Ukraine to fight with the Eastern European nation as Moscow continues to press its internationally condemned invasion of the country.
The Russian invasion entered a second week on Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale assault.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Sunday he was establishing an international legion, this we now know about.
So Russia has responded.
They're going to take action.
In response to the creation of the new Foreign Legion, a spokesman for the Russian military said that Moscow would not treat these volunteers the same as it would Ukrainian soldiers.
Threatening them with more severe repercussions.
I quote, I wish to make an official statement that none of the mercenaries the West is sending to Ukraine to fight for the nationalist regime in Kiev can be considered as combatants in accordance with international humanitarian law or enjoy the status of prisoners of war.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Thursday, Russia's TASS news agency reported, Let's talk about this.
The potential for World War 3.
Forgive me if people don't want to hear the phrase.
I think it's a fair point and a fair criticism.
before traveling to fight alongside Ukrainians. Russia has faced substantial international
backlash. I'm sure this many of you are aware of. Let's talk about this. The potential for World War
Three. Forgive me if people don't want to hear the phrase.
I think it's a fair point and a fair criticism. Some people have said, you know, Tim is saying
everything is World War Three, blah, blah, blah. No, only because it's being reported in the media.
I want to make this clear.
I certainly have opinions on the news that's being reported.
I certainly have a news organization with a team of journalists reporting the news.
But my response to statements of World War III, for the most part, I'm not going to pretend like I don't question World War III, When it comes to the idea of Civil War or World War III, I don't want people to believe it's inevitable.
I do, personally, my opinion is, some of these things may be.
Notably, that the U.S.
is headed towards some kind of civil war, especially when you look at gas prices and inflation, and what's happening now with Russia, it could exacerbate things.
As for World War III, I don't think we're at that point yet, and in fact, in a previous segment, I said, we are not in World War III.
Not yet.
But it's possible.
We're not talking about fictional reality.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman has warned that World War III has likely already started amid Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine.
Ackman argued that Western failure to intervene in Moscow's invasions of Georgia and Crimea has emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to take more.
But he said that ultimately the key to ending the crisis in Ukraine sat with China.
Now I want to get into his thoughts and opinions.
This is a billionaire hedge fund manager.
It doesn't mean he's the smartest guy in the world.
It could just be that he can see more.
But it could be wrong about a lot.
We all are.
We all want to say we know, but we don't know.
There are a lot of, I'll say this, there's propaganda coming after my channels for sure.
Spamming comments down, you know, disliking and trying to get my content banned.
I'm not saying everybody who disagrees is a bot, but I'm saying there are certainly bots because you can see the repeat messages.
Russia didn't do this, Russia didn't do that, yo.
I know it's propaganda, a lot of it.
I know they manipulate, a lot of it.
I can only report on what seems to be the case for the most part.
This story to me right here with Brittany Griner may be one of the most shocking.
If Russia really is arresting someone for having a vape pen and calling it drug smuggling, this could be because of the conflict and they have a hostage.
Or it could be that they just don't allow vape pens, I guess.
The Daily Mail reports Brittany Greiner's wife says there are no words to express her grief as a WNBA star remains detained in Russia on drug charges.
We love you, babe, Sherelle Greiner wrote in a new Instagram post alongside a picture of the 31-year-old Phoenix Mercury Center and other family members.
Griner, who had been playing professionally in Russia, was detained last month after a vape pen filled with hash oil was allegedly found in her luggage in a Moscow airport, according to the authorities.
Her arrest was not revealed until Saturday.
She faced up to 10 years in prison in a Russian prison on drug smuggling charges.
This could be nothing.
I mean, this could be a criminal.
being beats every day that goes by without hearing from you.
It's not clear where Greiner is being detained.
Her agent did not immediately respond to Daily Mail's request for comment.
This could be nothing.
I mean, this could be a criminal.
This could be a WNBA player who had hash oil, committed a crime, and got caught.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the U.S.
will provide every possible assistance to citizens who are being held in foreign countries as the war in Ukraine continues.
But of course, I want to point out, I don't simply highlight a story that says someone was arrested in some place to purposefully try and link it.
I don't actually like stories being linked, for the most part.
But this is a very real possibility.
And many people have actually mentioned this could be related.
Some saying that this could be an attempt at taking a hostage.
Blinken currently is in Eastern Europe amid the Ukraine war.
He was asked on Sunday about US efforts to secure her release.
There's only so much I can say given the privacy considerations at this point.
Whenever an American is detained anywhere in the world, we of course stand ready to provide every possible assistance.
He added, we have an embassy team that's working on cases of other Americans who are detained in Russia.
We're doing everything we can to see to it that their rights are upheld and respected.
We can see her in these photos.
Griner is pictured putting her bag through a scanner after she was approached by a sniffer dog.
Pictured in black, she is seen stopped by airport police after a sniffer dog picked up something in her bag.
And they go on to say, on Saturday, Sherelle Greiner pleaded for her partner's release from
Russian jail. I love my wife wholeheartedly. So this message comes during one of the weakest
moments in my life. I understand that many of you have grown to love BG over the years
and have concerns and want details. Greiner was detained last month while flying into play for
her Russian basketball team during the WNBA offseason. But there has been no confirmed date
of when she was arrested. Her last communication was February 5th, when she posted a photo to
Instagram of her and the Phoenix Mercury teammates. Now, Russia might use Greiner
as leverage as she faced up to 10 years in prison.
Quote, if we want her out of jail, Russia is going to have some terms. Former U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Russia and Ukraine, Evelyn Farkas, told Yahoo Sports, it could be a
prisoner swap. They could also use it as an implicit threat or blackmail to get us to do something or
not to do something. Either way, they find it useful. Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee,
who represents Greiner's hometown of Houston, and says she knew the star back when she played
high school ball, said during a press conference that she has spoken with the State Department
in an effort to get the star released.
We know that there was some issue dealing with the vape cartridge and other items, but let me be very clear.
Brittany Greiner is a U.S.
citizen.
She was a guest in Russia.
I will be demanding her release.
I don't want to disregard a sovereign nation, but Putin has disregarded sovereign nations, his entire service, in this world, and anyone that is killing and attacking and destroying Ukraine, their neighboring country, that does not bother them, has no right to hold Mrs. Greiner, period.
If there is challenges and concerns about her actions, it should be dealt with diplomatically, and she should be released.
So I'll stress this.
She was arrested well before the conflict began.
The fear, I suppose, Russia has absolutely been planning for this.
They've been building up troops on the border.
They knew they were going to be moving in.
But I gotta be honest, I don't think that Russia staged a hoax to try and arrest this woman.
I do believe, the reason this is relevant, is that if war is escalating, and it appears to be, if war does escalate, this absolutely will cause a problem for Brittany Greiner and absolutely play out some way in this international conflict.
Anytime there's citizens on either side, you're going to have some kind of request for a prisoner exchange or something to that effect.
Russia will use every asset it has, and you know what?
Greiner may end up being a bit piece, kind of negligible in the whole grand scheme of things, with the news coming out.
However, you've got a story here.
Ultimately, maybe I spent too much time on this, because maybe it's nothing, to be completely honest.
There's another person who tried carrying a hash vape pen, and there you go.
Maybe Russia lied.
Honestly, I have no idea.
I just feel that we're going to see more stories like this, and they're going to keep trying to insinuate or present some kind of relation to the war.
