Danny Jones Podcast - #252 - The Shadow Government, World Bank & CIA-Backed Coup's | John Perkins

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Watch all episodes uncensored & ad-free on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones John Perkins was advisor to the World Bank, UN, IMF, Fortune 500 corporations, governments of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. John used development loans to saddle countries with huge debts and force them to serve US interests. SPONSORS https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off EPISODE LINKS https://johnperkins.org https://twitter.com/jperkinsauthor FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - Applying for NSA; Going to the Amazon 09:02 - Shuar people of Ecuador 15:34 - Saved by a shaman 25:36 - "touching the jaguar" 32:09 - Collapse of Mayan civilization 41:27 - Edgar Mitchell 51:25 - Working for the shadow government 54:50 - America's strategy to build an economic empire 01:05:02 - Becoming an "economic hitman" 01:09:58 - CIA "Jackals" 01:12:14 - Red tide of communism 01:18:53 - Indonesia 01:25:22 - Realizing the evil plot 01:36:11 - Presidents removed by CIA 01:40:22 - How China took over Ecuador 01:56:08 - America's next move 02:05:27 - Putin 02:13:45 - Surviving assassination attempt 02:24:35 - Befriending CIA hit men 02:29:30 - CIA's domestic influence 02:36:45 - World Bank / Pandemic corruption 02:41:48 - Aliens are here 02:45:31 - Death economy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They discovered three things in that process that characterized me, the things that I wanted in life. I wanted power, money, and sex. That's perfect for a CIA officer. They knew they had me, they could hook me by giving me those things, are putting me in a position where I had the opportunity to gain those things. And so then I went in the Peace Corps and then was recruited while I was still in the Peace Corps by this guy who had that information. from the NSA. And they figured out, you know, like,

okay, so this guy's only got a Bachelor of Science and Business Administration. But, you know, we don't have to put that in the – his bios. We'll put the fact that in his bios he spent three years in South America working with indigenous people and he has a background in business administration.

Yeah, it's kind of a con, but it works. And then I did hire people with very good credentials who worked for me. I always thought that people who were in the Peace Corps could not work for intelligence agencies. So you actually went to the Peace Corps after you were interviewed for the NSA. And did they know you were going to go to the Peace Corps? No. And so I wasn't working for the NSA.

What happened was so I was desperately trying to avoid the draft. I just didn't believe in the war in Vietnam. And I was not about to go off. I liked what Muhammad Ali said. He said something, and I'm paraphrasing here. But, like, you know, they ain't never done nothing to hurt me, and I don't see any reason why should go off and kill them or be killed by them. And I felt the same way.

And my wife at the time, her father was very high up in the U.S. Department of the Navy, had highest security clearance. And his best friend was very high up in the National Security Agency, which was a draft deferable. institution. And so they arranged for me to have an interview with the NSA because this friend of the family was so high up. And I did that in the JFK building in Boston, the federal building in Boston. And I spent a couple of days going through all sorts of tests, including a lot under lie detector. And, you know, I thought, I figured I'd never get the job because they asked

me if I'd ever had been interviewed and had difficulty with the police. And it so happened that I tell the story in the book where I was at Middlebury College and was involved in a knife fight in a bar there that a friend of mine who happened to be Iranian was pulled out a knife and cut the guy who was trying to beat up on me. And he was thrown out of Middlebury as a result. I quit Middlebury. And so I thought, yeah, I had to admit that. I was in this knife fight.

You know, I went through all this stuff. And they also asked me how I felt about Vietnam. I said, I don't believe in it. So I figured they're never going to hire me. But as it turned out, at that point in time, they knew Vietnam was going down. And, you know, they didn't care that I didn't really believe in the war because they didn't really believe it was longer either.

What year was this? So this would have been 1968. And it turned out that the Iranian guy who pulled the knife, who was a very good friend of mine, his father was a general in the Shah of Iran's government. And the CIA asked that, his father. So they liked the fact that, you know, I had lied to the police. when the police in Middlebury,

Vermont I went to Middlebury College, when the police brought me in to question me about what the Haram, the Iranian, had he pulled a knife on this guy? Had he gotten into a fight? I said, no, not that I know of. I didn't see anything like that. Of course, I was right there.

I lied to the police. And I admitted that the lie detector that I'd lie to the police. I thought, well, that would get me screwed. But in fact, they like the fact. They liked the fact that I had the guts to lie to the police and get away with it. and they liked the fact that I was good friends with this Iranian whose father was a very good CIA asset.

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year in college. And I haven't walked by this room where there was a Peace Corps recruiter giving a talk. And I wander into the room and I listened to him. And it struck me, I've always, I loved indigenous people growing up in New Hampshire. My family goes back almost 300 years and I had a great, great, great, something grandmother who was captured by the Algonquin speaking abnaki of the upper northeast. And so I have a... I'd always had this fascination with indigenous people, with the Indians. And I knew there was only one place in the world where people kind of still live like that, the Amazon. And I'd always had this desire to go to the Amazon and live with these people.

So after this Peace Corps recruiter finishes his talk, you know, I go up to him and I said to him, you know, I said, hey, you know, if I applied for the Peace Corps and asked for the Amazon, do you think I might get it? And he said, are you crazy? Yes, of course you'd get it. Nobody wants to go to the Amazon. And we're looking for people to go to the Amazon. So I applied for the Peace Corps and asked for the Amazon and got it. And so I was not working for the National Security Agency.

But while I was still there in the Peace Corps, the last year I was there, I was there for three years. I extended for a third year because I still was in 26, so I was still draptable. So I extended for a third year. Peace Corps normally two years. And in that third year, I was contacted by this guy who turned out, as a senior vice president for Charles T. Maine, the company I ended up going to work for. And he also was a liaison. He was in the Army Reserve, a colonel in the Army Reserve, and he had the information about me from the NSA.

So he already knew a lot about me and wanted to recruit me for this job. So while I was in the Peace Corps, I never worked for the NSA, but the NSA had my files. Do they ever ask you Why did you do this interview And then Jet for the Amazon for three years? Oh, well, yeah So after I hear this Peace Corps volunteer I call the friend of the family

My father-in-law's good friend Who we called Uncle So-and-So, I don't want to use his name But it was very close And I called him and I told him I just heard this Peace Corps thing And they said I could go to the Amazon And I'm really interested in that

But I know you've gone out of your way to get me an invitation to be a trainee with the NSA. Well, what do you think? And he said, oh, my God. He said, do it. Because you'll be a lot more valuable to us afterwards. You'll have learned another language. You'll have learned to live in another culture. You'll have learned to live, to survive under very difficult positions.

And he said, and you know, when you get out, you may find that you're not actually working from the National Security Agency, but you may be working for a corporation that has liaisons with the National Security Agency, or the CIA, which is exactly what turned out to be the case. So was this Peace Corps recruitment meeting happening in the NSA building? No, no, the Peace Corps recruiter was at Boston University where I was in my last year of college.

Okay. Totally separate. They were totally unrelated at that time. It sounded like it was conveniently close to where you interviewed for NSA. No. Like almost like they planned it. No, no.

The NSA was downtown Boston and Government Center, and Boston University is further up. Okay, I guess. Still in Boston, but it's on the outskirts. What country did you go to in the Amazon? Ecuador. Ecuador. Yeah.

And that's where you learn Spanish. Yeah. And that's a funny story too, Daddy. So I finally get this letter from the Peace Corps saying, you've been accepted to the Peace Corps and assigned to Ecuador. And I said, oh, damn, I wanted the Amazon. I wanted Latin America. Not Africa.

I had no idea where Ecuador was. That's hilarious. And I go to a map, and a map of Africa, I can't find Ecuador. So I go to the index in the map, and it takes me to the Latin America. Oh, my God, yeah, it has land in the Amazon, the upper Amazon. That is fucking hilarious, man. I love it. So three years in, I was going to say Africa, three years in Ecuador in the Amazon.

And what were you doing down there specifically? Well, so you can't make this stuff up. I, you know, so first the Peace Corps sends me to eight weeks of training in Southern California, and this is to learn Spanish. And if you speak another language, you know, eight weeks doesn't get you too far, but you get to be, you get to be conversing. I could pass the foreign service exam. And also they taught me about credit and savings corps

how to form credit and savings course because I graduated from business school with a Bachelor of Science and Business. And so now they send me into the Amazon and it was a very difficult place to get to. It took a couple of days in a rickety old bus that was basically a wooden box built on a four chassis that was filled with people who were

Oh, my God, I had pigs and goats and chickens and all these things on this bus and people who didn't bathe. And it was an awful experience. You drove the whole way? Well, I didn't, yeah, I didn't drive. But I'm on this bus and we're sitting in these wooden seats for a couple of days. And then you get to the end of the road and spend the next day, you know, walking and riding horses through these trails deep into the Amazon. Whoa. And I'm being assigned to live in the Shwa territory.

Now, the Shwa hunters and gatherers, if you've ever seen a shrunken head or a picture of one, they did it because there's other head hunters, but they're the ones who actually shrink the heads. So here I am going in there, and as I'm making my way into this place where I'm supposed to spend the next two years, there's some people walking out to go to the market, to get to the bus or whatever. and so I just thought I'll practice my lousy Spanish. To my chagrin, as I'm talking to these people in the Spanish, I find that they don't speak Spanish. They speak schwa. So my first experience with U.S. government work was they teach you a language and send you to a place where nobody speaks there.

And then I finally get to the little community where I'm going to spend the next two years. And this one guy greets me, and he's a school teacher. He's from up in the Andes, and he speaks. speaks Spanish and we can communicate sort of you know my Spanish isn't very good but I can communicate and he like well why are you here and I said well I'm here to help you guys form your credit and savings co-ops and he looks at me like are you crazy like we're all in the barter system here we don't have any currency it's your bananas from my papayas and we can't save our credit bananas and papayas

why are you really here You know, immediately the community was pretty suspicious of me. This gringo comes in. I'm taller than anyone. Blonde hair. Why is he here? And it was a difficult situation. And so my second experience with U.S. government work is they teach you a skill

and send you to a place where nobody can use your skill. What reason would they have to be suspicious of you? Was there a lot of people coming down trying to exploit them? The areas has been known for gold, and right now the Chinese have a huge gold operation. So they had been prospectors and con artists and people. So they were familiar with people trying to come in and take something from them. And they assumed that's what I was supposed to do.

And the funny thing is, you know, so I told you, I grew up almost 300 years of Yen. Yankee Calvinists in New Hampshire and Vermont and Connecticut. And if there's one thing that's ingrained in you in that background is that when you were sent in to do a job, by God, you do it. So I would get up late in the afternoon and early evening every day in the center of this little community and give a speech in my lousy Spanish, which nobody understood, about the benefits of credit and savings co-ops. because that was my job and I didn't have anything else to do

and it fascinated me that every day more people came to hear me and it reached a point very quickly where people were walking for several hours through the forest, these indigenous people and they didn't have flashlights they had to go back in the dark and I'm thinking my God I'm making headway here

I'm going to form a credit and savings call up. And the school teacher takes me aside late one afternoon. He says, hey, have you, he said, don't get your hopes up. I know you think you're going to form a credit and savings co-op, but have you noticed that we don't have any newspapers here? They were illiterate. We don't have any televisions or radios. There was no electricity. He said, you're it. I was Saturday night live every night to that community. So the word had gone out through the forest that there's this crazy man, this tall, dangly, blonde guy who gets up every day and gives this speech and a language we don't even understand. And one guy who does understand him says he makes no sense at all,

he's trying to get us to do something we can't do. He's crazy. And he's not going to, he's not going to survive very long here. So you better come hear him while you've got a chance. I was like the sideshow, you know. in the beginning when you first got down there and you experienced that. And then did you ever make any headway with... Well, about this time, I'm beginning to think, damn, I should have gone to Vietnam.

I would have been with other people who speak English, other soldiers. You know, we've got to have Budweiser and, you know, who knows, you know. Cigarettes. And better. Yeah, oh, yeah, way better. But, of course, we all know now

that there's good stuff in the Amazon, isn't there? I would find that out. But I was really depressed. I mean, like, I'm going to spend the next two or three years here. And it was, what am I going to do? It was a struggle. And then I got really, really sick. I was dying.

I couldn't keep any food down. I couldn't, and I reached a point where I couldn't even stand up. I'm lying in the sleeping bag, the piece cord had given me, and on the floor of this hut. And I just, there was no way I could take. that journey through the jungle back to the, try to find one of those regular old buses and get back up to some medical facility. So I'm kind of resigned to die. I am resigned to dying at this point. And late one afternoon, the teacher comes up to me and he's leading this little

old man by the hand, and this guy's scary looking. He's practically naked. He's got a loin cloth. But his body's covered with these tattoos, and he's little, but I'm lying down on the floor, so he looked pretty big. and the school teacher says, this guy's the shaman. I had no idea what a shaman was. This is in 1968. And he says,

if he can hear you, well, what would you do, Danny? I would say have at it. Let's get started, baby. What have I got to lose? Give me that good shit. Give me that good dope,

that good Amazon dope. Yeah, well, I didn't even know there was such a thing, you know, But that night, he did. And so this shaman did give me what we now know is ayahuasca. And it took me on this strange, strange journey. And, you know, I'm hallucinating. But, you know, I've been going through some pretty rough times anyway.

And I've basically haven't eaten for a long time. But on this journey, I saw that, oh, So at one point, I've got my eyes closed. I'm lying on this bench. There's some shaman men that carried me into the shaman's lodge and put me on this bench. And I've got my eyes closed. And the shaman says, it's translated by the teacher, but so it's going through a couple of steps,

the shaman says, touch the jaguar. And it's the middle of the night in the middle of the jungle. And you can hear jaguars at night. we've seen their tracks during the day. I know they're around there and like, oh, my God, like, you know, I wake up, I open my eyes and look around. Like, where is the Jaguar? And that, oh, the Shavan says, no, no, no, through the translator, no, close your eyes and see the Jaguar and then touch it. So I did, and it was first this amorphous form and it became, looked like a Jaguar, and I reached out and touched it.

And as I did that, I saw and heard my mother saying, the food and drink will kill you. And I got to tell you, so the people in the Amazon don't drink water from the rivers because they know the rivers, I've got organic material, dead animals, but broading trees, it's dangerous. So the women make a kind of beer that's called chicha,

and they make it by chewing Mannyark root and spitting it. And the saliva acts like yeast, it sets up a fermentation process. And you get a beer, and you can get very strong very quickly because you're in the tropics, and you can add water to that. And so that's what they drink. And the foods, you know, one of the favorite foods is you reach into a rotting log and pull out a handful of squirming white grubs and down the hatch.

Insects? Grubs, yeah, worms. Oh, worm. High nutrition. Yeah, high protein. Yeah. Piranha are actually a huge source of food down there, too. That's true.

