In this episode we discuss:

(00:00) episode368

(00:32) Welcome

(03:17) Topics I'll avoid in 2023

(03:50) Hot Topics

(11:03) Recent Events

(35:03) Thoughts on Economics

My books on Goodreads

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We need to talk about ideas, good ones and bad ones.

We need to learn stuff about the world.

We need an honest, intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining

review of what the hell happened on this planet in the last seven days.

We need to sit back and listen to the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

We're back 2023.

Joe, welcome back for another year.

Evening all is the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast where we're gonna

talk about news and politics and sex and religion and other stuff as well.

I think during the course of the year, cause I'm getting a bit

sick of religion, to tell you the truth, Joe, I'm done with it.

I think.

I think I'm, I think I'm over religious nutters, crazy religious

privilege takeover of the liberal party by the Christians.

I, I think I'm done with religion and I'm just gonna give it a break for a while.

Mostly.

What do you think about?

Well, as long as nothing major crops up.

Yeah, time got a feeling.

Just gonna be more of the same with religious Ns.

So yeah.

2023.

Let's not sure what's gonna happen this year, but welcome back.

If you're in the chat room, say hello and we'll try and incorporate your comments.

Might be a bit of a shorter episode cuz I haven't prepared as well as I normally

do still, you know, holiday mode.

Yeah.

Still on holiday mode.

I mean the country does shut down from the Melbourne Cup all the

way through to Australia Day.

We haven't quite reached Australia Day yet.

So, Shay how you going Shay?

She's in the chat room, , So, yeah, a few little, well, if you're new to the

podcast we talk about news and politics and sex and religion predominantly in

Australia, but also around the world.

And normally we just jump into the topics pretty quickly.

Hello, Mel, in the chat room as well.

This time we'll be a little bit self-indulgent, talk about a few other

things before we get into the topics.

If you don't like the sound of that on your podcast app, it could have

chapters and you might be able to look at the chapters and skip this

intro section and get into the meat of things if that's what you want to do.

But meanwhile we'll continue with a bit of chit chat, which a couple of things.

I'm changing the website.

, I'm saving money , and also experimenting.

So what I've actually done to dear listener is I've created a, a little

second podcast to experiment with, and it's called I F V G Evergreen.

So if you . Look in your podcast app and search for I F G Evergreen.

You'll see four or five episodes that are already in there.

And essentially I'm gonna take the content from this podcast that's

sort of evergreen and would appeal to an international audience and on

discreet topics and see how that goes.

And if that podcast is stable under this new system, which is a bit

cheaper, I'll probably move the main podcast across to that system as well.

And the website will change and various things.

So playing around with that and we'll see how it goes.

So I f Fiji Evergreen and we'll be adding stuff to that over time.

Just looking, as I said over the next year 2023, just got in my notes here.

As I was just saying before, religious instruction and chaplains, I'm

going to steer clear of them for a while cause I see stuff in the

rationalist and other things and.

I've sort of, I'm over it.

Liberal party Christian demise, I think I've said what I need to say.

Unfair China bashing and hypocritical USA foreign policy.

I've given that a good bash.

I'm gonna try and give it a rest media bias and propaganda

again, try and give it a rest.

So things that I think we might be talking about over this year in particular

would be the voice is gonna come up, Joe, and there's gonna be a referendum

or something like that over the voice.

It's gonna be lots of debate.

It's gonna get quite bitter.

I happen to have sounds, sounds like a game show, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I happen to have an uncomfortable position for most of the people

who probably followed this podcast.

So, we'll see how that goes.

But.

What the heck?

I have a different position on that one, and I did read Marcia

Langton's article in the Saturday paper, and she didn't convince me.

And it's not because I don't think there's enough detail.

I think there is enough detail out there.

It's just the basic premise that I disagree with.

But we'll probably have quite a few arguments with people over the voice.

And dear listener, if you want to argue with me and convince me, otherwise, feel

free to make contact and join a debate.

I think we'll be talking a lot about climate change and solutions.

I think we're gonna spend a lot of time on economics, the history of

economics and modern thinking about economics, because a couple of things

I get into discussions, Joe, at dinner parties and at Christmas get togethers.

Don't believe that.

And it's, I'm now attending a lot of 60th birthday parties.

That's the stage of life on that.

And I get into arguments with boomers.

mm-hmm.

about house pricing and about the privileged sort of era

that baby boomers have enjoyed.

And, and I get this whole thing about how they've worked hard for what

they get and when mortgages were 14%.

Yeah.

And the young people of today are just lazy and they want it all and they're not

prepared to wait and blah, blah, blah.

So, I think a lot of it in terms of convincing people is they've

got a misguided view of history, of economics, particularly of capitalism

over the last, well, since the industrial revolution, what's of

stuff's been swept under the carpet.

So I think part of making an argument about what we should be doing

in terms of moving forward to an economic system that's better than

the current one is closely examining that maybe capitalism hasn't been

that great for a lot of people.

And it's come to the end of its run.

So I think sh just talking about the history of it will be important as a

means of describing, cuz people will talk about the glory days of Ronald

Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and stuff.

And you've just gotta say, hang on a minute.

They weren't glory days at all.

This is actually what happened.

Yeah, I remember the minus strike in England.

Mm-hmm.

and the riots.

Yep.

And we're seeing strikes now in England with the railway Oh, the rail.

Yeah.

And and there's a different atmosphere in the response to it.

I think where there's sympathy for the strikers.

It seems to me.

I was listening to a friend's podcast and they were complaining about the media.

And I think it was supposedly left wing media asking the rare workers

union boss how he felt about interfering with people's lives

because they were striking so often.

Yes.

And, and he was, it was, you know, don't you feel sorry for the average

person who's just trying to go to work?

Mm-hmm.

And he's saying, you know, I completely reject your premise.

This, this is about the working rights of everybody.