The West may try to be blaming Russia, saying they're doing it on purpose because of the war, to put Russia in a position where they're forced to back down because they don't want to be seen as taking hostages.
The bigger question is, how far will this go?
Well, Fiona Hill, like her or hate her, she says, yes, he would.
What does that mean?
Fiona Hill on Putin and nukes.
Yeah, I think he would.
I agree.
This is from February 28th.
For many watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine, for many watching, for many people, the Russian invasion of Ukraine felt like a series of he-can't-be-doing-this moments.
Russia's Vladimir Putin has launched the largest ground war in Europe since the Second World War, and it's quite literally mind boggling.
The writer says they reached out to Fiona Hill, one of America's most clear-eyed Russian experts.
Well, I certainly disagree with that.
I think Fiona Hill is kind of off a rocker and obsessed.
And her view is, let's just say she's hyper-focused.
There's other things at play here internationally.
Some people have told me mutually assured destruction would prevent him from doing so, and let's just drop the debate.
Fine.
In the instance of ICBMs, perhaps.
In the instance of tactical nukes and nuclear artillery, I'd say no.
The use of high-powered nuclear weapons on military targets, I believe Vladimir Putin absolutely has on the table.
Now, ultimately, I don't know where this goes.
I can't make predictions.
I was wrong.
I'm gonna say it outright.
I was talking about all these predictions.
Nah, he won't do this, he won't do that.
Wrong.
It seems like things are escalating to a dangerous degree.
Let me show you this from China.
Bloomberg reports China warns U.S.
against forming Pacific NATO and backing Taiwan.
To me, this does kind of seem a lot like China's not in the spotlight.
You know, Russia moves into Ukraine, and now the whole world is focused there.
And then, like, there is no Pacific NATO, basically.
And so, they're like, well, you better not do that with Taiwan!
And the U.S.
is just like, we didn't.
We're over here.
Like, okay, China.
Here's the story.
China warned the U.S.
against trying to build what it called a Pacific version of NATO, while declaring that security disputes over Taiwan and Ukraine were not comparable at all.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his annual news briefing Monday that the real goal of the U.S.' 's Indo-Pacific strategy was to form Asia's answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
China has often accused the U.S.
of trying to form blocks to suppress its growth, a complaint that's likely to attract greater attention after President Vladimir Putin cited similar grievances before his invasion of Ukraine.
The perverse actions run counter to the common aspiration of the region for peace development, cooperation, and win-win outcomes.
I think the US absolutely does want to create expanding blocs, like NATO.
NATO's purpose, basically, stopping the Soviet Union.
And now there are questions about what NATO is doing.
Well, inhibiting the growth of blocks outside of NATO.
Look, NATO forms, we're going to stop the Soviets, basically the Soviets collapse.
Is NATO just going to be like, now we dissolve?
Of course not.
Those who have power don't want to give it up.
And the people at the highest levels of NATO, they're probably thinking, What if something else rises in its stead?
The more powerful our bloc is, the more likely it is to prevent the emergence of another bloc.
And then, war.
Wrong.
As we can see with the BRICS nations.
Of course, I certainly can't predict how things will play out.
There are Chinese banks that are backing Russia in the face of these sanctions, but we're getting news that TikTok is basically saying, nah, we're gonna shut down in Russia.
Apparently, uh, we have the story of the Daily Mail.
TikTok, American Express, and PricewaterhouseCoopers all suspend operations in Russia.
Social media giant joins firms boycotting Russia over censorship as economic vice titans on Moscow.
TikTok suspended all live streaming and content sharing in Russia on Sunday.
Apparently, people in Russia can't see outside using TikTok either.
So it's not just they can't post, they also can't see what other people are doing.
So I think, basically, it's just, it just basically means it's shut down.
Now, maybe this means that TikTok isn't as heavily entrenched with China as many people want to believe.
I don't know for sure.
But it shows there are a lot of interests cutting Russia off, and that there is an escalation, and it's not so absolute.
China may be joining with Russia.
India, Brazil, South Africa, we don't know for sure.
This is a large economic bloc, so maybe, ultimately, we see something happening.
But it kind of does feel like Russia has been isolated.
Even though NATO and the West has limited the growth of other economic blocs, The BRICS nations, which are powerful, don't seem willing to play that game.
And now we have this from Timcast.
Financial giants cut ties with China.
The majority of the Big Four accounting firms globally have decided to cut ties with China, impacting thousands of employees.
On Monday, Ernst Young said it would sever its ties with operations in Russia, echoing similar choices by KPMG and PwC, a significant move by three of the world's Big Four accounting and consulting firms.
The Big Four, which also includes Deloitte, handles the audits of most blue-chip companies.
Their work and reports are often vital to obtaining international investor backing for their clients.
Quote, In light of the escalating war, the EY Global Organization will no longer serve any Russian government clients, state-owned enterprises, or sanctioned entities and individuals anywhere in the world.
EY has commenced a restructuring of its Russian member firm to separate it from the global network.
I don't think it is that each of these groups are taking hard moral stances.
I think it's that with the announcement of sanctions by financial institutions and the cutting off of, in many ways, banks, almost from SWIFT, but many banks are cut off from SWIFT.
These financial firms are like, we don't want to be attached to Russia when all this stuff is falling down, so one by one, the lines are being severed.
Ultimately, my fear is, you sever enough, you unleash Russia, and they say, if we have nothing left to lose, so be it.
The only thing we have to lose is our nuclear arsenal.
Or our military.
In which case, they'll use it to get what they want.
Now, as an aside, perhaps one of the, I don't know, I don't know what you'd call this.
Maybe it's fake news.
Or one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard publicly expressed.
Trump's wild scheme.
Bomb the ish out of Russia with U.S.
F-22s disguised as Chinese planes.
The former president lets donors in on a plan that's so crazy it might trigger a nuclear war.
Speaking with Republican donors the other night, former President Donald Trump spitballed the wildly dangerous idea, a false flag basically, proposing the U.S.
bomb Russia, disguise the planes as China, to trick Vladimir Putin into fighting the
CCP.
That makes literally no sense.
And then we say China did it, we didn't do it, China did it, and then they start fighting
with each other and we sit back and watch, Trump said, according to the Washington Post,
which obtained a recording of the speech.
To be clear, when Trump says we sit back and watch, he's talking about a war that would
kill thousands or millions of people.
I don't believe it.
I think they've lied so much about what Trump really wants.
The goal of this story is, well, elections are coming up midterms, Trump's going to be endorsing people, and then we're going to have an election in 2024.
Smear tactics.
Smear campaigns.
Now look, maybe Trump said something to this effect, but I don't know the context, and I don't trust the Rolling Stone or the Washington Post to be honest about it.
That's why I say it's probably fake news in a certain way.
Lemnitzer proposing that we, you know, get fake Cubans to attack us in Florida so we could justify an invasion.
False flags work.
Fog of War, man.
The U.S.
was accusing Russia of preparing for a false flag attack.
It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
You know why?
One, the U.S.
Saying it does nothing.
Because even Russia could then, look, they come out and say, Russia's going to do a false flag, and Russia goes, no we aren't.
And then Russian forces get attacked, and they go, we were attacked.
And all the West can do is say, it wasn't us.
So actually, no, take it back.
I guess it was a savvy thing.
It would give Biden the real opportunity, would be that you can claim they're going to false flag, that way when you attack, you can say, see, we told you it would be a false flag.