Paranhas, yeah, but they're very bony, but yeah, you can eat them. They don't attack people. That's another than this week we can talk about. So I've swam with a lot of piranha. Really? Yeah, and then later in life I hung out with a lot of piranhas who are in the human form. But they're dangerous, the ones in the rivers, and that's another story. But so I'm realizing I'm drinking a lot of spit,

because you got to rehydrate. So you're not drinking the beer to get fucked up. You're just drinking the beer because you need something to drink. Yeah, that's all there is, basically that you can trust. Because it's got alcohol. So the water's now been kind of purified with the alcohol. There's no way to, there's no way to, like, harvest the rainwater or, like, water from, like, clean streams to drink? Well, yes, theoretically, there is.

But that's not their culture and their custom. They do a lot of chicha. And it's considered also kind of a sacred drink. The women make it, and it's their gift to the men who bring back the animals for protein. So there's this exchange. It's a real strong cultural thing. So they drink a lot of chicha, and they love it. And you've got to rehydrate frequently.

And I'm eating a lot of squirming white grubs and other things that I won't even mention because there weren't any cliff bars. So no Perrier, no cliff bars. So I'm eating and drinking these things. But I realize on this ayahuasca journey that as I'm doing this, I'm hearing a voice like my mother in my head saying, it'll kill you. My mindset was saying it'll kill you. And at the same time, I'm seeing in this same vision quest,

how robust and healthy the Shua are. You know, the men will carry two or three hundred pound dead boars and tap ears that they've killed in the jungle out of the jungle. They get legs that make a World Cup soccer star jealous, you know. And the women, well, I was in my early 20s in the quite promiscuous culture by tradition. The women are looking quite good. People live to be very old if they don't die in a hunting accident or dug out kind of. or something. Yeah, that's interesting.

That's interesting the mortality rate, like the age they live to. It's like it's probably the same age, if not older as normal cultures. They just don't, unless they, you know, as long as they don't die from wounds from hunting or getting, you know, combat wounds or whatever it is. Right. Or in child, you know, there's a lot of deaths in childbirth and a very, at the time, a very high infant mortality rate. So that brings the whole average way, you know, if you look at,

averages that brings it way down. But if people survive the first 10 years, they're likely live to be very old unless they, unless it's an accident, like you said. So I see on this, this experience that it isn't the food and drink that's killing me. It's my mindset. It's my perception. It's this voice that's telling me it's killing me. Our minds are so powerful. And the next day, I felt a lot better. And I continued to feel better. And the shaman came back and kind of being translated later. But it turns out he spoke more Spanish than he let on at the beginning.

He comes back later and says, you know, I cured you. You owe me. And you need to be my apprentice. Now, this is 1968, just going into 69. and I have no, you know, I've graduated from business school, I'm going to go out and make money. I want you say a lot of here. There was no future in shamanism in those days. There is today.

But you guys saved my life. So I took it on. And that changed everything. The community now suddenly accepts me. I'm training with one of their most revered elders. I'm learning their culture and no longer being held in the world. suspicion. I'm enjoying it. I'm learning how to prepare ayahuasca. I'm learning a lot. And more than anything else, what he kept drilling into me was this idea of touching the Jaguar, which is the

title of one of my books, the second from the last book I just wrote a couple of years ago. And what is that is that when we have a blockage, when there's something that's holding us back, when there's something that's changing our perception, that's hurting us, if we run from it, it'll chase us like a jaguar will if you run from it. But if you reach out and touch it, it gives you the ability, the energy, the wisdom to change your perception. And when you change your perception,

you change your actions, and then you change reality. So this illiterate shaman was feeding me this very exciting philosophy of perception molds reality, which later I would study with shaman's in other cultures and they all have the same concept but it's also the same concept that runs psychoanalysis modern cycle analysis perception changes our reality you know and business and politics

marketing is all about perception changing reality you know Danny you can't you can't get what you want in life unless you have a jacket just like mine and I'll be happy to sell this to you for a couple thousand dollars, but you've got to have it. If you want to have a successful show, you've got to have a check. I mean, that's the perception. Perceptions mold reality. And that's what I would use as an economic hitman.

But it was interesting. So that's where I first really, really connected with this philosophical theory, which I probably have heard in philosophy 101 in college. But it never really meant much to me. But now I've seen practically speaking. So touching the Jaguar, what is the Jaguar an analogy for? A blockage.

A blockage. It's something holding you back, something that's standing in your way of being all that you want to be or breaking through a blockage. So if that's a writer, if I have a writer. So is it like a fear? Is it something that we're conscious of? Well, it's a, yeah, no. I mean, when you touch it, you become conscious of it. That's the secret is you get to.

You've got to confront it. So it may be something, well, in this case, it was my mother's voice saying, the food and drink will kill you. That was the Jaguar. Food and drink. Will kill you, and I believed it. I believed it.

But what I saw when I touched that was it wasn't the food and drink that were killing me. It was my mindset toward the food and drink. And it's, you know, it's so many things in our lives, like, well, you can't have a pot. You're not, you know, you're not the right color skin. You don't have the best, you don't have the right education. Somebody earlier asked about my education. You can't be an economist.

You don't have the right education for that. You can't, you know, people telling us, you're not good enough. You don't have enough education. You don't have the skills. You're not, you know, you don't come from the right background. Right. Whatever, you can't do this.

And those are these bloggages. And when we believe them, when we accept them, they created a reality for us. But when we touch them and confront them and say, no, no, that's wrong. I do have the ability to do that. I don't need that kind of background.

Then we can move forward with things. Isn't it interesting how drugs can have such a profound change on the way we think about things? Yeah, and things like Ayahuasca, San Pedro, things like that, these sacred plants,

I don't even like to think of them. I don't like to think of them as medicines or drugs. I think of them as something that gets into our spirit. They can do that, but there's so many, like the Mayan people don't use, I take groups of the Mayan. I later studied a lot with Mayan shamans in Central America. You studied with Mayan shamans. Yeah.

And I still, every year I take groups of people down to hang out with them as they do. Do you really? People in the Amazon, yeah. And they use fire ceremonies the same way. They don't use, some of them are now beginning to because they see a way to make money by doing air awesca or something. That's big, you know, this whole commercial thing's going up. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it traditionally, it's done with fire ceremonies, which as you're doing those fire ceremonies, you go into an altered state, which is very, very powerful also.

And the Kogi up in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Columbia, who I also spent time with, you know, they, they, they, you know, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they. what they call pagamento's payments to the earth, where you give something to the earth and you just really go into it and feel your gratitude and you really go into an altered state. And drums will do it. People take chinoffered journeys with drums. So there's many different ways that open us to,

what we might think of as a portal to higher consciousness, to looking at things differently. But in every case, this analogy of touching the jaguar kind of works. Yeah. It's amazing how much human and sacrifice their minds are responsible for and how much how many people they would sacrifice in conjunction with their rituals their drug rituals their ayahuasca rituals my uh there's this reason the guy who came on the podcast a couple weeks ago his name's mike corey he did a he said he

had one of the most profound ayahuasca trips of his life um with a a Mayan tribe i believe it was maybe it was in the amazon but anyways he was before that he was just like the concept of of human sacrifice made no sense. It just seemed like a primitive, crazy religious idea, right? To bring the rain, the rain gods would make it rain if you would sacrifice a certain amount of people to them. But then he said when he had this ayahuasca experience, it was like the universe being ripped open, like a human being ripped open and seeing all the insides come out.

That's what it was like him seeing the universe being torn in half and seeing all everything that was inside of it. And he said, like, the way it made him feel, it felt like something that was so powerful and so much bigger than himself that it would be worth him sacrificing his life for it. This episode sponsored by IP Vanish. IP Vanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IP vanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing private at home and on public watch. Wi-Fi. Stream with added privacy. Browse securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off

the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with IP Vanish. And he thinks that's what had the way the Mayans thought. Interesting because increasingly the Mayan elders and shamans, it's called the Nanos and the Tatas and the daykeepers and archaeologists in reading in the glyphs, the writing that the Mayan people have, are concluding, and it's controversial, nobody knows for sure, but that the sacrifice didn't

happen, that they executed enemies. When the wars were, they executed criminals, and they did those in a ritualistic way that also was to please the gods or the spirits. They really only believe in one God, but then it's like chalked that the

spirit of the rain, and that they weren't sacrificed because sacrifice means that you voluntarily do it to yourself or have someone do it to you, but you volunteer to do it. And increasingly, I think there's a, that certainly is a body of thinking that there was no sacrifice. And I don't know. I mean, I'm no expert in these things, but it's kind of interesting to look at these different aspects, but certainly the rituals that the Mayan people did and continue to do today open you to this portal, to this touching of the Jaguar. And the Mayans have so much to teach us now because they did to their world back around the year 800, 900 in our calendar, what we're doing to ours.

So in building these vast cities, these huge pyramids, these huge pyramids, and these amazing, amazing cities, you know, and there's many of them, and they're discovering new ones all the time with LIDAR. And the Amazon and too. Yeah, also in the Amazon. Yeah. And this is, in the Mayans, it's Central America. But in building these cities, they drain the swamps and cut the forest completely.

And so they changed their climate. And so it's very good evidence that what- They changed their climate? Yes. Really? Yes. that they had drought. So when you cut the...

How did we know they changed their climate? Well, because there's several ways, but I think the most impressive one is that these pyramids are usually built the several pyramids. It's like those Russian dolls, one inside the other. So one king would build a pyramid, and then the next king would come along and build a bigger pyramid over the first one, and then another king over that one, and so on. And they've cut into some of these pyramids. in the Patan Peninsula of Guatemala,

out near Tikal, this great city of Tikal. And near there, there's a pyramid, one of several, where they've cut in, and as they go in, they see that, so what we see now are pyramids that just look like they're stone, and that was the structure, but they were covered with stucco, a kind of stucco, plaster,

and painted, usually red, I mean, these cities are bright, colors. And in the original, the smallest pyramids, the plaster is very thick. And each successive pyramid, the plastic gets thinner

and thinner and thinner. And the last one, it's very, very thin. And to make that kind of plaster takes a lot of wood and very hot fires to melt down the limestone and turn it into this kind of cement, this plaster sort of thing. And so, that's one of the

indications that they were just getting rid of the trees. They were running out of trees. And then, you know, so again, through many other techniques, you can see how the trees were cut. Now, that whole area, there's a vast area of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and the Patan of Guatemala, were probably just completely cut clear of trees.

And the swamps were drained. Kind of like what happened here in Florida. And they can see that the crop cycles changed, that they weren't producing the crops. The cities went to war with each other, cities that had been relatively peaceful, went to war because of scarce resources. And so the theory is that as this happened,

so all the people, the people lived outside the cities. And there was only the royalty in their administrators and priests who lived in the cities. The job of the priests was to call on the rain gods and the sun gods and all the spirits to make good growing seasons. as the growing seasons declined year after year after year,

it was obvious the priests weren't doing their job, and the cities were going to war with each other, so these people who lived outside the cities and had to pay these huge taxes in terms of providing food, clothes, jewelry, everything to the cities, got fed up. And, you know, the priests weren't doing their job. These guys were now being called upon

to kill their neighboring friends in other cities. and so they left the cities and they either went back to the jungle or most of them went up into the mountains primarily Guatemala, Honduras where they've continued to live and conduct their traditions and ceremonies as they did back then

except they don't build pyramids. They don't build cities anymore. They live very simple lives but they still do their forest ceremonies. They still redo the calendar readings and their seed readings and things that go back thousands of years There's a very, very impressive culture that continues,

but they stopped cutting trees and draining swamps and building cities. And so they invite us down now because they say, look, you've got to learn from us. We destroyed our world. And now you're destroying your world, which happens to be the entire world. You think they destroy it?

They think they're responsible for destroying the world? Well, they can look now and see that they've destroyed their world. That's what we consider a fairly small area now of Central America. What time, what was the time when the Mayan civilization was at its peak? Do you know? Yeah, well the several periods, the classical period

that runs up until about the year by the year 900, that had basically disappeared. They left the cities. 900, right. 900 AD in our calendar. But it began several centuries before then. And so they had this peak period of building cities.

Incredible. construction that went on building these cities. Around 800, what does that say? After two millennia of steady growth, the mine population reached an all-time high around 800. Wow. Right. And then it began to decline by 900. It was pretty much gone.

Okay, so between 250 and 900, it was in its peak. Yeah. Yeah, isn't it remarkable how some of the most mind-blowing construction architecture and moving of giant objects happened way, way, way back in the past. Things that it would seem almost impossible for us to do now. You know those like even before the Mayans, there was the Olmecs. You've seen some of those Olmec heads that are down there? Yeah.

Those things that weigh tons, and we have no idea how they moved those across those mountains of those rainforests. Right. Yeah. Well, and then you looked at the... How the hell did they do that? And it showed the peak period there, 250 to 900. That's a long time, a lot longer than we've been experiencing here.

Right. Yeah, you don't even think about that, right? Yeah, no, you don't. United States? How was United States? 200 something? Not even 200? No, it's not even 300.

Oh, it's, okay. 1780 was, I think, 1883. But, yeah. And, you know, the other thing. Yeah, look at that head. I don't know. Are we on visual, too? Yeah.

Video. Yeah, we're on video. Oh, so people that can see this. Yeah, people can see this stuff. Look at that. And that was before the Mayans, I think. Yes, I believe so. Yeah.

And I think we know very little about them. We are. It's a huge pyramid that's outside Mexico City, which I was just at recently. We don't really know anything about the culture that about that. And the Mayans now believe, you know, so Tikal and many of their other cities are built in the to reflect Pleiades, seven sister stars, a clump of stars.

The Mayans believe they came from there is to many other cultures. It's interesting how there's this belief system. They believe what? That they came from Pleiades. From another star system. Yes. Yeah.

But you know something else, Danny, that fascinates me is we have no idea what's gone missing. we know that the Mayans had books and again they're they're glyphic type of writing not

not an alphabet like ours but very complex and there's four books that have been that have been left so when the Spanish conquistadores came and they destroyed most of their books because they thought they were pagan right and then and then when the jungle took over also already a lot of them have been destroyed because

after 900 when the people abandoned the city the jungle took over, and I know you can probably find some pictures in there. It just ate everything. Yeah, so people thought these were just mountains. They were actually pyramids covered with trees, and there still are a lot of them like that. And who knows whether, you know, I mean, it's conceivable that they had film or the equivalent of film, computers, lots of books. If they had four books, then they probably had a lot more books.

We don't know what technologies they might have had that have been destroyed. And if you think about it, if something should happen to our civilization now, some horrible catastrophe that basically wipes out the cities, and then a thousand years from now... There would be nothing left. No. The Hoover Dam, Stonehenge, maybe not Stonehenge, but the Hoover Dam would be here. We know there was a guy who wrote a horse, his name was George Washington. Yeah. Just like what we find with them.