This is about a fair pay for everybody.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And yeah, we we're going to upset people.

That's kind of the point of a strike.

Yes.

And I think there's more sympathy for that viewpoint Yes.

Now than there was in the eighties.

Let's face it, Arthur Garel probably wasn't a good poster B for for any

movement was it, was was Arthur Scargill.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, and then Neil Kook, Maggie, what for in the Commons?

Yes.

In the chat room, they're already going off.

Good on your Mel and John and Allison.

And Yep.

So keep your comments coming.

And John's made the point that nurses are on strike as well.

I think so.

Junior doctors as well.

Were on strike.

Yes.

I saw an interview about that.

Barristers were on strike not so long ago.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Like criminal law, legal aid, barristers, or on strike.

So, yeah, so it's aif.

I see.

New South Wales and Victoria premiers have got together and demanded money from

the government for Medicare over here.

Have they?

Yeah.

Asking for more, right.

750 million I think.

Right.

Was in the budget.

Haven't heard that.

Yeah.

And so there was questions as to whether that would be focused purely

on trying to get bulk billing back in.

Right.

And, and other people saying, well, actually no, we need more

support workers rather than gps.

A and if GPS get a pay rise, actually studies show that they're

just more likely to take time off rather than work more hours, right?

Yep.

Yep.

The other thing I saw, I think was that New South Wales was looking at getting

rid of stamp chief for first time buyers or something, something like that, which

was gonna be a big hit to their budget, but was effectively just gonna add the

stamp duty, the price to the price.

Wasn't there something about you could get rid of stamped

duty, but you pay more land tax?

Wasn't one of the states doing that?

Well, I don't think that's what was being proposed.

I think they're just gonna get rid of it.

Okay.

Without introducing Atlantic.

So, so yeah.

That sort of stuff's going on.

So yeah, a different, different mindset, I think where people are recognizing because

there is good information out there now about how basically, wages have not kept.

Up with profits and people can just look at the figures and look at the

charts and see that profits have been increasing steadily for the

last 40 years and wages haven't.

And people are starting to get jack of it.

So particularly when you get a crunch with a po, with you know,

a gas bill or whatever mm-hmm.

heating your home that you can't pay.

So that's all gonna get interesting over the year.

What else have I got here?

So, yeah, economics is gonna be a big one.

Probably human nature, how we think about things.

The fact that we are a social animal.

I'll be attacking libertarians.

I think libertarians are like cats.

I think, Joe.

Yes.

They just take advantage of everything that's there with no idea of how

much they're being looked after.

Mm-hmm.

, they like to think they're independent.

Yeah.

and maybe a bit about philosophy as well.

So I'll put a note in the show notes about a link to Good Reads where

I've got a list of all the books I've read in the last seven years.

And if you want to come on the podcast and when you read one of those books

and we talk about it, let me know.

So, have a look at that in the show notes.

Cause I wanna talk about books because I think, yeah, articles

and news is a bit of fast food.

The real meaty stuff is in books.

So that's sort of what I'm thinking of this year.

Right.

Recent events, it's been almost a month.

It's the longest break I've ever had.

So let's quickly run through some of the things that have been happening.

Robo Debt, Royal Commission.

It's been going on Twitter, showing excerpts from it, and.

Really good royal commissioner and good council assisting, and they're

just getting stuck into these public servants who are arriving unprepared.

And they've presented statements, but without attaching copies of the

emails that they're referring to.

So they're saying in their statements, oh, I sent an email

which said blah, blah, blah.

And the commissioner says, well, show me that email.

And why didn't you attach it to your statement?

Did you think I was just going to believe what you said?

I need to look at the actual letter that you say you sent,

or that you say you received.

And really pretty harsh language with these people saying, I can't believe

somebody who was as smart as you thought it was okay to present a really

pathetic statement like you have.

So they're getting stuck into people.

There.

Really good to see people being held to account.

And I've got a lot of confidence in that Royal Commissioner.

So she's doing well.

Yes, there's the link.

Thanks Joe.

Brazilian coup just the other day looked remarkably like January 6th.

Mm-hmm.

, no.

So it wasn't a coup and they were just going out for a perfectly

legitimate walk in the the, the parliament grounds, isn't it?

Yes, exactly.

And also Cougar Presidential Palace.

Yeah.

I mean if you don't have the military involved, it's not a coup I guess, but,

well I guess maybe it can be, but it's just never gonna be successful unless you

get the military involved saying There was one difference though, Joe, in that

they've already got busloads of people who were arrested that day and Oh, you go.

Yeah.

So there was a great tweet by somebody who said, gee, I never knew that you

could actually ar arrest co participants on the day they commit the offense.

Yes.

. So yeah, they've already got a whole bunch of 'em arrested.

And so, well, and maybe it was because they didn't have a president that refused

to call in the Army until the last minute.

Mm-hmm.

Say that again.

Oh Trump was dying.

Oh.

Why didn't DC call in the National Guard?

And apparently I think it was down to the president call in the National Guard.

Right.

It's something basically that required him to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, Don says if it was done on a poultry farm, it would be a chicken coup.

Boom.

Boom.

No, thank you Dawn.

Alright.

Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy took an inordinate number of votes.

Yes.

Basically, the Republicans had the numbers in Congress to appoint, but

they were split amongst themselves.

, all it required was agreement amongst the Republicans.

Couldn't do it.

And yeah, I, I, listening to a friend's podcast and they were

saying basically that, that sums up the Republican party these days.

There are so many of them that are just out for Yeah, what's in it for me?

Not even working on the party lines.

Yeah.

They've really become quite dysfunctional.

Pretty clear indication of US politics there.

What's this podcast you're listening to?

You say Friends podcast.

What's it called?

You wanna give 'em a plug?

It is called Fallacious Trump.

Fallacious Trump?

Yes.

So they go through logical fallacy using Donald Trump quotes.