The crazy thing is, would people believe it?
I don't think it matters.
I think all of these people are nuts.
I think ego makes people lose their minds.
No one's willing to back down.
And I think the West underestimates Vladimir Putin's ego.
His ideology.
I don't think he's looking at this like, you know, I want oil.
I think it's a huge role, you know, mind you.
I've said it before, I think oil and gas and getting resources for his country play a big role.
Majid Nawaz said, you know, and I hope I'm getting his position right, but when we talked, that this is basically what Russia wanted.
They don't want Ukraine and NATO.
They want to be able to get their gas to the country.
They want to be able to support themselves.
And he also mentioned biolabs.
I don't know about all of that.
I know there were bio labs, but I don't think, I think people are jumping the gun on assuming that's the principal reason for what's happening.
I think resources play a role, but I think what really plays a role is Russia, Vladimir Putin, his pride, the power of Russia, the strength of their military, and Putin saying, I'm strong enough not to be pushed around.
And I think that's why we're here.
Now, one by one, the dominoes fall.
Will China back Russia?
Seems to be in certain ways.
Will the other BRICS nations?
Not so much so far.
Who will join Ukraine's international defense force?
A lot of people, seemingly.
What happens if Russians kill U.S.
veterans?
The U.S.
is going to be like, well, they went on their own.
What if they kill a bunch of Latvian citizens?
Is Latvia going to say, we can't do anything about it?
Or does it get to a point where Russia is accused of doing something unspeakable to a citizen of a foreign country?
What if there's someone in Ukraine who is, I don't know, Spanish or German, and they're not there fighting?
They get captured by Russians.
And the Russians torture them, assuming they're a foreign fighter.
What will Germany do?
How will NATO respond?
These are all potential pitfalls, because you get to the point where one side says, I will not back down.
I mentioned this in a previous segment, but go watch the movie, The Sum of All Fears.
Old movie with Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck.
Ensemble cast, mind you.
And someone is trying to trigger a war between the US and Russia.
Like, you know, kind of like what they're accusing Trump of saying.
Both sides know that it's outrageous, or I should say the U.S.
thinks Russia nuked them.
Russia knows they didn't, but Russia knows the U.S.
doesn't care and is going to attack them, so they ramp up security and both sides prepare to wipe each other out.
I'm not going to spoil the movie for you.
But just watch.
It's like, it's an escalation where both sides just refuse to back down.
That's where we could be headed, and that's scary.
Quasi-international war.
Hopefully that's all this is.
Maybe.
And maybe if a few years goes by and then everything kind of simmers down and boil, you know, peters out, nothing happens.
I hope so.
But you've got a hedge fund billionaire who's saying it basically already happened.
It's already started.
A member of Ukrainian parliament said it did.
A Ukrainian activist speaking to Boris Johnson said it's here.
I'm not gonna say it.
You can say it, whatever.
They're saying it.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up tonight at 8 p.m.
over at youtube.com slash timcast IRL.
Thanks for hanging out, and I'll see you all then.
Over the weekend, Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal announced they would be suspending operations in Russia.
This means that if you have a credit card that was issued in Russia by a Russian bank, it will not work outside the country.
If you have a credit card, Visa, or Mastercard that was issued outside of Russia, it will not work inside of Russia.
Now, Because Russia uses domestic networks for local transactions, this will not stop local Russians from being able to buy goods, but we have already seen many services shut down.
Photos claiming to show people lined up outside of kiosks at the train station because their cards don't work anymore.
Key pieces of infrastructure are being stripped away from Russian citizens, and this, my friends, is one of the most dramatic escalations of sanctions that we've seen yet.
I remember about 12 or so years ago, maybe more, I was talking to some friends who were big in online conspiracy stuff, and they were like, I don't know, man, there's gonna be this one world currency, and they were saying, like, they're gonna make the Amaro, and there were pictures that were circulating online of the Amaro.
The Amaro was the currency between Canada, the US, and Mexico.
And there were some people that told me that even in college economics courses, they were discussing the North American block currency, which would have been the Amaro.
And I don't know if any of that was true or whatever, but I just said to them, I was like, that makes no sense to me.
There already is a one-world currency.
We don't need a North American currency.
Your currency is simply Visa and MasterCard.
Because when you travel anywhere in the world, you can swipe your Visa or MasterCard, and it will work.
Now, you may not be able to relate prices properly, or, you know, calculate price properly, because, you know, let's say you got 100 bucks, and you go to the UK, and, you know, the pound or whatever is like $1.13 or $1.35, whatever it's at, I don't even know what it's at.
You know, so you're gonna see something that says, like, 135 pounds, and you're gonna be like, I got enough, I don't know how much exactly.
And then what happens is, when you swipe that card, the currency exchange is instant.
There's no need for a single currency when we just use our cards and our credit to buy things.
So what this really shows is that the international payment system, as well as tons of other tech infrastructure, are cutting off Russia.
Why does that matter to you?
Russia is now going to be working with China on something called the Miracard system, something they've been setting up since 2014.
This system is going to be teaming up with China's UnionPay to compete with Visa and MasterCard.
And I suppose there's a good thing there in a certain sense.
Competition is good.
Visa and MasterCard owning everything is bad.
But because of the war, it's not going to be real competition.
It's not like you're going to have the option to choose from Mir, UnionPay, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, or whatever.
It's going to be one faction of the planet uses this, another faction uses that.
And the big issue here is, while Russia may not be the biggest economy in the world, if they team up with other BRICS nations, all of a sudden a large portion of the economy is now segmented from the rest of the world.
A lot was done over the past several decades to bring the economies closer together with working relationships and trade.
Russia and China breaking off, Things are gonna get real interesting.
So what can you expect?
Gas prices are already up, the highest they've been in, like, several decades, or since 2008, I think.
I was, uh, we just drove up to PA.
We were hanging out in Altoona.
Because there's nothing in Altoona, but we decided to go there anyway.
And gas, I think, was, like, $4.50?
Like, between $4 and $5 a gallon.
Seriously.
Diesel was, like, $5.50 in some areas.
I think we got it for, like, $5.20 for diesel, because we have a diesel truck.
And that's crazy!
It's gonna get worse.
People need to pay attention to what makes this country work, what makes the economy work.
Fertilizer, for instance.
So when we talk about Visa and MasterCard and PayPal, Shutting off Russian operations.
The thing about PayPal, which is interesting, is it's gonna be different from Visa and MasterCard.
There's probably a lot of people in Russia who use it, although I don't think it's probably the dominant network, I could be wrong, but this means people are losing their jobs.
This means that there are people, with all the censorship and all the banning, you're gonna have people who make money off the digital economy internationally, in Russia, now gone.
All of a sudden, they're not making any money.
Well, Russia's gonna be worse off for it.
The people will be a lot poorer, but this means that exchange will not be happening with us either.
Fertilizer is a big component.
It's a big component in prices, and we import a lot from Russia.
Currently, we're still buying oil from Russia.
Think about that.
Russia invades Ukraine.
We still buy oil from them, which funds the war effort.
It's psychotic, isn't it?
Well, what's the alternative?
If we stop importing oil from Russia because we're not energy independent anymore.
Thanks, Joe Biden.
You are going to see your prices skyrocket.
So let's read this news about what it means for Visa and MasterCard.
Before we do, something I only do rarely, as you know, but I will do now, is shout out Safe and Ready Meals.
Go to safeandreadymeals.com.