These things that are in stone, but there would be no cloud. there'd be no film, there'd be no books. They would have all been taken over by nature. That's why we've got to get a hard drive to the moon and save all of our information on it. So in case a cataclysmic event does happen and a comment wipes out our civilization. Are you volunteering?

No, I'm not volunteering. But I'm sure NASA probably thought about that, right? You don't think they're going to put some sort of hard drive up there, maybe a building, save the information? Or maybe even some people, maybe some DNA. I think you should go. Oh, man, I don't know. That'd be pretty scary.

I don't know if I could. I don't know if I could do it. What a view. Think of the view. The view has to be great, right? You know what I was wondering the other day? Why can't you see stars on the moon? You know when they're on the moon?

You know, Edgar Mitchell talked about when he went to the moon, he's like, when we went up there and did that mission, he couldn't see any stars. This guy was just black. Yeah. I wonder why. I know. I knew Edgar. He was a friend. You knew Edgar?

Yeah. He knew quite well. He lived in Florida. Yeah. Yeah, and I remember on the day Alan Shepard, no, was it Alan Shepard, I guess it was Alan Shepard, who he was on the moon with when it died. He called me and asked me to meet him for lunch. He was really torn up because he said, you know, they're all dying now. And it was funny because he took me to his house and he showed me the camera and the watch and these things, you know, they were, nothing was digitized.

They didn't have microchips. So all the things they carried up to the moon with them were these heavy. things encased you know they're just it's it's hard to fathom how they carried this stuff up there because it's so heavy the things that they had were so

heavy yeah yeah yeah yeah Edgar was you know he you know he had this incredible experience yeah on the moon and then came back and created the Institute of Nordic Sciences yeah well when on his way back he secretly did this telekinesis experiment with some people on earth

with some with some tarot cards or I forget what it was, some sort of like cards they were using to see if they could transmit communication back and forth with telekinesis. Yeah. And then when they got back, all of them divorced their wives. They had all kinds of crazy, like psychological issues. They were really distraught when they got back for some reason. And Edgar went through some very difficult times after that.

He did some pretty heavy drinking and, you know, it was a magnificent human. being. I think all of them did, right? It had a huge impact. I think, yeah, I'm not sure of the numbers, but I mean, I remember, you know, he used to come to our house for dinner. I lived in the North Palm Beach area, and he lived out near the glades in that area, and he used to come to our house, and, you know, he was going to through a lot of difficult times. Yeah, I think that whole experience had an incredible impact. And, you know, here's a guy that was no, no, not woo-woo, my. in, he stretched the imagination. He was the right stuff. He was a aircraft carrier, he flew off

aircraft carrier fighter planes during the Korean War. And then he became a Navy test pilot. And he wanted to go to the moon. And he said, you know, there were so many good test pilots and people that he knew he had to have something that put him in a higher category. So he went back to MIT and got a PhD in aeronautical engineering, I think, or something like that. So now he has this PhD, and so he gets selected because he had the physical qualifications. But he also had it. And like you said, and then there was this breakdown afterwards.

It was a tremendous, yeah, emotional impact that's out on these guys. Yeah. A lot of people speculate that the reason, and even in that post-game press conference after the moon landing, all those guys looked just like, depressed, uninspired, and a lot of people kind of claim that that's because it was all fake. They never really went. They made up the story.

These guys thought they were going to go to the moon, and they got briefed on some story. And then there was even a guy who started up some big movement about the moon landing being fake. And he even wrote a book about it. It was in the early 70s. I forget this guy's basically the guy who started the whole fake moon landing. conspiracy or the idea that it was that it was fake. Yeah. And there's a lot of big questions about it for sure.

I haven't done enough research, but. Well, Edgar became very convinced in E.T.'s and Roswell. I mean, he believes that, you know, that the government was withholding information about what they know about E.T.'s landing here and being shot down. So he, he believed in that. but he certainly, he certainly believed that he was on the moon. Right. Right.

It's just like something, something happened, though. Like, it seems like there was something that happened to those guys that is just, hasn't been explained to us or something that we can't comprehend. Maybe it is just that phenomena, that psychological breakthrough that happens when you're seeing the earth from far away and you're seeing, I forget what the word for it is, but there's some sort of a psychological epiphany that happens when you're, on your way back to the earth and you're looking at the whole entire earth all the inhabitants of it all the governments and the nations that exist there and it's just this like this little ball and you're

separated from it yeah and i don't think we have any idea what that does physically either you know the the the g-forces all the different things you go through how does that impact your your home hormonal system the overview effect that's what it is the overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while leaving the earth from space researchers have characterized the effects is a state of awe and self-transcendent with self-transcendent qualities precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus. The most prominent common aspects of

personally experiencing the Earth from outer space are appreciation and perception of beauty. But then why do you become a degenerate alcoholic and divorce your wife? Unexpected and even overwhelming emotion in an increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole.

Isn't that interesting? Unexpected and even overwhelming emotion. The effect can cause changes in the observer's self-concept and value system and can be transformative. Isn't that interesting? Did he ever talk to you about that when you guys? No. But, you know, as I'm reading this, it strikes me. Some people go through similar types of things when they have deep shamanic experiences, you know, using some of the plant spirit guys.

etc. Yeah. Yeah, this could definitely translate to drug experiences. Well, what does that really mean? What do those experiences do to us? And so the indigenous people tell, you know, it's the spirit of the plant.

It has nothing to do with the chemicals in the plant. It's the spirit, and all plants have spirits. So, you know, it's not just the ayahuasca, but anytime you go out in nature, you feel the spirit of all the plants that you're with, the trees and talk to them. Yeah, that's something that this guy, my buddy Paul Rosalie, talks about when he first went down there, he's from Brooklyn, and he went down to the Amazon when he was in his early

20s, I believe, and he lived down there for years. And the way he explained it was like when you get down there and you're walking through the jungle barefoot, after a couple days, something happens to you when you're disconnected from reality, you're disconnected from modern society, you don't have a phone, you don't have a computer, you don't have a radio, you don't, maybe you have a radio, but it's not with you. And you're just walking barefoot to the jungle, you and your, all you have is your body and your clothes. Something awakens within us. Like we have a deeper perception, deep, like more senses that become awake and alive within us, the birds, the insects, all the little heartbeats

beating around you. You just have, you're more tuned in to the world and to nature. And it's almost like, yeah, the idea is that modern technology and these phones and everything that we have constantly surrounded with ubers and whatever it is, AI, is basically sucking the life out of us. It's dulling our senses. Yeah. Disconnecting us from reality. You really realize that when you go down to a place like the Amazon. I've taken, in the past, since the mid-80s, I've been taking groups. Every year, this past year, two groups into the Amazon, two different times.

Never more than 15 people, with a couple of exceptions. And I have to say, so I've been a couple of thousand people over this period of time, probably. There was a time when I was doing seven trips a year. I think everybody's come back changed in one way or another. And in a very positive way, almost always, which doesn't mean positive things necessarily. So I know a lot of people have come back and gotten divorced, and others have come back and gotten married, and some that have come back and quit their jobs.

That's interesting. Because it awakens a new sensitivity in you. I think you're facing your own reality deeper, touching that jaguar, touching the things that have... Yeah, it's a new perspective, right? Yeah. Kept us in this box, you know, of our belief systems. And your belief system is kind of cracked open,

Like, it's all about perception, you know, what is truth? Right. And you, you, you, and just a few days in the Amazon living and hanging out with the people who live there, whose ancestors of, you know, go back centuries, millennia, living there, you get a whole new perspective and the relationship with the plants and the animals. Yeah, it's similar to that overview effect. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's get back to. your progression through this in your life. So you were down there and you spent three years. And then what happened when you came, when you decided to come back? Who did you start working for? Did the guys from the NSA contact you?

What happened next? Well, I was down there, this man named Ina Grieve, who was a senior vice president at Charles T. Maine, the consulting firm out of Boston. How do you say it again? Charles T. Maine. Charles T. Maine. Yeah, it's, it spells C-H-A-S period, T-Py, M-A-I-H-A-N.

Yeah, but it's Charles. I mean, that's what we call it. Anyway, Maine, but you're just Maine. Okay. What kind of company is it? Consulting firm? Yeah, and a lot of, it's been sold since then. It was a private, it was a partnership.

Oh, look at that. It's on, even on Wikipedia. I found it 1893. Engineering company. Ooh, specialized in power generation, mainly hydroly. power. Yes, and was bought by Parsons Corporation. And so they eventually dropped the name of maintenance. They can't even, it's hard to find it these days. In 49, it began in association with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, working on projects relating to plutonium-based nuclear reactors.

I was sent to Vienna to be the U.S. representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna. Yeah, the company has a lot of influence in that area. Wow. No, they're former Maine consultant, John Perkins. Look at you. Maine consultant. An author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman. It was actually not a consultant to Maine.

My title was Chief Economist. But anyway. With details and issues of third world debt and neo-colonialism. Great word. Yeah. And the company doesn't exist anymore. bought out by Parsons and then eventually they dissolved it. They dissolved the name.

They kept the clients and they kept the bottom. But you know, we've got to keep a hidden. We've about 2,000 employees of which about a couple of percentage of them were partners. And I was actually the youngest partner in the firm's history. And pretty secretive company. We did a lot of our clients, a lot of work for the governments. Our clients were World Bank and American Development Bank. Asian Development Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development,

the U.S. Treasury, things like that. And a lot of it was pretty hush-hush. So who started the company? Well, it says that guy named Charles T. Maine back in the late 1800s. Oh, oh, it was that long ago. Yeah, so he started by the time time. So how did this company get so wrapped up in intelligence and the people running the show

in the United States? Only a few people in the company were involved in anything like that. I was one of them. But, you know, the company did a lot of real straight line engineering. So our job, like my job, was to, and I had a staff of up to 50 people from anywhere from 20 to 50, depending on when we're talking about. Got a drag race going on outside. Is that what that is? I was afraid it might have been the helicopters coming in from the C.A.

The black helicopter. Yeah. They got better ways of ruining our lives now. I don't know whether they're following you or me, but maybe it's both of us. Maybe. Two for one deal. Yeah. So anyway, my job was to identify countries with resources our corporations want, like oil, was one of the big ones back then.

And then convince the country to convince the president of the minister of finance, whoever, to take a huge loan from the World Bank, to hire U.S. engineering corporations to build big infrastructure projects, like power systems, hydroelectric plants, and the transmission distribution lines, and highways, industrial parks, things like this. These are things that benefited,

first of all, the companies that built them, U.S. corporations that made huge profits off building them, but also benefited. that had a few wealthy families in those countries, including the president and his cronies, who owned the commercial and industrial establishments that benefit from that infrastructure. But it didn't help the people.

In fact, the people, the majority of the people, ended up suffering because money was diverted from education, health care, and other social services to pay off the interest on the loans. And in the end, the loans couldn't be repaid. And so the contract with the company to the World Bank or whatever establishment we were using as a banking institution was that their oil or whatever the resource was that we coveted

was collateral on the loan. So when they couldn't repay the loan, we go back, I'd go back. And now it'd be basically working for the International Monetary Fund, which is sort of the policing organization around all of this and say, hey, we'll restructure your loan. But we own you. But we own you. And yeah.

And you need to sell your oil real cheap to our oil companies without many environmental or social regulations. You need to privatize your water and sewage systems and sell them to our, to some of our investors. You need to let us build a military base on your soil and vote with us on the next United Nations vote against Cuba, for example. So basically we set these terms that were very colonialistic. We were bringing them into our realm through the use of debt. So we were really creating an empire, but not through the military. We realized after Vietnam that the military wasn't very effective at winning the hearts and minds of people. And the way to do it was through economics.

Jesus Christ. Hold on. Let's wait a second. There's a trash truck emptying a dumpster right outside of our door. It's ridiculous. I'm glad to know that's what it is. It's not a tank fully up. Basically, you were just laying out the way you guys were colonizing the world and strong-arming nations to basically bend to your will and let you use their resources for a discount. because you guys basically you guys conned them into some bad loan that they could never repay.

Yes. And here's where the perception thing comes in. We provided them with a really nice report, and that's where I came. I wrote good reports. I'd been an English major. I like to write so I could write these reports. And with all the statistics that my guys had produced. But this report would say, if you in.

invest all this money in building this infrastructure, hiring our companies to build this infrastructure, your economy will grow. And we measured it by GDP, gross domestic product. And it's true. When you invest this money in that kind of infrastructure, the GDP grows. And so the president would be happy. You'd take it out to his people, take it to the newspapers and say, hey, we've just taken out this loan. Our economy's going to grow. And it did. And I believe for many of years when I was doing this coming out of the Peace Corps, I had a good conscience. I thought I believe that I was doing the right thing because that's what econometrics show that when you do this, your economy grows. But what we didn't understand, what I didn't understand, is that GDP basically measures how well the wealthy are doing, how well the big corporations are doing. It does not measure the prosperity of the average citizen. No. No. It's the only, it's the only,

overall country. Right. So it's a statistic that's warped in favor of big international corporations and in the very wealthy and powerful. But we were producing these reports. Well, it's warped in favor of the country, right? The GDP only reflects the country. It doesn't refer it. It only reflects the wealthy people in the country and the corporations in the country. That's what it mainly reflects. Right. So you're saying they're mainly responsible for the, for the largest percent of the GDP. Yeah. Well, here's an example.

Let's say there's three people in the United States that have as much wealth as half the rest of the population of the United States. So if those three people last year made 10 percent on their investment and half the country lost 3 percent and everybody else remained the same, you can do it back of the envelope calculation, you would show a growth of almost 4 percent when in fact only three people may any money. Everybody else either stay the same or lost 3%. Right. And so these statistics are extremely, extremely deceptive, but they create this perception. And then they put the country deep into debt, and then we take its resources. And so it's a very, very clever and insidious system. It's all

based on a con. So your chart that you would give them, showing them how their GDP would rise, how was that chart, how did that chart work? Did you basically show them the money that they were going to make? Or did you basically manipulate the chart saying that the middle class, so the lower class was going to be boosted by this? How did that chart look? The simplest answer to that is that you could chart other countries that are taking these loans. You know, you could have a graph and you'd have a whole series of countries.

And the ones that had accepted these loans and built this infrastructure, their GDP had gone way up. The ones that didn't get the loans, their GDP was still way down here. That's the simplest explanation. But we'd produce much more sophisticated models that went into each sector and showed what we could expect

the industrial sector to grow by the banking sector, the commercial sector, the agricultural success. So we created these very, very sophisticated, complicated, econometric models that nobody but an economistian could understand anyway. But the World Bank liked them because they were all into that, kind of stuff. And the presidents

like the conclusion. And incidentally, so the other thing was that these presidents or ministers of finance knew that if they didn't accept these loans, then the people we called the jackals would step in. Felix Rodriguez. I think Felix

could be rated as one of those. But yeah, these are people that either overthrow governments or assassinate leaders. And usually they don't even need to step in. So basically, I go into a president's office and I say, look, Mr. President, here's a few billion dollars. I can offer you in a loan that you can use to really improve your GDP.