They are okay.

Right.

Prince Harry and the media.

So, Jeremy Clarkson was that guy who used to compare a motoring show, and

he's got an article in some newspaper.

And Jeremy Clarkson is well known for being aist.

Yes.

But it mildly yes.

But in his article, this is what he wrote.

Megan, though is a different story.

I hate her.

Not like I hate Nicholas Sturgeon or Rose West.

I hate her on a cellular, cellular level at night, on unable to sleep as I lie

there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she's made to parade

naked through the streets of every town in Britain, while the crowds chant shame

and throw lumps of excrement at her.

So this is a call back to Game of Thrones, right?

There's a very, very obvious scene in Game of Thrones.

Is it?

Okay.

Yes.

Haven't seen that.

Where the queen is paraded naked through the town.

Ah, right.

To, with everyone shouting, shame at her.

Right.

Okay.

So it's not so bad as it sounds.

I I don't in that sense, I mean, don't forget, this is the guy who advocated

having armed police snipers at every box junction, so that if somebody was going

into a, a crossing before there was a clear exit, the police would shoot the

Okay.

So everything's a bit tongue in cheek.

Yeah.

Still you, you, you'd have to be an idiot to actually listen to what he says.

Yeah.

And take it seriously.

Yeah.

Well, certainly the media though, has undoubtedly had it in for Harry and

Megan and it just really seems to be an orchestrated vendetta against them and.

Certainly the royalists, yes.

Because they're saying badly things about the royal family.

Mm-hmm.

and there are questions about

Megan and whether she has, she wanted all the privileges and none of the pay.

Yeah.

And none of the, the work that went along with being a, a royal.

Right.

There'd be plenty of royals like that, surely.

Well, no, I think that they come in, they realize how hard work it

is and they knuckle down, whereas what's Prince, what's Prince

Edward done in the last 60 years?

Yeah.

What I'm, I'm sure, and I won't ask, what has Prince Andrew done?

You know, you've got a guy like Prince Andrew who's basically been left

alone despite pretty Tory record.

It just seems like.

Terrible vendetta by News Corp who just showing their true colors.

So, yeah.

Shai in the chat room says not just Royalists I thought it was Charles that

was going to help us become a republic.

It's actually Harry, it's going to bring it down.

We'll see.

Not convinced that this labor party is up for anything of any substance.

I think they're gonna tinker at the edges on some, on some easy stuff, but I

don't think they're up for real change.

We'll see.

Well, of course not only Harry, there was always the speculation about

the major, whatever his name was.

Yes.

Charles is probably not his dad.

Yes, he looks a lot like the, but.

Is that right?

Bodyguard?

That was a butler.

It was a, yeah, it might have been a bodyguard.

It was.

It was an acquaintance.

Anyway, yeah.

And then of course, there's that guy over here who claims that he's

Charles and Camilla's real son.

Yes.

It's all very toing.

Mm-hmm.

. And it's so obvious that we should be rid of this group as, as the, the theoretical

head of our, what, what I'm surprised at is that people think this is a new thing.

Mm-hmm.

The rules have been fucking around forever.

Yes.

Yep.

It's part of the job description.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

We can't get rid of them.

There's, there's so many obvious things that should be done

that we just can't budge on.

'em.

Maybe when the Beamers give us another 10 years, when they, you know, the

Beamers really disappear as a voting force, maybe things will get done.

That might be what, it's what's, I don't know.

It's, I think it's not so much the behavior of the royals, but just the,

just the, the dying off of the boomers.

. Oh.

And when you hold up Donald Trump as your possible options mm-hmm.

Land.

Well, Australia isn't though.

No.

It's an option.

You start going, well, so what, what do we have instead?

Here's our options.

Yeah.

Wow.

Lots of countries have got duly.

What's an ideal system where they've got a, who knows?

Just, just a, yeah.

It's not that hard, but we, you know, we, we are nowhere near it it seems.

What else have we got here?

Things that have happened.

So China basically ripped at the bandaid and said, we are done with zero covid

and let's just have a quick hard hit.

And Australia demanded that Chinese travelers have infection clearance.

Certificates before traveling.

Like just, you know, COVID is running rampant through America,

Europe, all sorts of countries.

And Australia had to decide to pick on China and say, oh, we want special

entry requirements from you guys.

Just, oh, it's cuz they got a different type of covid.

Well, no they don't.

That's the whole point.

Nothing's been shown to be different.

It's just our government being stupid again.

Raise Lisa.

Yeah.

Yep.

Julian Assange.

Albanese made noises saying it's been long enough and sort of indicating Is

that since he's been Prime minister?

Yes, because I know he didn't before.

Okay.

Yes.

Saying I think it's been enough.

Other than saying we are working behind the scenes, nothing else held out there.

But there was a glimmer of hope for Julian Assange.

He basically has to persuade the Americans to drop it.

Yes.

But, and that's gonna be the hard bit.

It shouldn't, they're an ally.

It shouldn't be that hard.

Yeah.

But do they consider us an ally or a vessel?

Yeah.

Well, well start, you know, start doing some retaliatory action.

What?

Kick 'em outta Darwin, you know, stop buying some of

their crappy military hardware.

In fact, the submarines, I think it's, it's done with the submarines

because they've basically admitted they just can't build them.

Mm-hmm.

. So I think, I think that's, but apparently we're buying high miles now.

Is that the missile or the plane?

Right?

Yeah.

I dunno enough about them yet.

Rocket launchers.

Mm-hmm.

. So apparently highly mobile rocket launchers that they've been using in.

Ukraine, but they only gave the short distance missiles to Ukraine.

Sorry, rockets.

Cause they're not missiles.

Because they were worried about escalating the war in Ukraine.

But we would be given the long range ones, which would allow us to effectively

launch out to two or 300 kilometers.

Okay.

What's the difference between the rocket and missile o

missile Oley guided Ah, okay.