Share the URL with friends if you like it.
It is a sponsored spot.
That means when you buy from safeandreadymeals.com, you're helping support this show and the work we do.
These are emergency food supplies.
You can see they've got a three-month emergency food supply and a four-week emergency food supply.
My mentality is always this.
Don't panic.
Don't think the world's ending.
I don't know how much food you think you need or you do need because I don't know your family.
I have a lot of this stuff.
Plus we got like 30 some odd employees, so we want to have a lot.
And it's basically just like dried food, you mix it with some water, you heat it up.
The reason I think this is great to shout out is that even if there's no war, no conflict, no apocalypse, it's good to have an emergency food supply and water, mind you.
You should have water, food, and a first aid kit.
Because sometimes it rains.
That's what I like to say.
I remember the floods in Houston, and I'm like, if you're gonna be shut out and you have perishables, it's good to have some stuff that's not... It is perishable, but, you know, it's a 25-year shelf life.
So if your roads get snowed in, if your power goes out or whatever, and you're like, hey, we got, you know, a hurricane hit, and we're two weeks without power, you can crack this stuff open, and you've got food.
It's not like you want to live off of it.
And truth be told, if you know anything about survival, when, uh, if it does go south, if there is a major crisis
or whatever, the last thing you want to do is tap into your emergency
reserves.
You want to figure out other ways to get food.
But I was thinking about this too.
I mean, this is a perfect opportunity to pick this stuff up, because if we really do break out in a war,
aside from the fact that you'll want some kind of food to eat,
resilience for the American people is a good thing.
If the American people can survive four weeks or three months, you know, in the face of a massive supply chain disruption, gas prices and everything, well then, you know, we're going to be better off for it, and we're more likely to succeed against any international conflict that does occur.
But the other thing I want to point out is that I think inflation is going to play a huge role in everything, so get it while you can.
Or don't.
Tell me I'm wrong.
You don't have to, you know, Buy it, just because, you know, I'm shouting it out, but when you do, it does support the show, and I do think it is something important you and your family should have.
Worst case scenario is it lasts 25 years, you put it in your closet, you forget about it.
Or, no, actually, worst case scenario, you crack it open and you eat it, and you're terrified, huddling in your tattered clothes.
The best case scenario is you get some food you can eat at some point, you know, and you buy food, so there you go.
I don't like shouting out that kind of stuff all too often, only when I feel like there's a need for it, because it's one of those, you know, look, I think that's a great product, but anyway, I digress.
Let's read about the news, because here's where it gets interesting.
Russia is turning to China, which is now going to be strengthening the Dragon Bear economic bloc, or the BRICS economic bloc, which, in my opinion, this is the kind of thing that can lead to war.
When you have two powerful factions that are able to sustain themselves and oppose each other, War breaks out.
One of the neoliberal ideas they've been pushing for the past several decades is that the more they build trade lines and make everybody dependent on everybody else, the less likely there will be for war.
This is the component.
of the liberal economic order. So you may have heard Ian talk about this on Timcast IRL. The
basic idea is the IMF, monetary fund, it's what they do.
They go to these countries and say, be indebted to us, we'll give you all this great stuff, and
then we're not going to have war because we have agreements and you get good stuff from us.
That's kind of the idea. But when this fractures from it, when you now have other
countries saying, we're going to do our own economic system, our own payment system, you
You now have the liberal economic order types, IMF, WEF, whatever you want to call it, saying, you cannot do this.
You're basically creating a parallel economy.
But when there is a parallel economy in conflict, you get war.
Newsweek says, The Russian Central Bank announced on Sunday that some of the country's banks plan to issue cards using UnionPay, a Chinese card operating system with Russia's Mir payment system, after Visa and MasterCard suspended its operations in the country over its invasion of Ukraine.
Credit cards issued by Russian banks using Visa and MasterCard payment systems will also stop functioning overseas after March 9th, according to Reuters.
UnionPay is a Chinese system that is enabled in 180 countries and specializes in providing cross-border payment services.
In using UnionPay as an alternative, Russia's Mir Network, a payment system for electronic fund transfers and is sponsored by the Russian government, will partner with the Chinese system to issue co-badged cards.
Sabre Bank, Russia's largest lender, said that it will be studying the possibility of issuing co-badged cards called Mir UnionPay and that they will announce the launch date of those cards at a later time, Russian news agency TASS reported.
Cards that combine Mir Network and the UnionPay system will allow users to make payments and cash withdrawals abroad, according to TAS.
Alphabank, a private bank in Russia, is also considering adopting this option.
Alphabank said that they are already at work to launch cards based on UnionPay, with Tinkoff Bank also considering this step, TAS and Reuters reported.
However, some Russian banks are already using the Chinese payment system, including the Russian Regional Development Bank, VBRR, Pochta Bank, Gazprom Bank, Rosolkhoz Bank, Bank St.
Petersburg, and Probsivyez Bank.
All right.
Visa and MasterCard on Sunday joined the growing list of companies suspending its operations in Russia over the invasion.
Visa's CEO, Al Kelly, denounced the Russian invasion in a statement and called it an ongoing threat to peace and stability that requires a response in line with our values.
I'll tell you what I think.
I think these companies in the West are preparing for a larger-scale war with Russia.
In the United States, if we go to war with Russia, declaration, companies cannot provide any services.
Which means, you do not want to be a company like Visa or Mastercard, sitting there with your thumb up your bum, when the government announces, we have formally declared war on Russia, and we are entering the fray, going to be defending Ukraine.
And then your Visa and Mastercard going like, We're actively supporting an enemy of the United States at a time of war.
Now, I don't think if there was a declaration of war, these companies would be punished, necessarily, because the declaration happened, and then they were like, okay, now we're going to suspend operations.
But it is substantially easier.
And I'm not saying it's necessarily because they think it's going to happen, but I think it's a possibility.
Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, all of these companies, Google, whatever, are probably expecting.
It's not about virtue signaling, necessarily.
It's about if the U.S.
declares war, if NATO goes in and we're dragged into this, we cannot be providing support to an enemy of the United States at a time of war.
That's literally treason.
I don't know how that applies to companies.
I don't know if they go that far.
Maybe they'll say, no, no, no, you know, we're not going to play that crazy of a game.
Just end your services now.
Suffice it to say, if you're a company that does international business, it is easier for you now to plan ahead and take the PR, you know, virtue signal, cut off your services, and then not have to worry about it if war does escalate, which I kind of think may be happening.
They're going to say, quote, We are compelled to act following Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the unacceptable events that we have witnessed.
We regret the impact this will have on our valued colleagues and on the clients, partners, merchants and cardholders we serve in Russia.
Visa will work with its clients and partners in Russia to halt all transactions within the coming days.
This means Visa cards issued outside of Russia will no longer function inside the country, according to the company's statement.
So let me show you something.
This has been long planned.
Russia's known this is going to happen.
The US, NATO, they all knew exactly what was happening.
And that makes me wonder about what's going on.
What I mean is, anything bad that happens to you in terms of costs or prices or jobs or whatever, they knew it was going to happen to you.
Mere payment system, according to Wikipedia, They say it was adopted by the Central Bank of Russia under a law.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
It's a Russian payment system established by the Central Bank of Russia under a law adopted on May 1st, 2017.
It's operated by the Russian National Card Payment System.
The development and implementation of MIR was spurred by the imposition of international sanctions against Russia in 2014.