Or if you don't take this loan, I've got a gun in this other hand. Now, I didn't carry a gun, but he and I both knew there were people behind me that carried guns. And, you know, they'd overthrown Allende in Chile and Arbans and Guatemala and the Mostedek in Iran, in La Mumba in the Congo. So we're talking about the CIA. CIA knuckle-draggers. CIA operatives. And sometimes it's very convoluted.

So the CIA may actually use operatives from Argentina or some other place where they've got influence so they're not directly connected. But there are these people. And the presidents of these countries know that they're there. And so, you know, what do you do? If you're a president, I tell you, hey, Mr. President, I'm going to help you become rich and look really good to your people. They'd be reelected and your families owns these industries and they're going to benefit from better electrical power and better highways. So I offer you this. Or don't take it and you'll probably be thrown out of power and maybe taken out.

Well, first thing, if I had half of a brain and I was aware of this kind of thing going on, I would avoid a meeting with you at all costs. So why would they take a meeting with you if they knew about this kind of shape? Because you probably, if you're in that position and I come down and say, hey, I represent the World Bank, I'm going to help you and your family improve your businesses. They have no idea you're part of the United States. No, they probably do. But they know the World Bank is basically, you know, to a large degree, controlled by the United States. Okay. We just, you know, the President of the United States decides who's going to be the President of the World Bank.

And we are the largest investor by far in the World Bank. We have a lot of influence there, as we do with the Asian development, and all of those banks. It's called the Washington Consensus, which is the Treasury Department and these various banks that get involved. So, yeah, they know I'm connected, and they want to hear about these loans they can offer them, because it's going to make them look good in office. They're going to look good. And then I'm going to be around, you know, five or six or more like 10 or 15 or 20 years from now when we go back. in and call in the loans and say, you know, you've got to give all your oil to our people.

So when you're being initiated into this whole world, right, and you're being trained to do what you're about to do, how did that work? How much did they tell you about what you were doing and like what the ends were to this? And how much of it were you ignorant to? Well, so I was trained by this woman named Claudine, who had a business guy that said she was a consultant to my company, Charles D. Maine. And she had all this information about what I wanted out of life, money, money, power, and sex, and she offered me all of them. She did. Yes, she did. Yeah.

So she did the training in this apartment that she had on Beacon Street, very close. So our headquarters were in Boston at the Prudential Center. Okay. She not only gave me sex, but she taught me how to, how to, I was very shy. I grew up in a boys prep school. My dad taught at this boys boarding school in New Hampshire. I spent my life with boys, and I was very, very shy around women, you know, and I really wanted not to be. And Claudine knew this, and she handled it very, very well.

Wow. And also. She seduced you. Didn't take much to say. But she also taught me how to seduce other people because she said this could come in really handy sometimes with the wife of some guys in a very important position that you may need to get information out of.

So I went through this training in this little apartment of POS. While I also had a desk in our office building in the Prudential Center, but she told me basically what I'd be called upon to do. also, I mean, she taught me the ropes of the business, which was to go to these countries and convince these guys to take these loans. But it was all held out to me by her and by other people at Charles TV that I was doing a really good thing. So, you know, I was doing what the peace corps is supposed to do, which is help countries, help people. But I was doing it on a very big level because I was helping these economies to grow. And I graduated from business school.

I've read all the reports the World Bank puts out and it was all this information that shows that when we invest money in these big infrastructure projects hire U.S. corporations to build these massive projects the economy grows. Everything gets better. And I believed it. I believed it because the statistics show that that

in fact is what happens. So she said nothing about the jackals. Well, she, no, she did. I mean, she mentioned... Oh, she didn't? She mentioned that, you know, sometimes presidents who balk at these sort of things get into trouble with their constituencies. And then, you know, we've also got to be careful because there's this red tide of communism that's sweeping the world. Remember, this is at a time when we were convinced of the domino effect that if we lost the war in Vietnam, the communists would take over somehow.

You know, Ho Chi-Hen was going to move into Indonesia, which was my first assignment, to go to Indonesia and convince the Indonesian government to play one of these games to take this money, hire us to build big power system on the most populated island in the world, Java, which also happens to have the biggest Muslim population of any place in the world. Java, Indonesia?

Indonesia has huge Muslim population. And I don't know whether today it's still the largest or not, but it was. And it was struggling. It's its president, was flirting with the Soviet Union and China and us. And we wanted to make sure they went with us. So part of this whole operation ties in again with Felix Rodriguez.

And this belief, and it was very strong in Latin America, what was called the Red Tide of Communism, was taking over Latin America, Che Guevara, and the Cubans were launching this campaign supported by the Soviets. And we needed to stop that. We needed to get these countries to buy into our system to become part of our empire, if you will. And so there was this driving force.

And I believed in that idea. And I believe that the best way to solve it was economics because we had proven that the military wasn't going to do a vision in Vietnam. We were either losing or had lost the war in Vietnam. And plus it just never seemed like a very efficient method to me, killing people in order to win them over. Right. So this seemed like a really, really good idea. For many of the years that I was doing this, I really believed I was doing the right thing,

as I think many people who still do these sorts of things believe that they're doing the right thing. So she told you, even though you're going to do this and we're going to make their GDP better, we're going to help their people as well as help us. If they don't agree, they're going to get the stick. Well, if they don't agree, they're probably socialist or they're probably Soviet agents.

They're probably Soviet puppets. And so they may need to be taken out. And that was the justification we're going after Allende in Cuba and Arbans and Guatemala and Mossadegh and Iran and all of these people. And we're only mentioning presidents, but we've also gone after a lot of ministers of finance and people lower down that don't make the news quite as much. So the idea being that if they're not willing to play our game, then they're probably, Soviets, or they're Soviet puppets. And our press, if these people didn't play the game, you know, our media machine would go to work to get out into the press. Well, Allende is a Soviet. He's a communist. Well, Ayende in Chile was a socialist, but he was not a Soviet communist by any means.

He was a socialist, and he was democratically elected. We took him out. And we did the same thing in a number of other countries. You know, this whole, it was such an, I fell for it. But as I look back, how did I fall for it? Like this idea that Che Guevara with what 25, two dozen people, idealist, poets, you know, was going to take over Latin America. And Cuba was going to support this. and Cuba was having its own struggles,

and the Soviets were pouring some money into Cuba, but not a lot. The Soviets weren't really that involved. There was no real red tide. There was... Well, they put their nukes on Cuba. Yeah, they did, and they tried to put more, and Kennedy stopped them.

But, you know, like, when you think about it, we've got nukes surrounding the Soviet Union. Oh, yeah, we do. Like, hey, I can have a gun, but you can't. Exactly. You heard the bad guy. Anyway. Yeah, part of that agreement for them to remove the nukes was they wanted us to remove our nukes out of Turkey.

Or was it Italy? It was either Italy or Turkey. I think it was Turkey. Okay. But this whole concept of this red tide, what it was really there was there was a very strong socialistic movement. There was an anti-capitalism movement, an anti-U.S. movement, basically. Nelson Rockefeller had really pissed people off when he was vice president. He came to Latin America.

I was there at the time as a Peace Corps volunteer. The riot, people did not want this man in Latin America. He owned a lot of stores that were considered to be exploitative, grocery stores, and other businesses. His family owned businesses. They also owned Standard Oil. They were raping, especially Peru at the time of its oil and moving into Ecuador. So there was this very strong reaction against American imperialism. And that moved people more and more towards socialism.

And so we then, a lot of us believe, but this propaganda machine also went into effect of convincing our population and the population of many of these countries that it was driven by the Soviet Union that the socialist movement in Latin America was not a socialist movement. It was a Marxist Soviet movement, which it wasn't for the most part. you think it was you think what did you think it was it was it was a socialism in other words land reform take land away from the big international corporations that was one of the things that a lot of these presidents wanted to do raise taxes on the rich give more land and more social services to the core

there was a movement in that direction which was called socialism but that's not what happened in cuba right I mean people were literally hanging from the from the street signs in Cuba they weren't giving up their businesses to the government. Yeah, Cuba was, that was a true revolution. Yeah. Yeah, but that wasn't happening anywhere else. And Chee, apparently, Che was slaughtering people, left and right, children, women. Yeah. I mean, that guy was a, that guy was the worst human being, the worst type of human being that it could ever exist. Well, you only had 24 people, I think, or 25 with him

in Bolivia. When he got caught? You see, you're talking about slaughts, slaughtering people. in Cuba, yes, yes. But by the time he reached Bolivia, which is where Felix was... He was Ronan when he... I think Castro had given up on him then. He kind of like cast him out of Cuba and had separated himself from Che.

Yeah, yeah. But from our standpoint, we were selling the information, false information, that he was... That he had a big force, that he was recruiting people, that he was part of this...

He was spearheading this red... tide of communism, which was a myth. But I believed it. Well, I mean, he definitely wanted to, right? He may not have been in the threat that we made him out to be, but he was definitely, that's definitely what his aspirations were. I mean, he went to the Congo and tried to, what did he tried to do in the Congo? He tried to start up an army in the Congo that ultimately failed. Yeah, in Angola was used to this kind of a training ground for all this. He was in Angola. Now, remember, So he was executed, I think it was 67, and I went in the Peace Corps in 68. So by the time I'm an economic hitman in the early 70, he's long gone.

Right, right. But there was still this idea that the influence of the Soviet communism was driving the socialistic movement in Latin America. There was a socialistic movement in Latin America. But in my opinion, as I look back, on it. It was probably a movement in the right direction and it was not a pro-Soviet movement at all. It just happened to

be, it's socialism, not communism. But the whole specter of Che was still very much lingering in the air as being obvious as evidence that the Soviets in

Cuba had been very deeply involved. In Latin America, right? Well, I mean, the Soviets were funding the Iran or the they were funding the

the Sandinistas right? Or was it the contra's I always forget who was on whose side We were funding

the Contras right and they were funding the Sandinistas is that right? They were funding the Sandinistas Right

yeah they were funding the San Danistas Yeah the whole Iran Contra The That was a proxy war Right

with the Soviet Union because they were funding them and then we were funding the Contras We were selling arms We were

We were selling arms and giving money to the Iranians. But we were also down there boots on the ground training the Contras. Yes. And Oliver North played a huge role in that. The biggest commercial airport in Costa Rica today is Liberia, which was built by Oliver North as a huge military base. Beautiful runway. I fly in there. It's bigger than San Jose? Yeah.

I think it's... I was just there last week. In San Jose or Liberia? I was near Liberia. I was on that part of the, on that part of that. I was near Nosara. Oh, you were. That's where I teach every year.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I teach it Blue Spirit, which is right there. Oh, okay. Cool. You used to be part of Omega Institute in upstate New York.

Why do you teach down there? Because they invite me to. Oh, really? That's cool. Yeah. I've been teaching there for years ever since it first got started. So you probably flew into Liberia. No, I flew into San Jose.

I took a puddle jumper from there over to Cabano. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That airplane. I was a little bit south, a little bit south. Yeah. Near Santa Teresa. Well, the nearest, you know, actually the nearest airport would have been Liberia. So it was this huge long runway where they could take the largest airplanes the U.S. military

ahead at that time that Oliver North oversaw the construction of this. And then eventually it became a commercial airport, which it is today, to World Bank financing. All right, so where were we? Your first assignment was going to Indonesia and trying to do a deal with the Indonesian head of state. Yeah. And who was that? Suharto, Sukarno. Suharto Sukarno. Okay. And I, and I, and I, And how did that one go? Well, we were, so there was this transition. I always get those names confused.

Was it Sukarno who we've overthrown Suharto? No, Suharto was overthrown Sukarno. Look it up. Who overthrew who in Indonesia? Sorry. No, that's okay. Let's get it right. All right.

Those two names are so close. It's just, it's a. How do you spell? S-U-K-A-R-N-O. S-U-K-A-R-N-O A-R-N-O Okay, cool Okay, General

Here, let's show it Oh, that's Suharto, okay, these are, Saharto, um The military Spell-Ling General Suharto

largely took control of the country in the Western-backed military overthrown. Yeah, so he overthrew Sukarno. Okay. And now you've got Suharto, but he's still, there's this flirtation going on between the Soviets, the Chinese, the Americans, and our NATO allies

to try to win the hearts and minds of Indonesia. So Indonesia is seen as critical because Vietnam has fallen. And the domino theory would say that so one of the next countries that Ho Chi-Men would move into would be Indonesia. And it's a country that at the country that at the the time was considered to be extremely rich in oil and it had this large Muslim population which was another benefit to gain from it and it's in a very strategic location for trading routes through the sort of the straits of of the straits but anyway so so my job was to go in and and my first job After I finished with Claudine in Boston, and I go off to Indonesia to try to convince them to take one of these large loans and use it to hire my company and other.

We didn't do construction. We were an engineering company. We did design and construction management. So the big construction companies were ones like Bechtel, Halliburton, Brown & Roots, Stoner-Webster. They would get the big jobs, but we would get our piece of the action. And my job was to go in and convince the Suharto regime to accept these loans and hire our companies to do this. And in the process, we would be integrating them into our imperialism, if you want to call it that, into our sphere of influence and keep the Chinese and Vietnamese and the Russians out or the Soviets out. and it was really funny Danny because I had no idea what I was doing.

You know, I've been in the Peace Corps. I know I can survive in these circumstances. And now I'm going to be staying in playing first class from Boston to Indonesia. I had to spend a couple of weeks in Australia at the University of Australia where they had a great library of Indonesian economics. They knew more about Indonesian economics and the Indonesian. So were there to study? Well, I went to Australia.

This was about 10 days, I think, and meet with some of the professors, because I needed to write this report that would convince everybody. So then I go to Indonesia for three months. But I really have no idea how to approach these people. And I remember one incident where I was meeting with this guy from the, from the embassy who'd been dealing with Indonesians for a long time and all kinds of things. Claudine had kind of taught me the basics, but now I've actually got to sit down with the Minister of Finance and others. And I never actually sat with Suharto, but with people under him, and convinced them and talk to them about these economic terms that I really didn't understand too well.

And so this guy from the embassy We're sitting at the bar at the hotel in Indonesia, the intercontinental hotel, the best hotel in town, and where I'm staying, and we're at the bar, and he says, well, you know, John, if you don't really understand, just look at the guy and kind of roll your eyes and scratch your chin and say, oh, yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, that's interesting.

Could you go into more detail? Explain exactly what, you know, what do you mean by that? And he said, just keep asking questions. and act like you know something. Act like you're really, really wise. Kind of intimidate the other person into thinking that you really, you know, but you're interrogating in basic. Right, right, right.