There we go.

Kevin Rudd is gonna be our ambassador in the us Yeah.

That uh, so ambassadors, a US seems to be a cushy posting because Joe

Hockey was given that, wasn't he?

He was, yes.

That's an ballsy decision.

Kevin Rud is such a loose cannon.

He'd be a nightmare to work for an absolute nightmare.

I'm surprised we didn't send him to Beijing actually.

Yeah.

Ah.

So anyway, on some things he could be really good and on other

things he could be really bad.

That's a really ballsy decision.

That one, maybe Albanese just wanted him out of Australia.

Finance wise, a lot of mortgages that were sort of entered into in

the early covid times are now coming up for the end of their sort of

fixed, cheap honeymoon rates and are now gonna be on the variable rates.

That will be interesting to see how that affects people, whether they

will, I'm hearing a lot of people want to get out of them, really.

Mm-hmm.

, there's already been news articles about that.

Yep.

So we'll see what happens with property prices.

Seems to me that they haven't really fallen that much in Brisbane.

People are just hanging on, was giving some shit to friends in Melbourne.

Saying, yeah.

Why if everything's so great in Melbourne, why are you all moving up here?

Mm-hmm.

, turns out I was wrong.

It's New South Wales that have moved up.

11% increase in population in the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.

Yep.

In the last 12 months.

Yep.

Yep.

Makes sense.

Apparently Melbourne's gonna be the biggest city in not too distant.

Yeah, possibly.

Yeah.

Okay.

And did you catch up with the stuff about that guy, Andrew Tate?

The credit Thunberg?

Oh yeah.

So the Greta Thunberg thing is a complete bullshit.

There, there was an argument with her, but that didn't lead to his arrest.

Okay.

So for those who didn't see it this Andrew Tate is some sort of, he's a kickboxer or

martial arts guy, former Kickboxer who.

He's American, British, so I think he was born in the uk, grew up in America.

He's very misogynistic, I think is the best way of putting it.

Yes.

In the dictionary definition of misogynist, there is

a picture of Andrew Tate.

He moved to Romania to run his business and yeah, he's, he's done well.

I mean, he's worth millions.

He's got very expensive luxury cars and apartment in Dubai.

Very big social media presence very popular on social media, so

obviously earning lots through there.

And, and also it seems, has a lot of fans amongst young men.

Yes.

Who think he's great, unfortunately, like he's as an audience.

Yeah.

Freak.

I, I saw a comment today that when he gets away with being a dick,

because he's relatively good looking.

He's physically fit and he's worth a lot of money.

Mm-hmm.

A and he has all these basement dwelling slobs looking up to him

thinking that they can treat women in the same way and get away with it.

Yes.

And they don't have the attributes that he has.

Yes.

And it turns out that they don't have them under control in some

slave type arrangement, which apparently he might have had as well.

So it's been alleged that he was doing what I believe pimps have done for years

is get women to fall in love with you and then turn 'em into sex workers.

Yes.

So there have been allegations that he's been luring women into

his Eastern European home then locking them up and forcing them

to perform on camera for his view.

Yeah.

So, John's made a comment, which is about to be debunked, I think.

Yes, because because this guy comes out and he, he did this sort of TikTok

thing or whatever, basically having a go at Greta Thunberg and, and saying

how he is got all his big sports cars with huge emissions and if she gives

him her email address, he'll write to her and ex explain it all to her.

And she said, oh yes, please write to me.

My email is small dick energy ghetto life.com or something like that.

So, which was obviously a a sort of a reference to the, to the idea that

men with sports cars are making up compensating for having small penises.

Yeah.

So, he then responded with a really lame video.

Just incredibly lame, actually trying to recapture some of the high ground.

But as part of that, he had a pizza box where he was grabbing

a slice of pizza from it.

And the story was that the Romanian officials saw the branding on the pizza

box, realized that he was in Romania, and then decided they could arrest him because

they were looking for him and they wanted him on these sort of sex slavery charges.

But Joe, that's probably not the case.

I mean, they probably, I mean, in his house and they knew where that was.

They've already said that.

It wasn't how they realized he was in the country.

Yeah, so, well, it makes a good story.

It wasn't actually true, but still there.

There you go.

Anyway definitely Garth Humberg and her Twitter management had

a lot of fun with that one.

Yeah.

So yeah, she certainly owned him on that one.

Now Trump tax returns finally gotta look at those.

Yes.

And to be honest, little lots come out of it so far except really

revealing how little money he made in many years, which surprises nobody.

Well, no.

How much tax write off he claimed for many years.

Yes.

Yes.

So, so already the tax corporation has been found guilty in New York of

over-inflating the value of properties when trying to get, borrow money and

underinflating or undervaluing their property when having to pay tax.

When having tax.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the question is whether this is the same for his personal tax returns.

Yeah.

Anyway, they'll be going through that.

He started selling NFTs Joe.

Yes.

Amir, wasn't it $99 each?

It is.

And and if you buy 40 some, 42 of them, you get to have dinner

with him if you can feel like it.

Here's the pitch.

I've got it here.

Here we go.

Hang on.

Hello everyone.

This is Donald Trump.

Hopefully your favorite president of all time.

Better than Lincoln, better than Washington, with an

important announcement to make.

I'm doing my first official Donald J.

Trump n f t collection right here and right now they're called

Trump Digital Trading Cards.

These cards feature some of the really incredible artwork

pertaining to my life and my career.

It's been very exciting.

You can collect your Trump digital cards just like a baseball

card or other collectibles.

Here's one of the best parts.

Each card comes with an automatic chance to win amazing

prizes, like dinner with me.

I don't know if that's an amazing prize, but it's what we have or

golf with you and a group of your friends at one of my beautiful golf

courses and they are beautiful.

What, what's the old what's the old joke?

What you say.