MIR cards were initially accepted mostly by Russian-based companies such as Aeroflot and Russian Railways, but it gradually became popular among foreign companies with operations in Russia.
In April 2016, AliExpress became the first foreign company to accept Mir as a form of payment within the Russian Federation, and McDonald's was the first U.S.
company to accept it three months later.
Well, so there you go.
So initially, conversations were being had in the mid-2000s that aimed to create a framework of an autonomous payment processing system inside the Russian Federation.
While development was nearing completion, the global financial crisis put further activity on indefinite hold.
For some time now, For something over a decade, there has been a plan to create their own payment processing system.
Debit cards, credit cards, and payment systems.
Russia has been planning to compete with the global hegemony of Visa and MasterCard.
And now they have it.
And now they're going to be working with China.
They're going to be working with China's union bank.
They've been planning for this.
India and Russia expressed interest in continuing dialogue on accepting RuPay cards and Mir cards within national payment infrastructures.
They say the MIR payment was introduced in Armenia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.
In October 2021, MIR was launched in the United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, and Thailand.
I'm sorry.
In 2021, MIR was launched in the United Arab Emirates.
Bulgaria and Thailand are expected to follow, according to the Central Bank of Russia.
MIR was also being tested in the UK and in South Korea.
This is fascinating to me.
We've got oil prices surging already, and it's going to get worse.
We've got fertilizer shortages, food shortages, everything's getting worse, and parallel economies are spreading apart.
World War III, I guess?
I don't know.
I kind of hate to say it, because it's such a buzz phrase, but I mean, we are staring down the barrel of global conflict in a way, man, I don't even know how to describe.
Oh, and don't forget, my friends, I know I often talk about Civil War.
That hasn't stopped.
The prospect of the U.S.
dissolving, this is only making it substantially worse.
In the event, there is... Actually, let me slow down.
Fertilizer shortage.
Take a look at this story from South China Morning Post.
Asia faces food shortages as Russia-Ukraine fighting hits shipments.
Heavy fighting closes off parts of the Black Sea, affecting shipments of wheat, oats, and other cereals to Asia, upsetting supply chains.
Disturbance could create domino effect on production of other consumer foods, but Australia hopes to fill part of that demand.
Perhaps they can.
Or perhaps.
With the heavy fighting between Russia and Ukraine, with companies cutting off Russia, and Russia being a major supplier of fertilizer to the US.
Uh-oh.
It's entirely possible.
Food prices are going to skyrocket.
Oil is going to skyrocket.
The economies are going to be hit substantially.
Fertilizer.
This is big.
This is food.
What we think we know from the Arab Spring, depending on who you ask, food shortages play a huge role in, I'm sorry, food prices play a huge role in civil war and revolution.
In the United States, we're already hyper-polarized.
You've got one side putting up Ukrainian flags and just saying, war, war, war, war, war.
And you've got the populist faction, so that's the establishment, saying, no war, but you know, Russia's still pretty bad.
What happens when our culture war, civil war, cold civil war, whatever you want to call it, is exacerbated by hungry people?
Gas prices.
Are you looking at gas prices?
I mean, take a look at this from TimCast.com.
Oil prices reached their highest level since 2008 as the U.S.
and its allies consider a ban on Russian oil imports and anticipate delays in the return of Iranian oil to the global markets.
Brent crude hit $139.13 a barrel.
That's massive.
They say, and U.S.
West Texas Intermediate reached $130.50.
Both are benchmarks that have now reached their highest level since 2008.
Within hours, prices lost some gains.
Brent went up $6.60, or 5.6%, and WTI went up 5.8%.
According to the U.S.
Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, the U.S.
and its European allies are considering banning imports of Russian oils.
The White House is working closely with key congressional committees to move forward with their own ban.
Prices are gonna go through the roof for gas.
Diesel's already really high.
If diesel goes up, food goes up, all goods go up because truckers are the ones who are bringing it to you.
Now we got a major truckers protest currently in Hagerstown, not too far away from where I'm at.
So you got pissed off truckers, you've got skyrocketing diesel prices, a potential, you've got fertilizer shortages coming if this continues to escalate.
Your food is gonna go up, your gas is gonna go up.
Now it's entirely possible that that conflict overshadows the cultural conflict here in the U.S., but I doubt it.
If we go to war, and it's looking like we're getting dangerously close to doing so, maybe we won't, I don't know, but if we do, There is going to be outrage in this country from the anti-war populist types.
They're going to be saying, Joe Biden, you have failed us, you are a pathetic president, and they're going to demand change.
And maybe there will be a recall, a voter overhaul, who knows?
Or maybe the establishment types, the people who control Twitter and Facebook and all these big tech companies, are going to put the boot down on anyone who dare oppose their war machine, and there are going to be a lot of pissed off people who can't afford to eat or drive their cars.
Conveniently.
What was happening with COVID, I said, was perfect for any country that was preparing for war.
Now, I thought it was going to be China, truth be told.
I thought it was going to be Taiwan, not Ukraine.
I could have predicted, I should have predicted it, because I knew there was conflict with Ukraine in the eastern region, but I didn't see it.
Many of us weren't paying attention, and I should have.
Taiwan's still on the table, mind you, as a catalyst for potential World War III.
If things escalate beyond Ukraine, then we're there.
If China moves in for Taiwan, now we've got Ukraine and Taiwan.
Crazy.
But you know what, man?
We saw, during COVID, people fleeing big cities.
People doing remote work.
And I said, this is good stuff for any country that's preparing for war.
Because now if there's a nuke dropped on New York City, a lot of the higher income people who are running big corporations don't live there anymore, and they've all spread out.
When you've got every single person in one city, and you say a nuke hits New York, you wipe out the leaders of almost every industry in the country.
Or leaders, leadership positions.
Not THE leaders, but like, you know.
So, all of a sudden, all the rich people spread out and leave New York.
It sucks.
They can't.
Now, the leaders of industry aren't in any single location, and their workers work remote.
If a major city gets hit by a bomb, the country can still function substantially better than it could.
It seems like there was some kind of internal Great Reset to make the U.S.
more resilient in the face of serious conflict.
Now I see all this happening, and I'm like, oh man.
Whether intentional or not, the U.S.
seems to have prepared for war.
Now, it was just COVID.
But think about what happened.
It's kind of crazy.
And it makes you, there's a lot of things, there's a lot of things about COVID that if it were the case that the U.S.
saw an opportunity to make, to fortify against a potential war, makes you wonder a whole lot about what they expect to happen and what's coming.
But I'll tell you this, if the Russians have been preparing their payment system for Ten years?
Or, you know, eight years now?
It's, you know, longer, actually.
I mean, if you go back to 2008.
Or to the 2000s.
They knew this was coming.
The U.S.
knew this was coming.
Prices are going to be skyrocketing.
It seems like they knew this was coming.
And truth be told, I didn't believe it when they said it was.
When the Bush— I'm sorry, when the Biden administration came out and said, Russia will invade Kiev, I said, no way.
That's ridiculous.
I didn't believe it.
And now here we are.
I don't know that we have this photo up on TimCast showing gas prices.
I think that may be a current one, I'm not entirely sure, but I can tell you this, man.
California, there's some high gas prices.
It's always in California, right?
But in West Virginia, it's like almost $4.
In central PA, we went there, it was over $4, and diesel was over $5.
Diesel is what is gonna get you.