Yeah, so it was great advice. It worked pretty well. And so I left my way through the first month or so that I was there out of three and then began to catch on to how you do this thing. So at what point, how long did it take for you, to get intoxicated on this money and power that you had attained by doing this

and swindling these people in high places? It was intoxicating, but again, I go back to, I didn't think I was swindling them. I thought I was doing them a favor because I'd seen all the studies. I'm still very naive. I haven't,

and this lasted for about seven years or so that I didn't see the light until I had an event after about the seventh year where I began to understand the nefariousness of what I was doing but for most of that time and I was only in that job for 10 years so for 70% of that time I believed in what I was doing

which made it all that much easier to convince others because I was convinced and all I had to do was produce these reports and convince the people that I'm going to give the reports to that I knew what I was talking about Right. How did you discover that this was all a sham? And this was all just some elaborate scheme to create some giant super empire for the U.S.? Most of the presidents and other top officials that I worked with bought into the system. You know, they played the game. There were two that didn't. And one was a democratically elected president of Ecuador, Jaime Roldos. And the other was Omar Torrijos, they had a state of Panama. And they were both clients of mine.

But Omar became, I'd like to call him a friend. He was, he was a party animal. He'd love to have barbecues, a lot of rum and cigars and beautiful women. Wow. Did you get to join? Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. But he was, you know, and he was a great president, too, and he was really, he would not play the game.

At the time, he was very determined to get the Panama Canal back. in the hands of Panamanians, which he eventually did with the treaty that he and Carter negotiated together. And, you know, Panama's a small country, seems insignificant other than the Panama Canal. But he was standing up to, people called him the David standing up to the Goliath. And he was famous all over the world because of this, because he was taking this lead. And he was very charismatic, very photogenic, good-looking guy. And he took me aside upon several occasions and said, John, don't you realize what you're doing?

You're selling a lie. That's bullshit that you're giving about increasing GDP. Yeah, that may happen, but that doesn't measure how the people are doing. And at one point he said to me, hey, why don't you, actually, the setting for this. So, sorry, what country are we talking about right now? Panama. Panama. Okay.

Toriho. Yeah, Torrijos. Torrijos. Oma. And so we're on this yacht, which, you know, somebody's, none of it wasn't his. but we're on this yacht and we're sitting in the cockpit of this yacht this beautiful yacht

and drinking marguerbizers or something and we're surrounded and smoking Cuban cigars and we're surrounded by these beautiful young women and their bikinis you know and Topless yeah I think probably

at least one or two of them was but and Omar says to me he says John why don't you come work for me because you know you won't make nearly as much money but you'll feel really good about yourself and you'll have a lot of fun. He spreads this up, you know, look, look what we're doing, you know. And he really laid it on the line to me what I was doing, the lie that I was selling the

world and myself. And so he really opened my eyes to this. And then I started looking at it more and more. And I was also dating a woman. I was in the process of going through a divorce with my first wife. and I was dating a woman in Colombia. She was Colombian, and she also did business in Panama. She had a little factory where she designed clothes and made clothes,

and she bought a lot of the materials in the free zone of Panama. And her brother was a member of what would become FARC, you know, this famous organization, terrorist we call it now it's the terrorist organization. Farmer. Yeah, in Colombia. and she also said, you know, you don't really understand what your country's doing. So the big truck just went by and anyway.

So she also really understood. And she said, you know, you've got to stop doing this, John. And I'm beginning to my conscience and I was beginning to bother me. I'm beginning to really get at what we're doing. And I'm looking into it more deeply. And I said, yeah, but her name was. Paula, that's what we call it, which I call her in the book, that wasn't her actual name.

But I said, but I can't get out. You know, they won't let me out. My life will be in danger. And she said, no, I think if you just tell them, you're tired, you want to retire, you'll never write about this or speak a word of it. And, you know, give us a try. So she's putting pressure on me,

and Torrijos is beating me the riot act of all of this. And so I really began to understand that what I was doing was wrong. Was Tariho the first guy who said no? Yeah, well, both he and Roldos about the same time were saying no, but I spent more time with him. And Roldos was a lawyer and a former professor of law. He was the president of what country? Ecuador. Ecuador.

And I didn't really know him well. He wasn't as easy to get to know. But it wasn't as much of him. He was kind of an introvert. Got it. And Torrijos was the opposite, so I got to know Torrijos quite well. And anyway, so after about seven years of believing that I was doing the right thing, I'm suddenly discovering that, no, I'm not.

And I'm lying to myself, and I'm lying to the world. But I didn't want to believe the truth that I knew now was the truth, because I'm suddenly making a lot of money. I grew up with a son of a teacher at a boys prep school in New Hampshire. We never had much money at all. The house was given to us on campus by the school. I ate with 200 plus boys

in a big dining room from the time I was four years old. Never wanted for food, never wanted for a home. But we never had any cash. And I felt very poor in some respects. And here I was surrounded by wealthy, wealthy, boys who and then I went to that school for four years of high school and

during Christmas vacation I'd stay up here in the snow ridden New Hampshire town. I had a key to the gym that my dad had and I'd throw basketballs or practice tennis against the walls by myself. My friends would be off, you know, they'd come back talking about the orgies that they had in Paris

or, Board of Sires or whatever. I had this complex and now suddenly I'm flying first class around. the world. I'm winding and dining with presidents and I've got a lot of women available. And so all these things that I'm making a really good salary and I'm a partner in this firm. So I don't want to believe what I'm now coming to know is the truth. Right. I'm in denial. And I think there's a lot of people in this business that are there today. How many guys were there like you?

I don't know. No idea. No idea. Didn't know anyone else who was doing the same thing. I'd run into people. We didn't, you know, yeah, I'd run into people who worked for other companies like mine, certainly. Oh. Because I probably knew half a dozen to a dozen. These guys I would run into, but we didn't. But you weren't the only guy working for your company, doing the same thing you were doing. I was the only one writing those reports.

I had guys under me. Oh, you were, okay. And you had a president above me that I reported to, but I was in charge. Wow. And so, you know, for. for about three years, I continued to play the game. My conscience was getting the better of me, but it was increasing.

It was increasing, and I was getting pressure from Paula and Colombia, and getting pressure from Torrijos and others now. I'm asking questions, I'm looking into this, but I don't really wanna know the answers. It was tough. I was living in these two worlds, two worlds really.

And then I took a vacation in the Virgin Islands and I rented a small sailboat and I was with a woman who worked for me and was with me and thought... Dog.

Yeah, I know. In those days it wasn't frowned upon quite as much as it is today, although we were pretty quiet about it. But, and we anchored the boat in Mahalo Bay, Francis Cove. on St. John Island, the Virgin Islands,

and I rode the dinghy ashore and took a six-pack of beer with me, and I climbed up this hill to the Annenberg plantation. It's that old, old sugar plantation that was in ruins on this hill. And I'm sitting there looking, it's idyllic. There's Bougainville, there's beautiful flowers,

it's this old plantation, and I'm sitting in the suns setting over the Caribbean, and I'm drinking a few beers, and I'm thinking, God, this is the life. This is so beautiful. Suddenly I was struck by the fact that this plantation was built on the bones of thousands of slaves. And then I realized the whole American hemisphere

is built on the bones of millions of slaves, not just from Africa, but from, you know, indigenous ones here, and we brought them in for China, you know, whatever. And then I had to admit that I too was a slaver. I wasn't dragging people out of the forest and putting them in chains, but I was enslaving them with debt. I was a modern form of a slaver. And I get really pissed off at myself.

I remember this while I've written about it. I picked up this big stick that I found there. I'm slamming it against the tree. And I'm just really, really angry at me. And the system and everything. And at that moment, I made the decision I wouldn't ever continue with it. And so a couple of days later, I go back to Boston, and I go up to the president, my boss, and I resigned.

And, of course, he told me I couldn't and gave me, and I took another sort of little job being a consultant to him for a while. You know, it was hard getting out. It was very, very difficult getting out. Plus, at this point, I wouldn't have a job. so I lingered for a while around the fringes but I basically at this point made the decision and they never did any more of that international work

so when I was a consultant to him I worked with the Burlington Vermont Electric Department who were building a wood-fired power plant and I did some work with some of the utilities in New York State doing economic studies for them and some other companies so I was doing I continue to get paid and be part of the company and not talking about it.

Real quick, going back to Toriho and Panama, what was the pitch to him? And after the pitch, obviously, it took a couple of years for you to have your epiphany on this stuff. But what ultimately happened to Toriho? Well, so when I went down, the idea was to get him to accept a large loan to build a huge, a couple of big hydroelectric plants. Hydroelectric plants, okay. And also transmission lines and distributions to modernize the electrical system of the country. And he immediately said, no, I'm not going to do that.

He said, but if you want to work here, do small-scale projects, help our small fishermen and our small farmers, little irrigation projects and storage projects where the rural farmers can store their grain, and can store their produce and help the small farmer. If you want to do that, I'll let you in. And I went back to my boss in Boston and told him that this. And he said, yeah, let's do it. We'll get in good.

We've never done this kind of thing. It's not going to make any money for us. But we'll work on winning Torehouse over. And maybe eventually we'll get to do the other projects. So we did that. and I sent a number of the people who worked for me down there. They spent time down there. One of them included a woman who was a sociologist who did social studies,

which he very much wanted. It was totally different from anything from Charleston made it ever done before. And it was successful from that standpoint. And it endeared me to Rehost, but at the same time he's telling me, yeah, all the stuff you're doing in these other countries and what you wanted to do here isn't going to help the people of these countries. to help a few rich people and that's it.

And what about the president of Ecuador? What happened with him? Well, he refused to do anything. Yeah, he refused to take the loans that I was suggesting. And what was your guys interested in Ecuador? Oil. Oil. But so both of these guys died in very, very suspicious private plane crashes within less than three

months from each other in 1981. The first one would go down was Roldos, and he's in his plane with his wife and a couple of staff members, and the plane went down under very mysterious circumstances that all of Latin American press. It was an assassination, and of course, the U.S. and everybody else denied that. You know, if you're going to kill somebody, a small plane crashes a really good way to do it because the smoking gun goes up in smoke. It's hard to find any proof. And Torillo's at that point got his family together.

And he said, you know, my brother Jaime, Roldos of Ecuador, was just assassinated. I'll probably be next. But don't worry about it because I've done what I needed to do. I've successfully negotiated the Canal Treaty with President Carter. And the Panama Canal is going to revert the Panamanians by the end of this millennium. and less than three months later almost exactly the same thing happened to him his private plane went down

with his wife and I've since been friends with his daughter who was 17 at the time and then became well I'm sorry I'm going back to Ecuador this is the daughter of Roldos who Marta Roldos who became a friend and became a legislator in Ecuador

and, you know, very, very intimately involved with this story. And the family, what do they think about this? What is, like, the daughter? What does she make of the plane crash? Does she think it was U.S. assassinating him? Yeah, she's very careful because she's a politician in Ecuador, so she doesn't want to piss off the United States because, so she's very careful about what she says in public.

What is the U.S.'s role in Ecuador and Panama now? Did we ever successfully implement any of these things after you left? Yeah. Yeah, we built some big, there's a hydroelectric dam that I go by. I take groups by every time I go and go to Ecuador like I'm going to do in a couple of weeks. And that was one of the ones that I financed. A hydroelectric dam. Yeah, got permission to build.

But what's happened now is the Chinese have taken over, basically. So how do they take over from us? Okay, so here's a story of how it happened in Ecuador, which is sort of a model for other places. So when there was a period of 10 years in Ecuador had eight presidents, and they may have those numbers just a little wrong, but it's very much in that category. I mean, just coups and countercouverous.

Cruz. And then in 2010, the Democratic elected president named Rafael Correa. And Correa, who's also become a friend, I was just on a TV show that he produces that of Mexico now. Oh, wow. And he was president for 10 years. He has a PhD from the University of Illinois, so he knew in economics. So he knew our system really well when he came into power. and he'd got his master's degree MBA in Belgium. He's married to a Belgian woman. And as soon as he came into power, one of the first things he said was

the Ecuadorian people does not owe all the money that the World Bank claims we owe them. And he formed a commission to investigate that. And the commission came to the conclusion that, I can't even if I may have the number of it's long. I think it's around $10 billion. $10 billion Ecuador owes America. Well, they owe more than that.

But I think, and again, I'm not sure of the numbers here. I didn't look before I came in here. But a large amount of money that Correa said we're not paying, that the commission said the people of Ecuador do not owe because these loans were undertaken during the military junta who ran the country back in the 70s when John Perkins was an economic hit man. And the military junta was put into control by the CIA and kept there by the CIA.

And they took the money. The Ecuadorian people never had a say in it. They were not elected. There were three people around the country. None of them had been electorate. And so Correa said, we're not paying that debt. And they used your book? No.

No, no. This was before I wrote the book that they came in. actually it wasn't before I wrote the book. It wasn't before I wrote the book. And Correa endorsed the next book, so maybe that did have an influence on the Monday. On the commission. It may have, I don't know.

But in any case, so Correa says, you know, he said, my people don't owe this money. The military guys who took the loan owe the money, but they're all in Miami or Sweden, Switzerland or someplace now. They've left.

We can't get at them. The World Bank probably owes the money because they never should have given a loan to us for these things. They should have known better as a good banker. Maybe John Perkins owes the money because he put the deal together. Korea says this with a tongue and cheek and refused to pay the loan. So immediately, Standard & Poor's and Fitch and other rating agencies crashed Ecuador's credit standing. So Ecuador became a pariah in the financial world. They couldn't borrow any more money.

They were in Schittsville because they refused to pay their debts. Well, most of these countries couldn't pay their debts anyways, right? Yeah, but they said we're not going to pay. Well, they could pay with oil. They could pay with resources. They could pay with resources. But Correa said, we're not going to do that. Was there other ways they could pay?

Basically, that was it. Just resources, as only matter. And also, you know, letting us build a military base, which we did in or a big one before Korea. So let us have a military presence there. Yeah, they're all these tradeoffs. You know, yeah, and sell some of your publicly owned government businesses to U.S. investors. Vote with us and the next United Nations vote against Cuba, these kinds of things.

Right, vote with us. Yeah, so Korea is... They were just giving us the middle finger, though, and we didn't like that. Exactly. And the rating agencies downgraded them to junk credit rating. So China steps in And China says, well, we'll help you out And they give Ecuador a loan for a billion dollars

With very good terms Which Ecuador immediately started paying off So their credit rating goes up And then China gives them on second loan For another billion dollars And now Korea is buying into China And China's coming in and offering to build a hydroelectric plant

Which they built a huge hydroelectric plant And now they're building big mines They're interested in copper, cobald, and gold, which are all necessary for the high-tech industries. They're building huge projects in Ecuador. They're doing this all over Latin America and Africa. In Mexico. All over Latin America and Africa. They are the number one investor in trading in many of the countries in these two continents.

They've really taken over. So how is their deal sweeter than ours? A couple of ways that it's sweeter. or peers to me. Remember, perception controls reality, right? So one of the things is that they claim that they will not try to influence these governments in any way. They won't try to get them to vote with them in the United Nations. They do, actually. But they do it in a little bit more subtle way, and they claim that they don't do it.