Oh, yeah, First prize is a week for one, or sorry, is a in wherever.

Second prize is two weeks wherever.

Yes.

No.

First prize is a week and no second prize is one week.

How's Okay.

Second prize is two weeks.

Yeah.

First prize is one week.

That's it.

Yeah.

. It's like that with Donald Trump.

Of course.

The irony is when I was a kid growing up, we had Trump collectible cards.

Did you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was called Top Trumps and it was Car Facts.

And so you were, you were going, oh look, this car goes

faster or This one's got better.

It's got a larger engine, or whatever it was.

Right.

So you it was, it was all about cars.

Right.

There you go.

You still got anything?

It could be worth a fortune, Joe.

No.

Mm-hmm.

. Ex pump, ex ex Pope died.

Yes.

Fuck.

Motherfucking Pope.

Yeah.

Another one's gone.

Another one bites a dust.

Zelensky still fighting the war in Ukraine and he was in the US and he gave a speech.

Probably to the joint houses or Congress.

I don't know.

It was Congress.

Yeah, Congress.

Yeah.

Basically asking for more help and thanking them for the help they got.

And this was Nancy Pelosi walking out afterwards.

That was one of five speeches I've ever heard in the Congress.

It was historic in that he and Churchill are the only two wartime presidents who

have come here to talk about asking our help and thanking us for our participating

help to stop the tyranny in Europe.

It's pretty exciting.

Happiest days.

Days.

There were some pause lines.

Wasn't he wonderful?

Was just run by idiots, Joe.

So not one of only two presidents.

Comparing him to Churchill and how exciting it was.

And wasn't he wonderful.

And what a moment.

Occasion.

Well, it's as close as shell ever get to Churchill.

Yeah.

For God's sake.

And she's one of the most respected, most senior people in US politics.

It's depressing.

Yeah.

But they're all puppets.

Yeah.

It, it's the Illuminati who are actually running the world, you know that mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

Well, if the Illuminati means big business and in particular

weapons manufacturers, no.

Possibly it's then I think they're right.

If that's who the Illuminati are, so Yeah.

Knows the Jews.

Come on.

Yeah.

Caitlin Johnston says the difference between Democrats and Republicans

is that Democrats say they want to do good things, but they're lying.

And Republicans say they want to do bad things, and they're telling the truth.

She's been pretty good.

Caitlin Johnson, over the break.

Oh, what else have we got?

Oh, one other one.

I said I wouldn't do much on crazy Christians, but I found this

one and I can't resist this one.

So, Joe, you would've heard of spelling B stuff very strong in America.

Yeah.

Where they get kids and they give 'em a really complicated word,

ask 'em to spell it and you know, you become a national champion.

Invariably, the kids who win these things these days are

either Chinese heritage or Indian.

It seems so.

Mm-hmm.

. Well, some people have taken that idea and applied it to the Bible,

of course, because why wouldn't you?

Of course.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Your first passage, I and my father slash Kate John 10 27 to 30.

That is correct.

Please recite it.

She's got an upside desk.

John.

10 27 to 30 my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow

me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Neither shall anemia pluck them out of my hand.

My father, which gave them me, is greater than all and no man is able

to pluck them out of my father's hand.

I and my father are one John 10.

27 to 30.

Kate Jesus says in that passage that I and the father are one.

Can you speak to the significance of that?

What's that mean?

Well, it me, it shows that I won't subject you to the rest of that good.

Yeah, that's the only in America file.

Put that one away.

John in the chat room says, who's Caitlin Johnson?

It's Caitlin John Stone.

If you just Google, you'll find her.

She's got a blog and I've been quoting her for years now, John.

Right.

So my current interest beyond the National Bible be contestants is

economics, as I mentioned earlier.

I'm finding it fascinating, Joe.

And it's, I've got a, I've got a feeling that economics is a little

bit like religion in that like religion in the early days where.

, it was sort of controlled by sort of a select group and the rest of

us just sort of go, well, they must know what they're talking about.

Must be right.

But, and now there's heresy with the modern monetary theory.

Correct.

And there's faith involved in it because, you know, when it comes to currency,

there's a strong faith element required in order for it to actually work.

Mm-hmm.

. And, and it's also where we've, we've been told sort of just a

classical version of economics and it's quite possible that that's a

very wrong, and it doesn't actually explain how economics works at all.

And that quite mainstream economists have been missing vital information

in explaining the economy and.

Seems to be a bunch of people coming out now who are economists, but like heretics,

it worries me a little bit in that I hope I'm not doing what people were doing

with vaccines where do your own research and become an expert on vaccinations

and suddenly you are debunking all of the mainstream sort of vaccination work.

But I, I'm heading in that path where I'm actually, but

at least I'm conscious of it.

So I, yeah, I am conscious of it that okay, these new explanations might

sound all fine and dandy and it's debunking what the commonly held view is.

But ah, for a long time I had a bit of a suspicion about economics where if

you really wanna compare it to a lot of the other, Fields in a university,

they want to present themselves as a hard science, but there's a lot

of dark art involved in it as well.

I think, Joe, I was gonna say a lot of the soft sciences,

social sciences are very similar.

Yeah.

But I think they've tried to present themselves as a hard science and

with a lot of math and formulas, but at the end of the day, I think

they've been running a bit of a scam.

A lot of 'em, and they haven't quite got it worked out.

So over the course of 2023, dear listener, you and I are gonna work out economics

and how the world's actually running.

So, so yeah, I'm gonna run through some of the things that I've learned

from the books over the last few weeks that I've been reading.

But one of the things that's got me here we go.

Mel says it's not the same.

Vaccination is based on signs, economics is sociology at best.

So go for it, Trevor.

Thanks Mel.

I will.

. Joe, do you have any podcasts that you listen to cuz you

really dislike the podcast?

, have you got a Hate listen podcast?

No, not anymore, right?

. Oh, you had one before?