Because the trucker's gotta fuel up to deliver your goods, and if the cost of fuel goes up, everything else goes with it.
And hungry people are angry people.
So I'll tell you this, safeandreadymeals.com may be right for you, may be not.
I honestly, I hope, I hope, if you guys check out our sponsor, and I appreciate it, I hope you never open that bucket, ever.
Truth be told, I have.
Because we ate it and it was good.
And we were like, let's try it out.
Let's see what, you know, let's see what we're getting into.
But I'm hoping that you guys have something like that and you never use it.
Truth be told, I don't know if I believe you will.
Like seriously, I mean, are we really talking about nuclear annihilation?
I can't believe it.
That kind of scares me because I was wrong about Kiev.
And things could spiral out of control really, really quickly.
I just watched the other night, The Sum of All Fears.
Interesting movie.
Check it out.
But it's just a movie.
I can't predict the future, man.
And if you can't either, then you gotta decide for yourself what you think is right for you.
But watching the shortages, we've had food shortages for the past several years.
Now fertilizer shortages are coming.
Fuel shortages may be coming.
You know, the U.S., I think they announced they're releasing emergency reserves.
Scary days, man.
Scary days.
But you don't gotta be worried.
You don't gotta panic.
You don't gotta freak out.
We are resilient people, and I know that most of you who are watching this, almost all of you, I would say, are resilient, confident individuals, and I know you'll be alright.
So, do what you think is best for your family.
Pay attention to the news.
Thanks for watching.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel, and I will see you all then.
Hold on to your wallets.
Gas prices are heading to an all-time high record.
CNBC reports increased demand and reduced supply is quickly driving gas prices higher.
The national average for a gallon of gas hit four dollars and just shy of one cent, about four bucks.
The highest since July of 2008, according to data from AAA.
The average price of a gallon of gasoline will likely set a new all-time record within a day, according to GasBuddy, and it ain't stopping!
Stoppin' there, my friends.
Inflation is gonna go through the roof.
Maybe you listened to my previous segment, but oh yeah.
It's gonna get bad.
And here's the best part.
Apparently, according to a writer over at Axios, we're energy independent.
Really.
As there is a debate right now because we are importing oil from Russia.
And the weird thing is, when you try and look up information on if we had ever been, well, it's hard to know exactly if we were perfectly energy independent.
PolitiFact says it's only half true when Trump said we were very energy independent.
That very is suspect.
It's doing a lot of work.
The reality is, we were mostly energy independent during the Trump administration.
We were a net exporter of oil.
I believe we were the biggest producer.
Now, whether or not you want to play politics and argue about who is right and who is wrong and how you define certain things, I think is pointless.
I'll show you some charts and some articles breaking down what it means to be energy independent.
That's fine.
Reality is, the buck stops at Joe Biden.
I don't want to blame him for everything.
I think that's stupid.
I think Joe Biden is a bad person for a lot of reasons, but I'm not going to pretend that everything is his fault, but he's certainly the man at the wheel, and for that, we have to criticize bad decisions.
The reality is right now, I don't think he is doing a very effective job as a leader for a variety of reasons, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.
You want to talk about record high gas prices?
Wait until they cut off Russian oil imports.
We're heading in that direction.
And it is going to get expensive.
So, uh, let me tell you what I've been doing.
I'm not gonna give you any advice.
Over the past couple of years, you periodically buy some gold and silver.
I don't think gold and silver will be worth anything at all if there truly is a Fallout-style apocalyptic scenario.
That's why they trade bottle caps in the video games.
You think anyone's gonna want your piece of gold?
They're gonna be like, bro, I need food.
But, in the event that there is damage to fiat currencies, to a certain degree, gold and silver will retain some of their value.
The problem is, even in the event of a major war, I don't see gold and silver as being all that great.
I do think they're good.
Good.
I do think it's important to have, if you can get your hands on some.
So, I'm not telling you to buy some.
I'm saying, that's why I bought some.
Being very careful there.
I think that gold and silver can be a good hedge.
I think cryptocurrency is an excellent hedge.
And I'll tell you one thing, if the apocalypse happens and it is like Fallout 3, Russia needing oil and China invade Alaska and then someone fires a nuke and then... I'll tell you what will be worth nothing is Bitcoin.
How are you going to trade with no international network?
People with hard wallets or whatever?
Nah, people are gonna be trading food and water.
That's what's gonna be really valuable.
Tools.
Some people say bullets.
Well, I've been buying a lot of those, too.
But, not necessarily like to think the apocalypse coming.
When the shortages hit during COVID, it was really difficult to come by bullets, and it's kind of worrying.
And now we're hearing, I think it's Remington sent one million bullets to Ukraine.
I could be wrong about that, and fact check me on that.
But that's crazy to me.
So you take a look at what's happening, and I'll tell you this.
I think based on what we're seeing, the next steps are going to be Joe Biden, the Democrats and Republicans, bipartisan support, cutting off Russian oil.
It does make sense.
But then we get George Takai, and he's getting slammed because he was like, everybody, you should accept higher prices for freedom.
And people are like, yo, how about no?
How about we don't get involved in Russia's war with Ukraine?
But America World Police, they have to do it.
You can expect double-digit inflation.
That's what they're predicting, double-digit inflation.
Now, truth be told, if we calculate inflation based on how we used to back in like the 80s, Inflation is as bad as it's been since World War II.
You may be seeing all these articles, and they're like, inflation is worse than it's ever been since the 80s!
But they keep saying that over and over again.
I'm like, how is it that you keep saying the same thing?
In December, it was worse since the 80s.
January, since the 80s.
February.
Okay, we get it.
It's getting gradually worse, but here's the issue.
When we calculated inflation back in the 80s, we had a set standard for how we did.
Times have changed.
Now we have a different standard of calculation.
It is meaningless to say inflation is the worst it's been since the 80s.
I know, I've said it.
But upon looking at the data and going over it, making the argument, It makes no sense because they're two different metrics.
If we were to calculate today, based on the same way we did in the 80s, it is WORSE than it was in the 80s.
Granted, I was not alive in the early 80s, and I was born in 86, so far be it for me to have experienced and know exactly what was going on with inflation.
But it was really, really bad.
And then when you look at the metrics for today, it might not even make sense to compare the two numbers in any sense, because I think car costs are a huge contributor to inflation of the overall number, and it's because we can't get computer chips.
So what do you think is gonna happen when China invades Taiwan?
Man, with oil trade being restricted, I think we're in for a, the global economy is about to crash at 100 miles an hour into a brick wall.
I don't know what to tell you, man.
I don't know what you should do.
I don't know where you live.
I don't know how you should live.
I'll tell you this.
I went out to the middle of nowhere.
I got some chickens.
Chicken City is live right now.
That's right, on YouTube, Chicken City.
Because we want to get some of our food from our own sources.
And it's because being self-reliant is extremely important as we head into this.
Look, the cost of eggs are gonna go up.
Well, I got my own chickens, and they just eat bugs, and feed, and the cost of feed will go up.
But one trick I was told is that you take a piece of wood, and you put it on the ground and leave it, you put a bunch of wood down, and then every day you, like, pull up one of the pieces of wood, and the bugs are under there, and then they all go and eat all the bugs, and that's one way to do it.
Those bugs become eggs.
I eat the eggs.
And then eventually, maybe the chickens too.
I don't know if we're going to eat our chickens because they're kind of the star of a reality show called Chicken City.
But let's read about what's going on with these gas prices.