They won't try to influence whether they have a democracy or a dictatorship, which they don't. They stay out of that pretty much. they don't they don't they don't they don't tell the country they don't go in and do the studies and say here like i did invest this money in power systems or whatever they go to the country and say what do you want to invest it in they go to the leaders of the countries and say what do you want to invest it in we'll we'll give you the money what are you going to want to use it for then we'll help you build the project so so they sweeten the deal that way that's a perception thing they saw what we were doing wrong and they fixed it

They invited me to teach at an MBA program in Shanghai a few years back. Who's they? China. The government? Well, no. It's an MBA program. It's a university. Okay.

So basically the government. Well, there's a connection, I guess. Yeah, a small one maybe. As soon as I get there, what I realized what the students wanted from me, these are all, these are students that mostly were Chinese, some foreigners. But most of them had been single. out to be the future leaders of China, the best, the brightest, you know. And so what they wanted to learn from me is how to be a good economic hitman. What were the mistakes I made and what were

the successes I had? And I very quickly cut the idea that I wasn't there to teach them anything about classical economics. I was there to teach them about being an economic hitman. They were picking my brains, where you were going on riverboat rides down the river outside of Shanghai, a lot of, that goes through Shanghai, and so on and so forth. And it was a lot of fun. But I really get the message. But now, one of the other things that they really have to sell to the world is the fact that they had economic growth of around 10% a year for almost for 30 years. They experienced that. China.

Yeah, China. And they brought over 800 million people out of poverty. That's more than all of Latin America. They brought them out of poverty. They created a middle class. During that same period, our middle class in the United States shrank from 60% of the population to 50%. And you know that we have not had a real increase in the federal minimum wage since 1973 or 74. In fact, it's lower today than it was in 70s.

In relation to inflation? In relation to inflation, the real wage. I mean, the federal minimum wage is less than $8. Now, who can live on that? That's the federal. A lot of states have much higher rates. But that's the federal. And so China goes in and they say, hey, look, you're the leader of this country.

It's a poor country. We want to help you get out of poverty. Same statements I made. But would you rather have the American system that's really been a failure for its people? And look at the government of the United States. say it's dysfunctional. You know, they can't even decide on a budget for more than three or four months at a time. Congress is dysfunctional.

Look at the politics right now. I mean, I'm sure China's making a lot of hayways. Right. Right. Right. You know, and they say, and, you know, they haven't increased their real minimum wage since the 70s. And we, look at what we've done. Look at the, we just brought our country out of the terrible time of the Mao, the cultural

revolution, and we've become one of the strongest economies in the world in less than three decades. So, Mr. President of Ecuador or Peru or whoever you are, which system do you think you'd prefer to have for your country? Ours or theirs? It's a big selling point. And on top of that, what they say they really want to invest in is building this new Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative.

And so we would go to a country like Peru and say, hey, if you buy into our system, you'll have most favored nation trading agreement with the United States. We build a bridge between you, Peru, and the United States, or you in Ecuador in the United States, you and Chile in the United States. China goes in and says, we want to build not just a connection between China and your country, we want to help you build connections with all the country. around you and around the world. So here in Peru, we're going to help you build a deep water port that you can trade with Africa. We're not just interested in building a bridge between China and Peru. We're helping you become part of the New Silk Road.

It's an amazing concept. When I was in China teaching at this program, I kept thinking... China also happens to own all these other ports around the world that they're trading with, like in Africa and everywhere else. They're Belt and Road initiatives everywhere. They're building ports, military, as airports, roads. Not many military bases.

Well, I mean, the place, a lot of the airports and, I mean, they're building like train, train platforms and tons of roads, especially in Africa. From what would I understand, an embassies, a lot of these locations that they're building can be very easily converted into military bases. Exactly. Exactly. They're doing it. And Panama, they own. two huge container ports on each side of the canal. I mean, they control a lot of the transport. They don't control the canal per se, and let's remember our military is very close to the canal. We've got ships right off the coast, but they do have, they control a lot of the commerce that goes through the canal.

I mean, they have done a brilliant job, if you want to call it, that extremely effective job of imposing their own form of imperialism on the world and pushing the United States aside. At the same time, the United States got very bogged down in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and now in Ukraine and Israel. Israel. And China stayed away from all of that. While we were spending fortunes in the Middle East, they were investing heavily in Africa. in Latin America and staying out of the military thing.

As you say, a lot of the facilities built could be converted, but they're not military facilities. And nobody wants a military facility on their soil, rather from another country. You know, we didn't like it when the British had theirs here back in the 1700s. No self-respecting Ecuadorian or Kenyan wants a foreign military base on their soil. Right, right, true. And they're also, so in China, I'm, I've talked to guys on here journalists that report a lot on Mexico and like the cartels that are going on and what the cartels are doing with the wars, the cartel wars in Mexico and stuff like that and trafficking.

And there is a heavy, heavy Chinese influence in Mexico working directly with the cartels. In fact, they're sending chemists to Sinaloa, Mexico to train them how to produce families. Sentinel that's getting traffic into the United States. And they're also, they have mines, lithium mines all over Mexico, where they're actually, the Chinese are, they own, they own the lithium mines and they're mining the lithium, but they're using the cartels as security. Like they're literally hiring them, working with them to secure those mines where they're digging up all this stuff for batteries and stuff they're selling to us or whatever it is.

Yeah. In Ecuador, they've got huge mine they're building. And some of them are very poorly constructed. They do some lousy construction work. And they built this huge hydroelectric plant in Ecuador that was supposed to provide something between a third and a half of the country's electricity has eight big generating units. And it was built out in the very sensitive area of the Amazon, very ecologically sensitive. And it was built on a fault line near an active volcano, revented ore. Oh, wow. And it's, as far as I know, at least as of a year or so ago, it never, all eight units had never operated. And the generating house, where their generators are kept, was riddled with cracks, very poor construction.

And I think they're working on improving that. But they've done some very sketchy construction. around Africa and Latin America. Isn't it true that a lot of the exploitative work that's going on in the Amazon, like the logging and the mining and the even leveling parts of the rainforest to turn them into cattle farms, that's all China? Yeah, I can't speak specifically on some of those issues, but certainly I know that China has a huge influence in all those areas.

And the mining, particularly, where they really want to control the world's, lithium and cobalt and the other rare minerals that are necessary for microchips and other high tech technology yeah so how are we going to respond to that how is the u.s responding to that now that china has basically figured out our our flaws in this way of strong-arming other countries to gain their resources what uh what's the next move i can't answer that i'm i'm I'm really concerned, Danny. I think that, you know, the United States right now is so screwed up. You know, let's face it.

I mean, we've got this. Is it really, really, really more screwed up now than ever? Or is it always been like this? And it's just always the next news cycle that's making us feel like it's worse than it's ever been. From your perspective. Well, I think it's more screwed up than it has been in my lifetime in terms of how it, how it in unison relates to the outside world. Now, you know, I would say that going into Vietnam was a terribly screwed up policy,

but it had the support, at the beginning at least, of both Democrats and Republicans. And most of the people at the beginning, that changed over time, particularly as the draft became stronger and stronger. Kennedy didn't want it. Well, yeah. We don't think Kennedy wanted it. look what happened to him.

Exactly. So I think we had a much more unified view of the world, and we supported NATO and rightly along. I mean, you can look at all those things as being screwed up, too. But when I say it's screwed up now, it's like the world looks at us and say, the United States can't make any decisions, and we can't trust them.

When Trump takes over power, he negates a lot of the agreements that were signed with previous administrations. And Biden comes in and he tries to reinstate some of those. And now if Trump comes... So there's this constant flux. Yeah. And the world doesn't trust us as they used to.

And they may... When I say trust, they may have hated us, but they could see a consistent policy. And many of their leaders were in cahoots with us, even if a lot of the people weren't. So I think we're in a situation... And let's face it, the world is just a lot more dangerous now. We have climate change.

We have horrible hurricanes. You know, Florida's under... Hurricane. We have hurricanes all the time. Yeah. Every year. Yeah. But it's getting worse.

It's not getting worse. It's the same. Well, not according to the statistics, but there's more stronger ones more frequently now. Really? Yeah. I feel like it's always with the same line. They're expecting 27 this year, I think?

What? Yeah. Look it up. There's one coming right now, right in the Atlantic. I know. I'm going to hurry to get out of here. It's all, you got until,

Friday. You got time. Yeah. I look forward to the hurricanes because they get to surf. Yeah. Oh, that's a good, weird point. Yeah. I mean, I lived through, I lived in Florida for 30 years and lived through a few. We chase the hurricanes. We find out where they're going and figure out the best place to catch the waves. You know what they say about people like that? Hmm. Yeah, I'm not right in the head. Nihilists. No, but any case, I think that we are in a very difficult position as vis-a-vis the Chinese right now. We don't. made it easy for the Chinese to sell their marketing tools. And I don't like that. I mean, I'm very disturbed by that fact. You know, another thing that's come in. They're marketing tools. What do you mean by that? What I described before, that they've had

economic growth of 10% a year for 30 years. They brought 800 million people out of poverty. And that's a good selling tool. It's a good perception to resent to the world that they are on the March. Now, I think she in the last, since the pandemic, he's, he's gotten into a lot of trouble. I think he's made some big mistake. So, like what? Well, you know, closing down China the way he did is the economy has never recovered from that. Right. And he's become more dictatorial, you know, he's now like Mao was in a way, the infra-life kind of thing. He just got himself re-elected, you know, elected, if you want to call it that. I think he's made some big mistakes. And I think that the door is over.

now if the United States wanted to go in and take advantage of those mistakes. My concern is I'm not sure that we're in a position where we're united enough or have enough willpower and commitment to spend the money to make that happen. Yeah, it's always made me think, like the whole election cycle thing, it seems counterintuitive because it's like, yeah, that's, is that, that's good for democracy that we have eight years, eight years maximum term, four years minimum term for a president, but so much of that time is dedicated to getting reelected and the campaigns and really nothing ever gets done. Well, basically people in the House of Representatives who win there for two years, they spend

their two years trying to get reelected. Yeah, exactly. And you think of the money that's spent. I mean, and it's just presidential campaign already and we're not even through it yet. I spent, I don't know, hundreds of millions, amazing amounts of money. money. And democracy, I'm not sure about that, where corporations have so much power to influence politicians. It's incredible. Basically, we've legalized corruption in the United States.

So it's legal to own politicians, essentially own them through campaign financing and offering them very lucrative jobs when they get out of politics as consultants or lawyers or, you know, lobbyists. We corrupt politicians, but we do it legally. And, you know, this is, it's just, it's on and on. Isn't your Rockefeller's the one who started that? Started what? Lobbying.

I don't know. I thought I heard you say that in the podcast. What I did say, what you may be thinking of is John, so after the United States became a country, one of the early things that the Congress did was, to make sure that we wouldn't be in a position that we'd been in with the East India Company, you know, that controls so, that really a lot of the Revolutionary War was implemented against a huge corporation, which was tied in closely with the royal family of England. And the Boston Tea Party, you know, is the most famous example of coming up against that company. But that was a huge

problem. And so Congress decided that no corporation could get a charter to be incorporated unless it proved that it was going to serve a public interest, such as building highways or bridges. And the corporate charter only lasted for 10 years. After 10 years, they had to go back and demonstrate that they had, in fact, served a public interest, and would continue to do so.

And no corporation could buy another corporation or sell itself to another corporation. And that law stayed in effect for about 100 years. And then John D. Rockefeller, to both the states of Delaware and New Jersey. I can't remember during it first. I think it was Delaware. And he said, I want to, I'm building an oil company.

You guys have got oil on your land. And an oil company can't be held back by just 10 years. We're long term. You've got to change. You've got to give me a charter that lasts much longer than 10 years. And you've got to allow me to build other, to buy others to smaller oil companies that aren't doing so well so I can buy their equipment.

and I can expand this oil industry. And if you do that, I'll pay good taxes in Delaware and New Jersey. You representatives can give yourself a better salary. And so it turned around, and that turned everything around. So that law that had been standing for about 100 years suddenly went down the tubes. And it's just getting worse and worse and worse with Citizens United and so many other laws that give corporations. So much power, you know, the rights of an individual, but not the reasons. responsibilities of an individual.

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what other countries think about us when they see what's going on with the election mania and the circus show that's going on, you know. Well, my friends in Latin America, I've spent seven weeks there this year,

so far, and I'm going back again in August, even before this one's debate. But they were like, you know, the United States is the biggest banana republic in the world, but you don't have any bananas. That's hilarious. Yeah.

Well, it's hilarious and it's sad. It is sad. As an American whose family fought in the revolution in every war since, except the most taken one in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'm really sad by what's going on. And, you know, we've got Russia reemerging and we've got China taken over in some respects and the two of them having alliances with each other and bringing in iran and north korea it's it's uh it's very disturbing what do you make of the whole ukraine russia conflict and everything that's come out with like all the corruption going on in in uh ukraine and the government

ties like the ties with i know biden was doing lots of business and hunter biden was doing lots of business with companies and the ukraine and ukraine's just been like the middle of this tug of war between Russia and the U.S. forever. Yeah, you know, I don't have any inside information. I hate to speculate on things where I don't have experience. I will say that I was speaking at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, I shared the stage with Putin back in 2017 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. And I was really impressed with Putin.

He made some very good points. He said, you know, let's face it, all the countries of the world, we need to come together to stop climate change. and to deal with the nuclear proliferation problem and income inequality around the world. He said those are the big issues. We need to come together. And he was convincing. But, you know, I'm also, and I hear what you're saying. I think we insulted him. I think we missed some opportunities to bring Russia into NATO. He made overtures. He wanted to join NATO. I know, I know, I know. I know. I think we made some. big mistakes. That's the water under the dam. But he was also the only reason NATO existed.

That was the selling point for NATO was him. Exactly. And at that same conference, he says, you know, NATO was formed to combat the Warsaw Pact. He says, there is no Warsaw Pact anymore. Why do we need a NATO? But I'm also concerned that I think something's, you know, he obviously was extremely aggravated and probably. And probably he was driven to that to a large degree by our policies. And yet I think at this point, I'm very concerned that if he takes over Ukraine, he won't stop there. Really? That he'll move into other parts of the world.

You know, he's clearly stated that he thinks one of the biggest mistakes was the ending of the Soviet Union. So I don't know. Like I said, I don't have any side information. I've never worked in Russia or Ukraine or that part of the world. So it's pure speculation on my part. I don't like to speculate. But I think what we all have to be terribly concerned with is how potentially explosive that situation is. And we can say the same thing about Israel and Gaza and Hamas and Hezbollah.