Well, trigonometry I was listening to and yeah.

They just went completely off the deep end, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

So, and even Joe, Joe Rogan was one of those.

He had some really great people on and he had long format conversations

where he could get deep into the weeds with some really interesting people.

He also had some complete dickheads on, he would get into the weeds with them.

And I think they both, particularly around the time of lockdown, just

went completely off the rails.

Yes.

And, and just ended up having right wing ners on Yeah.

So a bit like in the way that I actually canceled my subscription

to the Australians, so I'm just down to the Curry mail at the moment.

But reading those was just to sort of see what other people mm-hmm.

Are thinking.

And there's a podcast I've been listening to, which is about this guy who who's

supporting and promoting Bitcoin.

Yes.

So I've been listening to him and you know, I, I'll listen to

him and in my head I'll go, no Uhuh, no, not, not that either.

And like he will come out quite often with a, a 20 or 30 word sentence with

five concepts, and I'll disagree with nearly every single thing he says.

I think he gets it so badly wrong.

So I've been enjoying that, but I've been thinking, I actually

reached out to him and said, Hey, I disagree with a lot of what you say.

Would you like somebody to come on your podcast and just have a polite debate?

And he hasn't responded, but . I did think part of the benefit of that

is if you do have to say, you know, mount an argument, you really have

to think carefully, more carefully.

You think you know something until you actually have to explain it.

It's easy to make assertions.

Yes.

And you can easy to think in your head.

Ah, yeah, I know that until, and you actually have to spell out the concepts.

It's not that easy.

So anyway some of the ideas I've got rattling around in my head are sort of

as a response from this Bitcoin podcast, but money fascinates me as you would know

for a long time and the origin of money.

So one of the things I would've said to him about Bitcoin as to why it's a heap of

shit is the thing about normal money is.

, there's value to it because eventually you're gonna have to pay tax and the

sovereign government in Australia is gonna say, you have to pay your tax

and it's gotta be in Aussie dollars.

And each country will do that where they'll require payment of your

tax in their particular currency.

No sovereign government is gonna say that about Bitcoin.

And so there's no government body that's ever gonna be

interested in propping it up.

So it's these people think it's going to increase in value, not just as a

medium of exchange for just swapping bits of bits of coin around to pay for

small transaction, not as something like a bit of a convenience, but, but as an

actual investment, I think it's going to go up, but there's nothing there

that will actually Sort of supported from a government point of view.

And I think people think that money came about as a means of

assisting the barter system.

So there's this theory in people's heads that used to be, that we'd

have economies where I own a goat and you've got some grain and I agree

to swap the goat for some grain.

And we just walk around in the village continually swapping

and bartering items directly.

And that at some point people were using bits of valuable metal like gold, which

eventually got converted into coins as an easy means of measuring them.

And, and that money was introduced as a means of greasing the wheel of, of the

barter system in, in primitive economies.

And two things is It turns out there never really were barter economies where

people were swapping things like that.

In that sort of primitive stage, if I had a goat and it was too much for me to eat

cuz I'd just killed it or I'd, you know, I'd deer, I'd hunted down or something.

Basically I'd have a feel and then share it with you, Joe,

and a bunch of other people.

And that would just be a little credit in the back of everybody's mind.

Oh, Trevor fed everybody the other day with that piece of meat.

That was pretty good.

So the next time they got something spare, they would

then you know, share it with me.

And a lot of society was based on people tallying in their heads whether

somebody was a sharer or not a sharer.

Mm-hmm.

. And it wasn't a direct simultaneous exchange of goats for grain.

There was just a buildup of credit points that you had to maintain as being

a worthwhile member of a community.

So, . So these societies never really ran barter type arrangements in the way

people might think when it comes to money.

It seems that the origin of it was in relation to early agriculture when there

was a buildup of grain, for example, in silos, and we had palaces and kings and

emperors sort of going back 3000 or 4,000 years, and little sort of chits would

be issued about the grain in the silo.

Who had belonged to who, who was owed the grain or I was gonna say promissory notes.

Yes.

And and these were, these were issued by the palace, two people.

So it was a, it was more or less a an I O U that started off between the.

The palace or the government and individuals not as

something between individuals.

And it had value because it was like an IU from the palace.

It actually meant something.

And over time people might swap these IUs between themselves and

they might particularly need to, cuz at some stage the palace might

say, oh, we're gonna tax everybody.

The king needs grain to pay for some soldiers or whatever.

And all of you guys have gotta contribute some of the grain that's in the silo.

So start handing in your chips.

So that was kind of the origin of money that I've come across,

which was, and forgive them, their debts by Michael Hudson.

So if people thinking about Bitcoin as being just like money, , it sort

of helps to shoot down to them and say, that's, that's not what money

was actually originally intended.

It was part of a contract.

It had government backing from the very beginning and your Bitcoin doesn't.

So that's a key difference.

Bitcoin's a pump and dump scheme.

Yes.

It, yes.

It and the, and, well, one of the reasons why I'm look, been looking at Bitcoin Dear

listener, is just in the podcasting world, there is a a thing called Podcasting 2.0.

They're basically creating apps now and the ability where on certain apps

there's a Fountain app and there's a hot verse app, and there's a couple of

other apps where if you've got money in a Bitcoin wallet, if you've got Satoshis,

which are like one, 101000000th or, or something like that of a bitcoin,

You could do an instant donation to a podcaster of Satoshi's on an app.

And there's a certain element of the podcasting world

that loves the idea of this.

So there's a lot of talk about it.

So that's part of the reasons why I'm interested in Bitcoin anyway.

So that's the origin of money, not from greasing the wheels in a, making it easier

for a barter economy, but it was really government driven from the early stages.

And there was also Joe, a lot of debt forgiveness in the ancient

Syrian and Babylonian empires.

Apparently the Bible says forgive dates every seven years.