I talked a little bit about it in the earlier segment, but I want to talk to you about whether or not we truly were or are energy independent.
CNBC reports with gasoline prices at a 14-year high, it's hard to imagine paying even one more at the pump.
One more cent.
On Sunday, the national average for a gallon of gas hit $4.009, the highest since July 2008.
Here we go, it's to the national average.
We can go back to January of 2020.
Look at this!
Right after, in January of 2020, under Trump, prices were way low.
Joe Biden took over, and it's been a sharp and steady increase.
I remember when Trump was in office, and we got news that gas prices fell below $2, and I was just like, When I first started driving when I was 18, gas was like $1.80 or something, I can't remember.
And then I remember when it got to $2 and everyone was freaking out like, $2 is so high!
Well, it's gonna be $7.
I'm not even playing around.
In California, I think it's already in one county, I think in LA actually.
Take a look at this in Daily Mail.
L.A.
County.
Look at this.
Gas spikes to nearly $7 a gallon in L.A.
County.
As average national price tops $4.
Take a look at this, man.
At least one station at the corner of Olympic Boulevard in Fairfax was advertising regular unleaded for $6.99.
The thing about gas prices is that for every, you know, penny it goes up, you're exponentially losing gas, right?
It's probably obvious, but if you need to spend, you know, if you got 15 gallons to fill up your car, every time it goes up, multiply the cost of, you know, the cost per gallon by 15, and that's what your added cost is going to be.
So if gas is five bucks a gallon, And you're looking at, you know, $15 a gallon.
You got, what is that, $75 to fill up.
Now you go up to $10 a gallon, or let's just say $7.
So you're adding $2 on top.
All right.
Another $30.
Another $30.
two bucks on top, all right, another $30, another 30 bucks.
That is hours of labor for your average person, or at least an hour and a half.
But we're talking about right now, look, seven's really high.
But gas was at like, what, two bucks?
Actually, let me pull that chart back up.
Take a look at this.
In April of 2020, $1.77.
That's incredible.
That means you were filling up your gas, your tank, for like 35 bucks.
Or less, actually, probably like $28.
Now, today, at $3.60?
Man, 45 to 50 bucks a gallon?
Man, I remember back when I used to work for American Eagle Airlines, and I had to drive to work.
I didn't make that much money.
I was making like 10, 11 bucks an hour.
So when gas hit two bucks, I was like, I can't, I'm not gonna go anywhere.
I'm not gonna go out because I gotta drive to work back and forth every single day.
And it's like a 30-mile drive, because you gotta drive from your house to the airport.
60 miles every single day, and I'm like, dude, that is a lot of money.
And when it went up, I could see it.
I remember one point I couldn't buy shoes because I was like, gas or shoes?
Nevada 459, Oregon 451, Washington 444, Alaska 439, Illinois 430, Connecticut 428, New York 426, Pennsylvania 423.
Wow, man. I told you guys that we were in in the previous segment. We went up to mid-central PA
just to hang out and go somewhere, you know different I guess and
And we saw gas at like $4.50.
We saw diesel over $5.
So we have a truck, we have a diesel truck.
Because we use it for pulling the trailer and stuff, so we use that.
And that was brutal, man.
We were filling up one of our cars and the bill was like a hundred bucks because it was like 10 gallons or something.
It was crazy!
What do we- Oh, I'm sorry.
That was way off.
We didn't fill up the whole thing.
The bill would have been over a hundred dollars, something like that.
I don't know.
Some ridiculous number.
Let me tell you.
A lot of people keep saying that under Donald Trump, we were energy independent.
All right.
Well, here's an interesting article from Axios.
February 19th, 2022.
The U.S.
is now energy independent, they say.
What do you mean we're energy independent?
Oh, check this out.
For decades, politicians have talked about the U.S.
achieving energy independence, a seemingly elusive goal of producing enough fuels to avoid relying on the rest of the world to fill up gas tanks and keep electricity flowing.
It's elusive no more.
The U.S.
produced more petroleum than it consumed in 2020, and the numbers were essentially in balance in 2021, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Bro, do you even read?
First and foremost, it's funny that they're writing this article two years after energy independence.
Maybe they didn't want to write it under Donald Trump.
The reason is consumption dropped under COVID.
Production also fell.
So, sure, under Donald Trump, we massively increased production.
But the truth be told, since around what appears to be like 2008, we've been dramatically increasing oil production.
It's not just Trump's doing.
But let me show you this.
From the U.S.
Energy Information Administration.
We can see that in 2020, we were actually exporting oil.
Check it out.
They say that, let me see if I can get the hard number, around January of 2020, this is before COVID, mind you, we were at minus 364,000 barrels per day.
And then by April, we were at minus 463, minus 1,475,000.
And by April, we were at minus 463, minus 1,475,000.
So that's a million plus barrels being sent out.
Then into later in 2020, we did start importing more oil.
And now we can see under Joe Biden, we have gradually been increasing the amount of oil we are importing.
Now, truth be told, I'm not going to blame Biden for all of this.
I think there's a ridiculous political game being played where people are like, under Donald Trump, we were energy independent.
Mostly, yes.
I think it's fair to say it's a It's a mostly true thing.
Now, what does PolitiFact say?
They say, uh, what do they say?
Most, oh, they say half true.
Half true is better than mostly false.
I think it's mostly true.
And I think it's mostly true because we're not playing this game where it's like we're gonna count pennies.
Okay, well, for the most part, we were at, like, some substantially high number of energy independence, but energy isn't just oil.
It's a lot of different things.
Under Donald Trump, we did dramatically increase production.
Gas was very, very cheap.
Keystone was well underway, and people expected supply to outpace demand.
That also helped keep prices low.
Wikipedia, on their section on energy independence, says, In May 2017, Donald Trump promised complete energy independence.
In early December 2018, it was reported the U.S.
has turned into a net exporter of oil, thus breaking nearly 75 continuous years of dependence on foreign oil.
That is to say, if that is true, in 2018, the U.S.
became energy independent based strictly on petroleum.
In March 2019, crude oil prices regained momentum after reports showed an unexpected drop in U.S.
fuel supplies.
The American Petroleum Institute reported domestic crude inventories declined 2.58 million barrels the previous week.
The U.S.
Energy Information Administration was due to report on that official numbers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Net exporter.
2018, and they say that it was, uh, let's see, let me make sure I get this right.
This, compared with net imports of about 3 million barrels a day on average previously during 2018 and the prior annual peak of more than 12 million a day, was confirmed by the U.S.
Information Administration.
They say the U.S.
sold overseas a net of 211,000 barrels of crude and refined products such as gasoline and diesel.
This means if the U.S.
was selling more oil, this country was back on track.
You see, kind of the way things work here in the U.S.
is that when you want to buy oil, you got to use the dollar.
It's the reserve currency.
Everyone's got to buy dollars.
So if you're the EU, buy dollars with euro, and then use the dollars to buy oil.
The U.S.?
Print money.
Print money and text the people and take it and...
I'm oversimplifying, I get it, but it's basically that.
If we can just control the flow of our own money and use it to buy whatever we want, do we really care?
Under Donald Trump, we were actually selling more oil.
That meant that the U.S.
was strengthening its economy, period.
We weren't reliant, as reliant, on fiat.
Trump seems to have been fixing this crooked, broken system.
But of course, the powerful elites can't let that stand, so once Joe Biden gets back in office, they basically reverse everything.