We're dealing with some extremely volatile situations right now in the world. Yeah. And there's also the influence of other countries in our country, too. Like when you talk about lobbying, you talk about the, Israel lobby. John Mearsheimer talks a lot about the Israel lobby and how much influence they have over all politicians. And there was a guy who just did it. I forget his name, Congressman. I forget which state he was from. But he just did an interview, I think, with Tucker Carlson. And he was talking about APAC and their influence on the congressman. And basically they all have like APAC handlers. And I think Trump actually just got a $100 million donation. nation from the Adelson, Adelson, Merriam Adelson.

Right. How many countries have that much influence in their government from other countries, right? Like how many other countries have their political system completely corrupted

by a completely separate country that uses them to their advantage? Well, that's colonialism, isn't it? Yeah. And of course, at the same time, we've got all the problems with social media.

influence from Russia, China. And we're probably doing the same thing in those countries. I don't know. Probably. But it's a... I always wonder how much shit that we see, how much shit, like either the presidential election, whether it be them doing this whole dog and pony show with Trump, dragging him through this crazy trial,

or whether it be with the COVID stuff or anything. you see in the news, how much of it is just an intentional distraction for are the people in power to keep their power and just to keep the people dumb and to keep the people distracted by nonsense so they can keep their agenda or even the UFO stuff, right? Yeah. Like how much of this stuff is just intentional distractions? I'm reminded of that movie Gladiator, remember the movie Gladiator? Was that before your time?

No, I remember gladiator. With Brussels Crowe. And I remember at one point, these senators are, and I'm paraphrasing here, but the senators are sitting around basically saying, aren't the gladiatorial events a great distraction from what we're really doing? You know, and I think there is an awful lot to be said for that. I think colonial powers have always distracted their citizens from what they're really doing with high-flying concepts.

We're fighting this communist where we're doing this. And oh, just, you know, watch the next football game. And enjoy. Don't think about these things. So, yeah, there's incredible distractions going on. And some of it's very much in the public arena

and the political arena. But there's all kinds of ways to get us to not think about what we're really doing. Yeah. And so many things are coming to light, too, that just show like all the lies that are happening. Like even with the recent, do you see what happened with Fauci just recently

when he had to go up in front of Congress and get questioned? They basically found out, they got the audio recordings of the phone calls. Fauci is basically, they had a phone call with him. I forget exactly what he said, but he said something like,

they won't be able to get a job without their vaccinations. No vaccinations, no jobs. They're going to be forced to do it. I don't give a fuck. Like something along those lines. And he denied ever saying that. I guess I didn't hear that. But so you think that was, is the supposition here that it was dubbed that he didn't actually say it?

No, he didn't see. He definitely said it. I mean, his claim was that that wasn't his intention. He didn't, what he actually said is not what he actually meant. Right. But, I mean, that does raise another point that, you know, we could probably get a recording of you sitting there saying, ah, I'm an agent of the Chinese government. Right? No, I don't think I've ever said that No, no, but with modern technology

We can dub it into your safe Yeah, AI could do it Yes, AI can say it But Fauci admitted he said it Yeah, I don't know about Fudgee But that is another thing that concerns us For sure, yeah, deep fakes, AI That's a turn off these cameras

I don't want to be put this position for it Yeah Yeah, the deep fakes Yeah, the deep fakes are scary AI, AI is crazy, man What's gonna, how is AI going to change everything? You know, you know, and with the problems, like the modern problems that we have in society today, like we think about war, conflict, climate change, whatever it may be. Like, is all that going to matter once we hit the singularity?

Once we hit the singularity, the AI is going to figure out how to keep the planet sustainable. Let's hope so. If, you know, it is going to be, another huge problem is going to be when AI figures out how to get, how to make people live longer and to make people live hundreds of years, you know, and then all of a sudden our. population booms. We've already got that problem, you know, Social Security's having a hard time. You know, we've got that problem now. You know, we live

too long. I'm about to turn 80. Really? Wow, you look great, man. I don't want to say that. I'm in a great shape. Yeah, you are. You want to go a few rounds? No, I don't want to go a few rounds with you, man. You've been spent a lot of time in the Amazon, Central America.

I practiced martial arts most of my life, and it stays with you. You stay in shape. Everybody out there, as you're, you know, get into shape, stay in shape because it really does make a huge difference. Right. I don't think I told you about the time I was poisoned. No. But that's an interesting story about it.

Is this when you were writing your book? Yeah, the interesting story about being in shape. I wanted to ask you about that too. I brought that up because it's about the being in shape thing. Okay. What happened when you decided to write this book and how did you go about writing the book? Yeah. So initially, after I got...

got out of the business, I started writing a book that I wanted to be an expose, that I wanted to interview other people that had jobs like mine, and the jackals, as I know quite a few of them. And I started contacting them, and almost immediately I got anonymous phone calls threatening my life and that of my infant daughter, who's now in her 40s, but yeah, she was an infant. And I was terrified because I knew what these people can do. I'd seen it. At that time, I just left the job that Charleston-Maine. And I get invited out to lunch by the president of Stone and Webster Engineering Company, huge engineering company, also out of Boston.

And he takes me out to lunch, and he says, you know, you have a great resume. You were chief economist at one of our rival companies. And I want to use your resume in our proposals. I wouldn't have the opportunity to do that. You don't want to have to do much work for us. Maybe I'll ask you to fly a private jet down to Rio de Janeiro once in a while, have dinner with some people or something. You don't have to do much.

Just let me use your resume. And I'm prepared to write you a check tomorrow morning for $500,000. Half a million dollars is a consultant's retainer. Now, this is in the late 80s. Half a million is nothing to sneeze at today, but it was a lot more back there. Oh, yeah. It's a bigger sneeze. A quadruple, probably.

Yeah. So, and then he says, just don't write the book that I know you've been working on. So I'm getting exactly what I had dished out to presidents and others. I'm getting, okay, in this hand, I've got half a million dollars for you. You don't have to do much to earn. Just here it is. Oh, and we're also going to pay you a monthly fee. In this hand, the jackal has been calling me threatening my life and that of my daughter. getting exactly what I'd been dishing out and I know this. What do I do? What would you do? What would you do, Danny? What would you do?

Yeah, take the money and run. Yeah, so I did. I took the money and, you know, in my own defense, I'll say I didn't go out and buy fancy cars or a big house or something. I reinvested into going back to the Amazon and offering and forming a nonprofit called Dream Change to help the people. people of the Amazon, protect the forest where I had lived in it has such a huge impact on me. And I started writing books about them. So I wrote five books on shamanism and indigenous people. Sturone and Webster was fine with me doing that. In fact, they were happy that I'm writing books about things that get my name out there more and associated with them. But I didn't

write the book that they told me not to write. Okay. And then many years later, my contract with Stone Webster was over, new presidents come into Stone and Webster, who knew me and didn't like me at all, didn't want me around. We had a history. And so I'm in the Amazon with a group of people on 9-11. And when we, when I get home, I was living in Florida at the time, I flew up to New York to Ground Zero. And as I stood there looking down into that pit, I knew I had to write about what I had done. Which doesn't say this. the direct connection, but it just struck me that I needed to write about what I'd done. But I made the commitment at that point that I wouldn't contact other people.

I would write, I wouldn't write an expose. I would write a confession. My personal story, and I wouldn't let anybody know I was doing it, because what got me into trouble before is I started contacting people. So, you know, if you're going to be a whistleblower, don't warn people you're going to blow the whistle. Blow the whistle, and make sure you get all your time. ducks lined up. And so I did that. I wrote the book. And it was interesting that it was rejected by 39 publishers. I'm not 18 anymore. I'm working, raising two kids, and I have little

free time. That's why I chose University of Phoenix. I take one class at a time and log in on my schedule. University of Phoenix built for real life. Get started at phoenix.edu. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into, sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. I get 39 rejection letters. That takes a lot of.

a lot of touching a lot of Jaguars. Yeah. And then one publisher bought it, and it went to the New York Times bestsell list very quickly and stayed there for like a 70-some-odd weeks. Now, weren't you worried about getting whack? No, but at that point, I figure it's my best insurance policy.

Even once I, once I got it in the hands- Getting it published, you mean? Yeah, but even getting it in the hands, before it got published, even when it was being rejected, it's out there. There's no stopping it now. And if somebody, something strange happens to me, it's going to sell a lot more books.

Shoot me now and see how many books get sold. And so now I figured that was my best insurance policy. And I think I was right, except a few months after the book was published at the end of 2004, in early 2005, I was invited to speak at the United Nations. And I fly up to New York from Florida.

And before, I'm doing a lot of interviews. A lot of interviews. And I have a publicist who works with a publishing company. And there's this one guy who wants to interview me, but he doesn't have very good credentials, so we've been putting him off. But finally, my publicist calls me, and she says, you know, he's offered to pick you up at LaGuardia and to drive you to where you're going to stay at a night, which is a friend's house, an old friend on Central Park.

And he'll take you out to lunch. That'll probably be better than taking a cat. Why don't you do it? So I did it. And we go to this restaurant, an Italian restaurant, and I ordered it, and the meal comes, and I go to the restroom, and eat the meal. And this guy was lame. You know, he'd just been terrible journalists.

He'd asked stupid questions, not like you. Oh, thank you. And a couple hours later, I'm in my friend's apartment, and I lost over half the blood of my body through internal bleeding. just gushed out of me. And my friend happened to be a producer at Tom Brokha's NBC Nightly News. And she had a good friend who was a very well-known gastroenterologist.

Pavarotti's gastroenterologist. Calls him around 7 o'clock at night at home. And I get on the phone and I'm shaking. I've gone into shock. And he says, you've got to get to Lenox Hill Hospital. Don't call an ambulance. Take a cab. The ambulance is too slow.

Right. I'll call ahead and get intravenous set up for you. Wow. You'll be dead in two hours. So I go to this hospital, and to make a long story short, they ended up taking out 70% of my large intestine, cutting it out. And we never thought much about it at the time. I was just trying to survive.

And as soon as that happened, and the word got out, obviously had to cancel the talk with the United Nations. my publicist did and sent word out to everybody that I had these interviews set up with. You know, I can't come. And people kept pouring in with email and phone calls saying, don't you realize John was poisoned? Never had occurred. Well, I wasn't thinking. I'm suffering.

I wasn't thinking. So I asked my gastroenterologist, and he says, well, it's possible, but we can't prove one way or another because as soon as we take something like that out, we incinerate it. Oh, no. So the evidence has incinerated. But that guy disappeared. All my publicist had was his email address. And there was no response anymore.

He basically disappeared. It wasn't any point in pursuing him because they had no evidence anyway. You never could get a hold of him, nothing like that. No. So that's pretty much in itself. That's proof that. It sounds pretty suspicious. Yeah.

And then I called. while it's still in the hospital, I called this friend of mine who was a jackal, who's been in this business. And I said, hey, do you think that, what do you think? And he said, well, yeah, I think it's probably there was an assassination attempt. And I said, who do you think did it? And he said, well, definitely not the alphabet agencies, FBI, CIA. Not them? Not them.

He said, if there had been them, you wouldn't be talking to me. And besides that, they don't want to see you dead because that's going to sell books. if something if you if you die from it said all right it was true already book sales are gone and spiked again he said they you know they're not too worried about books you know it's just a book it's out there it's out there killing you is not going to stop the book from being out there right the book's already done the book's done it's out there and and he said so and i said well who then and he said well i think it was my guess is that it was a fanatic who either hates what you did as an economic hitman or hates the fact that you came clean on it and I said well do you think I need to worry

about him coming back and he said no I don't think he'll show us face again you know who he is now and he's scared he these guys are cowards he did a cowardly thing and he probably feels that he's scared the shit out of you and he doesn't and he's he's not going to show up so he said I don't think you need to be maybe there's others out there but he said you know you can't spend your life being worried about such things. So, so, but it was a, you know, it was an interesting experience. Oh, how I got into this, I said physical. You know, so my, my doctor said, you know, one of the reasons you came through this so well

and, you know, I'm well now is, is that you were in really good shape, and that served you well. Your heart was strong, your body was, you know. How old were you? So this was 19, this was 2000. I was born in 45, so it was 60. Oh, wow. Is that right?

I think so, roughly. I'm not the guy to ask. I'm an economist, you know, economists can't do math. Right. We assume, we assume 45, 55, 65, 65, 75, 75, 75, 75, 85, 50 years. Yeah, 50 years. Wow. No.

How did you know these jackals? And who were these jackals? I wasn't 50. I was 60. Okay. I was 60. Well, this particular jackal, this is a funny story, too. So I practiced martial arts. What kind of martial arts?

Well, my degrees are in taekwondo. Oh, okay. But my instructor who was Korean up in the North Palm Beach area, You know, we did a little of everything. We did a lot of street stuff too. And I had gone on him before then. In any case, one day this guy comes in and says he'd like to join the school, he's a black belt. And I start to say, okay, so we're putting in a uniform, let's see how you do.

So it gets out there. And then at the end, at the end of the class for the last 10 minutes or so, we usually did sparring, which is called low-contact sparring, without hitting gear. You only tap somebody with your foot. You kick, you know, black belts have to learn that discipline. And I'm the senior black belt in the school at this point, and I line up opposite this guy. And we start to go at it, and I get in a little bit of a hit, and he just comes at me like gangbusters. And I know at this point, I'm not going to hit this guy.

I'm defensive. This guy, I don't, I'm scared of him. And anyway, after that, but I hung in there. You know, we had a good, he felt good about it. joined the school. And then we got to hanging out together and going out to lunch afterwards. I used to practice in that late morning. And so did he. And we got into this conversation about the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. And he had been part of a team that went in from South Africa to assassinate the leader of the Seychelles.

Really? Yes. François. I can't think who's the last name right now. That's right off the coast of Madagascar, right? Yes, right in that area. Yeah. And so a squad had come out of South Africa that he had been on. So he'd been, he was, he was, who was he working for? Well, he, private firm.

He was, he was a mercenary. CIA? No, well, the CIA may have made very well have had something to do with that. But he didn't directly work for the CIA. He worked for a guy named Jack Hoare, who had been movies made of him, who was very well-known mercenary in Africa. Anyway, and I had been recruited, I had been actually at one point ready to go into Seychelles and try to corrupt this president, and we decided he couldn't be corrupted so they sent on a team to take him out, but they failed. And anyway, so we get into this conversation at lunch about the Seychelles, and I realize, oh, yeah, I know who you are.

And he knew that I knew who he was, and we became friends. So when this thing happened and I'm in the hospital, he lives in Florida. And I call in and we had this conversation. You know, the guy, you know, despite his career, was a really good friend and very compassionate. When I was recuperating, he made sure he'd come by and make sure he got up on my feet and walked like I was supposed to and got all the exercises. Yeah, you know That's interesting man And he had a belief system

He grew up in Beirut He was American citizen His dad was an executive with Middle East Airlines And he grew up in Beirut And he'd been beaten up by the PLO When he was about 18 years old And went through a lot of shit with the PLO And so he hated

Communists And he hated You know He was rather a racist too And so he went to South Africa and trained with the SAS in South Africa, very elite forest area, and then in Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe and South Africa, both of those countries, he was very involved in some of the fighting there

and had this exclusive training and really excelled at what he did. An expert marksman, a demolish, explosives expert, he knew the stuff. Plus the damn good martial artist. Wow. Yeah. And he said that if it was CIA, if it was the U.S., they would have succeeded. They would not have failed. They wanted the alphabet and district.