Yes.

And it was a very regular thing because now these were debts that were

owed by the commoners to the palace.

Mm-hmm.

. And when a new, when an old emperor died, new emperor came in very

common to wipe out all debts.

One of the reasons for that was that with interest, it just got

out of hand for people where they couldn't actually pay the debt.

So in order for the society to function, people were losing their properties and

becoming almost slaves to other people, and it was causing regular problems.

So throughout that history, it's a very regular occurrence of debt forgiveness

by common people to the palace.

Now, that didn't necessarily mean inter business debts, but

certainly commoners and the palace would have their debts wiped out.

So, Landon Hardbottom says, send me your useless Bitcoin and I'll store it for you.

. Thanks Landon.

So, so where was I?

Yeah.

Death forgiveness was something very common in the ancient world

and that sort of stopped around the Greek and Roman civilizations where.

that regular debt forgiveness stopped and sort of private property

was held in a more exalted status.

And that's continued on since the Greek and the Romans.

But prior to them debt forgiveness was a, a regular occurrence.

So, so what else have I been reading about lately?

Of course, capitalism is a recent invention only since the Industrial

Revolution and while we've had markets for thousands of years, just market

is quite different to capitalism.

There's a TV series called the Ascent of Money.

It's quite old now, right?

By an Irish guy.

I think it was a BBC or Channel four documentary series.

Mm-hmm.

. And it goes into the bond market, not the stock market.

and the Dutch East India company being the first Yes.

Traded company.

And what a difference that made.

Yes.

The, the ability to create a, a public company Yes.

That you could buy shares in Yep.

This, this pulling together of resources to be able to take on something that

would be too expensive as an individual.

Yes.

And then the benefits that were given to these companies where they

were able to actually levy taxes on the Indians and things like this.

Mm-hmm.

, almost like a government with their own soldiers and all

the rest of it to go with it.

So, so, so basically capitalism requires an unsustainable growth and this is so

that people can repay debt and interest if you're gonna, you know, people borrow.

On the hope and expectation of growth, which will allow them to

repay the debt and the interest.

And capitalism requires, you know, two to 3% per year.

I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago a few episodes ago, 3% growth means

doubling the size of the economy every 23 years and then doubling it again,

and then doubling it again and again.

At some point we won't be able to do that.

And the problem is that GDP is not just plucked out of thin air, but it's

connected to energy and resources.

So it means doubling and doubling every 23 years.

The energies and resource use or, or, or pollution.

Mm-hmm.

, because pollution is also a G D P positive.

Yes, that's right.

Yep.

So, so a growth a growth that's gonna be unsustainable.

And the question is, well how did, how did capitalism maintain this growth

since the Industrial Revolution?

Like, how was it able to do it for so long anyway?

Colonialism.

Correct?

You said colonialism didn't you?

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

Yep.

So really interesting book Capital and imperialism theory, history in

the present by TSA and PR hat patnaik.

Difficult read deal is now like this one, the whole four weeks.

Not easy and I'm gonna summarize it in two minutes, which is just a crime

really, cuz the amount of detail in there.

But essentially Companies like the East Indian Company and others.

Mm-hmm.

, well, well the UK in particular was just draining an enormous

amount of money out of India.

And it, it was essentially capitalism thrived because it was able to just

subjugate the global south and not only get cheap commodities and resources from

them, but also force them to produce the products that the UK wanted, say

things like cash crops or, or other things so that these people then were

unable to feed themselves because they'd been forced into growing things

for the uk and then they were forced into being the market for UK products.

So their artisans was, were, were forced into.

Producing these cash crops and the companies were, the, the countries

were then forced to then be a market for British products as well.

So the book's quite extensive about, about how all that worked.

So actually I'll read a bit here.

Page 131 give you a bit of a flavor for some of it.

Bear with me one second.

So the transfer process at its inception was relatively transparent.

The East India company's trade monopoly granted by the British

Parliament, began in 1600.

The company acquired tax revenue collecting rights

in Bengal Province in 1765.

And substantive drain starts precisely from that date.

Bengal's population of about 30 million people was nearly

four times that of Britain.

The repac of the company, which forcibly trebled revenue collection

over the following five years decimated one third of the population.

In the great 1770 famine, full recovery had not taken place by 1792, and yet the

land revenue fixed under the permanent settlement in that year in Bengal exceeded

the British government's taxes from land in Britain, just shameless raping

of of these countries is essentially how the UK was able to sustain.

It's of capitalism.

What, what's that?

Ireland as well.

Yes.

Bunch of, I listened to a history on the potato famine and it

was literally that wasn't, that there weren't enough potatoes.

, it was that the potatoes were all marked for export to England to be sold.

Yes, yes.

And the Irish couldn't afford to eat.

Yes.

Yep.

So according to this book, I've just was reading from the, the Depression in

the 1930s was actually sort of signified the exhaustion of the, of the growth

in that area of subjugating colonies.

So while they were still under subjugation, it sort of maxed

out what they could get from these colonies at that time.

And the Great Depression was, was kind of where capitalism

could no longer grow from.

Those sort of, that colonial agricultural raping and taxation,

they, they'd maxed out on that one.

So, so how did capitalism Continue to grow after that.

Well, you had fiscal stimulus where governments were, were basically

introducing money into the economy.

So you had the New deal, which introduced money.

You then had World War ii.

You then had continuing US war deficits in the years following, which was a

kit type of military keynesianism.

So Canes is all about John Maynard Cains is about the government

spending money to prop up economies.

If they start to flatten, let's move off the gold standard as well.

Yes, there was a move from the Gold standard as well.

You had women entering the workforce, so that boosted productivity.

Again, you had credit cards.

You had the 1980s draining of the commons.

Where we had public utilities sold off, sold off, privatized, all these things

that I'm mentioning are little prods that enabled capitalism, which might have

slowed to zero in terms of growth to grow.