Not everything, but a lot.
And now, we're back to that dirty game.
Take a look at this from PolitiFact.
They say, Donald Trump stated in a 2019 speech the United States is very energy independent.
They go on to say that President Donald Trump, eager to make good on the campaign promise, claimed we were energy independent, saying, we are ending decades of foreign energy reliance to unleash the blessings of American energy independence.
Moments later said we are very energy independent.
While it's not accurate to say the U.S.
has already kicked its reliance on foreign sources of energy, the country is moving in this direction.
I want to point out.
Is anyone truly 100% independent?
If someone said, I'm an independent individual, we'd be like, okay, you still do rely on some things, but we get it.
What Trump said vary.
He didn't say completely.
And I think the point of what he was saying is that the United States, for the most part, is energy independent.
There are some areas we can improve upon.
It's kind of what Trump does.
If Trump said, we are today 100% completely energy independent.
I just did like a weird transition of Trump's voice, but you get the point.
So they say it's half true.
Why don't they just say mostly true?
Why don't they say technically true?
Why don't they say mostly true and say, well, to be honest, Trump said the word very.
We don't think he was trying to claim that we were completely, but for a lot of reasons, it's fair to say that we were energy independent.
I think so.
And even right now, it's not completely wrong.
A lot of people have said Joe Biden's screwing us over, and my question is, what specifically is your issue with what Joe Biden's done?
I'll tell you mine.
Banning Keystone, that did not reduce supply, but it did increase demand.
I think it was a bad move.
Recently, as recently as I think two or three weeks ago, Joe Biden Shut down oil and gas leases over climate crisis BS.
That was a bad move!
These things are harming us at a time when gas is through the roof.
What Joe Biden and these Democrats want to do, it's the Democrat agenda, is stop production here in the U.S.
to a certain degree.
And then they can just buy from other countries.
It has a lot to do with environmental factors.
They can claim, look at all the good we do for our environment while we import the more destructive elements that we don't like from other countries.
We don't pollute here or produce plastics.
No, you get them from China and they pollute and produce plastics.
Under Donald Trump, He was getting rid of environmental protections to allow companies to return to the U.S.
and begin production, which was better for the American worker.
You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to like it, the point is, that's the reality.
And now, we are likely to see inflation hitting double digits.
So I tell you this, what is worse, the potty-mouthed orange man, Or, Sleepy Joe and you spending four bucks a gallon on gas.
Were the mean tweets really worth it, man?
This is what I was talking about.
Look, Trump is a nasty dude.
He's a mean guy.
He's nice in a lot of ways.
He's generous to a lot of people.
But boy, does the dude not know how to keep his own mouth shut to save his own career.
Certainly, it's worked for him to a certain degree.
But I can't tell you how many people I met who said, I wish he didn't talk that way.
I wish he didn't tweet.
Donald Trump tweeting was good for him in a lot of ways.
Allowed him to bypass media narratives and lies.
But the dude really did have a potty mouth.
And you know what?
I don't care.
The dude can say whatever stupid nonsense he wants if it means that I know my friends and my family are getting cheaper gas.
Yeah.
I personally would like to see us transition to electric vehicles.
Then the question remains, how do we produce that electricity?
Well, coal power plants mostly.
We do have some nuclear reactors, wind and stuff like that, but we do need better sources of generating energy instead of just relying on fossil fuels.
But you know the thing about fossil fuels is, they work all the time.
And therein lies the big problem.
Could this really just be about Joe Biden's climate agenda?
Well, ABC News said so.
Okay, here's some problems.
Wind doesn't work when there's no wind.
Solar doesn't work when there's no sun.
energy imports. There are signs the Biden administration is ready to embrace the concept,
though not without worries about gas prices and what such a move would mean for the president's
climate agenda. Okay, here's some problems. Wind doesn't work when there's no wind. Solar doesn't
work when there's no sun. Geothermal tends to be pretty reliant, but we don't have a whole lot of
that. I guess you can dig deep enough.
You need some volcanic activity.
Tidal energy is potentially a good opportunity.
Tidal generators are pretty awesome.
You put them in the coast, and then when the tide comes in and goes out, the increasing water will spin the turbine, generating energy.
But these renewable systems, as they call it, I don't think renewable is the right answer.
It's just more like environmental energy capture.
They only work in certain circumstances.
I am a big fan of all of these things, particularly solar energy.
I think it's fantastic.
I've got solar, but it's expensive.
Not perfect.
We're doing better.
The reason we have fossil fuels is to supplement because we can keep a power plant running all day, 24-7 basically, throughout the night with wind and cold and whatever, by burning fossil fuels.
You want to get an electric car?
Fine.
But you're charging it based on burning fossil fuels, and it's hilarious because sometimes it's less efficient.
I saw, you know, we can turn fossil fuel directly into kinetic energy, or you can turn the fossil fuel into kinetic energy, which spins a turbine, which generates a current, which then goes into a car, and there's all a diminishing return across the board.
There's a funny meme where an electric car charging station was being powered by a diesel generator and everyone just posting the meme like laughing about it.
I don't know if it's real, but it looked real.
I don't know.
The fact is, it's not perfect.
If we can switch to energy generation through renewable or environmental means, I think that would be good because American energy independence is paramount.
How can we get to be a net oil exporter?
Try and offset as much as we can, not all of it, with renewable energies.
That's why I was a big fan of the Green New Deal when they were like, investing into renewable energy sources.
I was like, okay.
And then AOC comes out and she's like, and free college and free healthcare!
And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what?
That has nothing to do with building a bunch of wind turbines.
Well, that's why we can't have nice things, because of people like that.
You want energy independence?
We build new power plants.
Nuclear energy.
Fantastic technology.
It's safe, it's not gonna blow up like the old reactors, and it is a massive energy return on energy invested.
Instead, what do we get?
Climate agenda!
Joe Biden freezing fossil fuel leases.
Prices skyrocketing.
It's gonna cost you more money for food, there will be civil unrest if the costs get too high, and that's where we're headed.
So, thanks Joe Biden.
Let me give you a blanket, a more blanket statement.
Donald Trump was pro-energy production, pro-America, removing regulations to allow companies to produce more easily.
This made gas cheap.
Speculators were like, I think demand will be met.
Joe Biden comes in and he says, come on, man, my agenda's way different!
Shut her down!
No more drill, baby, drill, I guess.
Well, prices are going up.
Pick one, man.
You know, George Takai is being slammed because he told everyone to accept higher prices.
You know what?
I think he's a bad person.
And I think it's not really him saying it.
We shouldn't be going to war and we shouldn't be accepting high prices.
But I will tell you this.
If you want these things, then you should be advocating for high prices.
And that's basically what George Takai is doing.
So I give him respect for Agreeing with his own policies and the problems it causes.
The issue is the Democrats don't want to admit it.
Because if they come out and they say everything we're doing, or at least a lot of what we're doing, is going to result in your prices going up, people are going to be pissed!
Donald Trump was like, I'll make prices go down.
They think they know what's best for you.
Mike Bloomberg embodied it perfectly when he was like, we should tax the poor.
Yeah, he actually said it.
It's ridiculous, man.
I hope you've taken precautions, and I hope you're getting prepared, because when we shut down Russian oil imports, and maybe there's a good reason to do so, I don't know, the cost of gas is gonna be higher than it has ever been.
And we're talking about tracking for inflation, too.