We then had the two thousand.com boom, and then the 2008 real estate bubbles which

were as a result of so prime mortgages.

Yes.

In recent times we've had the Covid 19 fiscal stimulus where money governments

have thrown money at, at corporations, and then we've had super low interest

rates leading to asset price bubbles.

All ways of cropping up the system so that growth can be maintained.

And Joe, it looks to me that there's no tricks left.

There's no more colonies that can be found.

That's why we can mine the moon.

Well, or Russia or China.

That's one of the reasons why America is so keen to get their hands on China

and start a war, because that would be another prod, another boost to

keep capitalism going if they could access the Chinese and Russian markets.

And with recent low interest rates, all of our assets are already overvalued.

So, so yeah, that was an interesting concept of, okay, capitalism

requires this unsustainable growth.

The fact that it has been going for so long has really been as a result

of a number of artificial tricks, some of them quite nasty when it

comes to India and island and the colonies and that, and that essentially

we're running out of tricks and.

And just on the face of it, if you're talking about 3% growth every

year, doubling an economy every 23 years, common sense tells you, you

just can't do that continuously in a closed system like our planet is.

So, so there's that.

I've been reading about those concepts and the other one was

about private banks create money.

Joe, you heard this one?

No.

So, the myth is that the governments introduce money into the economy, but it's

actually created by, by private banks.

So bank is just sitting there and it's not that they've got a lack of money to lend.

, it's that they have a lack of suitable clients to customers to lend money to.

And they can just, if, if, if I go to a bank and I come up with

a proposition where I say, give me a hundred thousand dollars.

I've got this great business idea, they essentially just create a book

entry where they create a hundred thousand dollars and put it in my

account, and it becomes into existence where nothing else gets subtracted.

From the bank's point of view, they can just generate and create

the ledger account $100,000.

And it's not like they, they have a corresponding ledger with the

government where they've gotta grab that money from the government.

They just create the ledger account.

So, . Private banks are responsible for something like 90% of, of money

generation, and I've gotta look into it more, but the argument

was with quantitative easing where central banks were providing money.

Yeah.

It was still up to the private banks to lend it out somewhere, something

they still had to have a suitable person who wanted to borrow it.

And a lot of the money, people were able to pay back with interest.

Yeah.

A lot of the money just wasn't used.

And the few that did use it were basically existing companies that did share buybacks

because the executives realized that this was a better way of, of getting bonuses.

Yeah, exactly.

So yeah, so that's an interesting concept that private banks

create money not the government.

So that's the sort of doesn't any controller money?

Mm-hmm.

. Well, they control interest rates to an extent.

So through the central bank, and that's the sort of blunt instrument

of central banks is interest rates.

And when interest rates got to zero, that was when they ran out of, out of tricks.

And we had this quantitative easing.

There was a study done that said was quantitative easing, did it do anything?

And they looked at like 50 studies and funnily enough it, the studies

were done by central banks.

The consensus was that it was successful and where the studies were

done by people who weren't part of the Central Bank, then the studies

show that it just didn't do anything.

So gotta get my head around quantitative easing and creation of money.

But Yeah, basically most money is, is created by private banks.

I just watched an interview with Russell Brand, who You're a masochist.

Joe.

Was this a hate?

Listen, was this one of those podcasts?

No, it was just a funny interview with I think Jonathan Ross.

And apparently he's made a documentary on basically the money that went into

propping up the financial institutions whilst the average person on the street

was forced to, into austerity in the uk.

Oh, Russell Brand did this one?

Yeah.

Okay.

So I, I dunno how watchable it will be, but certainly the

subject matter is interesting.

He'd be one of these guys who sometimes is right about something and is

quite entertaining and and good.

And then another issue is, is completely nuts.

Yeah.

So just trying to think of somebody else who was like that.

Yeah.

Can't think of it to mine.

So, so yeah, that's the stuff that I'd been looking at and the ideas

I've been thrusting around in my head.

So, trick is to try and work out a system that would replace capitalism, because if

you were to try and change things mm-hmm.

, it would be through rules that are unattractive to capital

and are attractive to labor.

Yes.

As in the working class and, and, and labor don't control parliament.

Yes.

And also you know, Labor can't easily move around the world, but capital can.

Mm-hmm.

and at the whiff, at the whiff of, of laws that are unattractive to capital,

they will exit a country and thereby precipitate a crisis which will be

sort of self-fulfilling where go this laws and Americans will invade.

Yeah.

. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

But you know, if Australia was to try and do something funky and knew that

somehow addressed the imbalance and, and took on capital to some extent,

then you'd have to create laws that would prevent the the flight capital.

Yeah.

And how's that gonna go down with the rest of the world?

It's just not gonna happen, is it?

So it can be quite depressing, this whole thing, but it is interesting.

So, Yeah, I think that's that's main things I wanted to tell you

about that I was thinking about.

I might make a shorter one today.

They might all be short.

So anyway, Joe, did you have anything pressing that you wanted

to share with any of the listeners?

Not that I remember, no.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna call it a, an early day.

They might be shorter episodes this year.

Dear listener.

Have a look at I f g Evergreen.

You'll see some podcast there where I'll put in the evergreen content.

I'll be adding stuff over time and we'll see how that goes.

So, not sure what next week will be.

Oh, have a look at the show notes.

There should be a link to good Reads and you'll see a list

of books that I have read.

If you wanna do a little talk on that with me part up a podcast, that would be good.

Alright, that's all for the moment.

Talk to you all next week.

Bye for now, and it's a good night from him.

Now, the problem is transforming the ghetto, therefore is a problem of power.

A confrontation between the forces of power, demanding change, and

the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo.

Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.

It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change.

When Walter Luther defined power one day, he said, power is the ability of

a labor union like u a W to make the most powerful corporation in the world.

General Motors.

Say yes when it wants to say no.