And then said they'd have no motive. They don't want you to be more famous than you are. And if you get, if they, you know, and this did sell a lot of books. The fact that I was in the hospital. It did. Yeah. Yeah. And even today, you know, if they, do you, how much, how much influence or influence or

Or how much fuckery do you think happens inside the United States from these three-letter agencies? How much influence do you think they have on like the media or like on domestic politics? I think they have a lot. A lot. And I think it's not always clear who has it. So these agencies are massive, you know, and there's empires within the empire, so to speak. Yeah. Well, the U.S. government's the biggest organization company.

whatever you want to call it, in the history of the world. Yeah. There's like millions of employees. Yeah. So it's really hard to, it's really hard to paint them with a broad brush. Yeah. And all those, I mean, sometimes I think they're competing with each other. Some of the agencies within the agency or the departments within the agency.

So, you know, I think, you know, some of them may be, you know, fighting the DEA. We talked earlier in the Mexico situations, and some of them may be. supporting the, I think it's a very complex issue and I don't know, I don't know. I don't know that anybody knows. And you think about who's the director of the CIA, who's the director of any of these agencies, they're mostly appointed by presidents. And so, you know, your president, you appoint me as head of the CIA, are the career deputies and other top people and they're going to share their most important secrets? with me, hell no. They don't know me from a hole in the ground. You know, I may have passed

security tests and so on, but they don't trust me, and they know I'm only going to be there for a few years, and the next president's probably going to replace me with somebody else. So why would they share their information? So I have some control over some of the general policies, but as to what really goes on, you know, I don't, the director of the CIA doesn't know. Right. I believe. And again, this is supposition on my part. Yeah, it seems that, you know, the media and the control of information in the U.S. is very much that is very much under control. And it's very much like, just like the congressmen are, the media is very much corrupted by organizations.

Don't know what the names of those organizations are. And advertising dollars. Oh, huge, huge. That really showed its ugly face during the COVID pandemic. Mm-hmm. I have a, the guy followed me around for several days after confessions came out of a New York Times reporter who ended up writing a major article about the book. And we were in, he followed me around. I was in Chicago giving a bunch of talks at different institutions in Chicago. And he spoke fluent Spanish and spent a lot of time in Latin America as do I.

And I said to him, you know, how come you're not really writing the truth about so much of what's going on in Latin America? You know damn well that the policies that we're saying in some of the countries that we're labeling as dangerous and so on and so forth. Why don't you write about these things? And he says, well, John, you know, he says that the United Times prides itself on not censuring its writers. I'm not told what I can't write. I can write anything I want But my editor has discretion as to what he publishes And he is under the influence of the publisher

Who is under the influence of all of our advertisers So you know I think it would be very careful that I don't write something that's going to piss off The publisher or some of the advertisers And he says you know if I don't publish frequently if my editor doesn't accept my articles Then I'm going to lose my job So he says theoretically.

Yeah. Well, I had a guy on here, Jack Murphy, who's a former ranger. He got out of the military and he decided to be in journalism and write on some of the stuff that's happening, like within the military and the wars and stuff like that. And I'm sorry for people that are listening because I've told this story at Nazim on this podcast, so I'm repeating this for like the 10th time. But anyways, he was working on a big article for about a year after the Ukraine war kicked off. And he had a bunch of sources that were former CIA.

who were basically telling him that the CIA was using a NATO spy service, a NATO ally spy service to conduct sabotage inside Russia, like lighting, ammunition's warehouses on fire, blowing up train tracks. It's like that because the CIA wanted plausible deniability. They wanted to send their own people in there to do this stuff. And he was working with one of these top three publishers in the U.S., working on this article with one of the editors at one of these, publications because they wanted to publish it through the whole process back and forth very

open line of communication between them when it came time to publish the article um the editor says okay well we got to run that i got to run this by the deputy director of the CIA they get on a three-way call with my buddy jack the editor at this giant publication and the deputy director of the CIA three of them and the guy said the guy at the CIA forget who the deputy director was at the time this would have been about two years ago. He says, this is absolutely false. He goes, this is not. This is untrue.

So Jack assumes, okay, we're just going to, we're going to add a line at the end of the article saying that you deny any of this being true. Yet I still have dozens of sources that say it is true. Well, no. The editor of this publication has an off-the-record agreement with CIA, saying if they do deny anything, it's off the record and he kaboshed the whole article. So they have ways of doing this. That's not just blatant in your face.

They can't just say, oh, no, we're not going to, it's not like China, where they're going to say, we're not publishing this because this goes against our empire or what we're doing. They're basically saying the way the CIA does it is, they're going to say, if you publish this stuff, A, we deny it. B, if you publish it, you're going to put lives at risk. You're going to put our operators' lives at risk, our military people's lives at risk. So you're going to be doing a tremendous disservice of the country, and you're going to be responsible for innocent lives. Do with that what you will.

End up like WikiLeaks like Julian. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean. That guy. Yeah. So, yeah, we have all kinds of ways of control. Oh, you know, the most recent thing was when, you know, Trump paid, what, the National Enquirer or one of Trump's agents not to publish the article that they bought from Stormy Daniels.

Remember that? So the publisher paid Stormy. Daniels to buy the article and then trash the article. And I mean, that kind of thing it was on all the time, too. You know, Republicans, Democrats. Right. The politicians also have a lot of power that way. And it's, yeah, it's, yeah, there's, there's many ways toward corruption.

Yeah. Corruption comes in many forms. And another thing I wanted to bring up, when it comes to the economic hitman tactics that you used when you were doing this and what's going on today. there was, and I believe you talked about this before, but there was a country, I think it was Belarus. During the middle of the pandemic,

the United States went to this country and said, we're going to give you basically a huge loan. We're going to give you all this money for all this stuff, but you have to implement all these lockdown policies, all these mask policies, and take all these vaccines. And the leader of this country basically said, no. this is like one of this is an economic hitman model we're not going to follow it where the united

states tried to implement all these rules across other countries you remember what you remember this i don't think i wrote that stephen i said no you didn't write this but you mentioned it before it stephen there's an article i sent you this is it right here yeah belarus president unwilling to accept additional terms to get foreign loans this was published when june 19th of 2020 okay yeah so right after the pandemic who wrote it I don't know. I don't know. This is ever,

we can Google it again and figure out who covered it. So it basically has additional conditions which do not apply to the financial part are unacceptable for Belarus.

Belarus president Alexander Lushenko said when speaking about external lending during a meeting to discuss support measures for the real economic sector on the part of the banking system,

Belta has learned, Berta's name this publisher, Lushenka. Lushenko asked the participants of the meeting how things were with the provision of foreign credit assistance to Belarus. What are our partners requirements for this loan? It was announced that they can provide Belarus with $940 million in so-called rapid financing. How are things here, the head of state inquired? At the time he stressed that additional conditions which do not apply to the financial part are unacceptable for the country.

We hear the demands, for example, to model our coronavirus response on that of Italy. I do not want to see the Italian situation to repeat itself in Belarus. We have our own country with our own situation, the president has said. According to the president, the World Bank has shown interest in Belarus coronavirus response practices. Interesting. And it is ready to fund us 10 times more than it offered initially as a token of commendation for our efficient fight against the virus. The World Bank has even asked the healthcare ministry to share the experience. Meanwhile, the IMF continues to demand from us, quarantine measures, isolation, and a curfew.

This is nonsense, he says, we will not dance to anyone's tune. What do you think of that? Yeah, I don't know. And who is Belta, do you know? Belta is the name of this website. But Stephen, open up a new tab and go. Google, open up a new tab on the browser and then just Google Belarus President IMF coronavirus. Maybe that'll come up with some more.

IMF, so Politico says IMF awards Belarus $1 billion to fight the coronavirus. So it sounds like the World Bank is tied into this and they're trying to. to give Belarus money to implement lockdowns for the coronavirus? Why the hell would they do that? And it's, yeah, Belarus will get $100 billion payouts from the International Monetary Fund to fight coronavirus pandemic, a move that has called widespread anger. IMF said it will distribute more than $650 billion in reserves among its members as part of the so-called special drawing rights. Wow. Yeah. Interesting because Belarus is kind of in the Russian camp too.

It is in the Russian camp. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea. It seems like things like this, like the coronavirus, that were just implemented for the government to grab more power, similar to 9-11 and the Patriot Act and the TSA, they they all all the powers and all the all the control the government got from 9-11 they never let go of that all that stuff still in they still have all that power well it's like you you know like uh Naomi Klein you know shock doctrine so when this when an incident like this comes along yeah that people try to grab power you know she writes about that a lot in that yeah but just on another subject I'm looking at this painting. I don't know where the audience can see. Oh, yeah. Everybody loves this

painting. So, but, but, but, but so it's, it, it ties right into something I've been writing about. And that is, uh, what if, um, if, if, if there are these flying saucers, let's say, assume there's a huge fleet of flying saucers and they're, when we know that they're threatening to destroy us as human beings. Okay. So what is China and Russia and the United States and all the other countries do. If there's an existential threat to the world, hopefully we'd all band together. We'd become the human race. And history tells us that's what happens.

So my theory is that the aliens are here. Are you one of them? Yes, and so are you. We all are. It's not human beings, but it's our philosophy that says we are a part from nature, not a part of nature. We have the right to destroy nature. We have the right to do

whatever we want. So the indigenous people, I spent a lot of time, but they believe they are a part of nature. And they point out that when they come here and visit our cities, they see that we believe we're apart from nature. We're supreme over nature. And so in a way, we have alienated ourselves from our planet intentionally as a philosophy. It isn't human beings. It's this philosophy that says that we have to maximize short-term profits. We have to maximize materialistic consumption. We are apart from nature. So, let's see. So, Let's get this out there and say, hey, we're the aliens. Let's all come together and stop fighting about, you know, who's going to occupy Ukraine or Gaza or whatever.

And let's all join together to fight this philosophy that's destroying all of us. Yeah, but isn't it? Okay. And I've got to say, do I think that that's realistic that we're going to do it? No, but it's a great philosophy. Yeah. It's a great story. I'm writing a novel about it. And there it is.

That ought to be the cover to my novel. Do you have Van Gogol's permission? No, we don't. Nope, AI created it. Well, he's dead, so I guess you don't need it. It's like the statutes of limitations are up. Well, I'm sure somebody owns the rights to all the Van Gogh stuff. You can't just reach cricket at Van Gogh and sell as a Van Gogh.

I don't know. We're not selling it, though, so we're just having fun. Steve put that up there. Well, as your economic hitman on staff here, I don't know what I would advise you. Yeah. It's interesting what you said. about us. We're becoming alien from nature.

And we are, we're in this competitive world to constantly innovate. And it's largely fueled by materialism. We always want the next greatest iPhone. We always want the next best thing. We want the nicest car, the bigger house, which is going to make us more attractive to mates. It's going to make us more symbolic. Immortals, we're going to create things that are going to live longer than our biological bodies can, so people can remember us, and it makes us feel important.

But that materialism and that competitiveness also is responsible for innovation and for technology and for everything that we've created. And a lot of that is good. Perception. So what's the perception? driving all of this. And the perception of maximizing short-term profits regardless of social and environmental costs. Now, so I talk about the death economy, which is what that has created, and I was part of creating that we've created an economic system that is marching us, that we're consuming

and polluting ourselves towards self-destruction. based on this perception of maximization of short-term profits regardless of the social and environmental costs. What if we turned that around and said, let's have our goal be to make short-term profits for business because you've got to make some profits, but you don't have to maximize them. Put a bunch of that money and put a bunch of the efforts and energy

into creating a life economy, an economic system that pays people to clean up pollution, to corral all the plastic that's floating around in the oceans and recycle it, to regenerate destroyed environments, to create technologies, solar and wind, we're on the way to doing that. We are in the process of creating a life of economy, but let's pay people to do things that make life better, to make life for all living creatures,

and for my 16-year-old grandson and all of his brothers and sisters around the world. There's no reason why we can't have a really good lifestyles, but by paying ourselves to do things that are not based on short-term maximization and destruction, the death economy. You know, I like that instead of the term construction, often we, a lot of what we call construction these days is actually destruction. So I think we can come up with an economic system that gives us both, that allows us to use these things. technologies in support of all life and in support of future. And we can have growth. It's just that we can't have growth in areas where we've been looking at it, this extreme materialistic tearing up of the earth. We don't need to go out in mind for copper. There's a lot of copper around that's just not being used. Think of all the pennies. What about cobalt? What about lithium? We need these

iPhones, don't we? Yeah. We need our Tesla cars that drive on batteries and then have these big fancy screens. in them? That's a lot of slave labor, a lot of mining of lithium. It doesn't have to be slave labor. Yes, we meant to have to pay more, but we'd also be paying people more to do these tasks. And so, you know, Henry Ford said, I want to pay everybody in my factories enough money so they can buy a Ford car. Well, what if we paid those miners in the Congo and elsewhere who were mining lithium? What if we paid them enough so they could buy cell phones and electric cars and convert. Then no one would be able to afford an iPhone.

Well, you know, I think, yeah, if we look at human history, we've been around as... And I would look, I would be willing to pay more for an iPhone if we would get rid of that shit. Yeah, so would I. But... I think a lot of people would, I think. But it's a manner of redefining what it means to be successful. For most of human history, 200,000 years or so. that we've defined ourselves as homo sapiens,

sapiens, wise, humans, which is kind of a laugh, because who else is destroying a lot? But my cats aren't destroying the world around them. They may be, you know, breaking havoc on my house.

But for about those 200,000, most of those 200,000 years, we've lived in a life economy, an economic system that regenerates itself. And the indigenous people I work with, it's all about the long term. They're not just looking at the short term. And it's only been within the last blink of history,

blink of an eye of history, maybe 2,000 years, but a short term in the history of humans, that we've been on this trajectory of creating a system that ultimately seems to be headed towards self-destruction. And I would just add that when I was in business school back in the late 60s, I was taught that a good CEO makes a decent rate return for investors, but also pays his employees well, gives them health care insurance,

pension funds, and invests in the communities where his factories are built by putting money into recreational facilities, libraries, or educational facilities. In other words, is a good citizen, not maximizing profits, making enough profits, a decent rate of return. And then in In 1976, Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics. And Friedman had the ear of the world, and he said, no, the only responsibility of business is to maximize short-term profits, regardless of the social and environmental costs. That was a fairly new concept.

It had been growing. It had been growing. But he really had to take off. Thatcher loved him, and Reagan loved him. He traveled around the world, promoting this kind of. of maximization of profits. And Jack Welch comes along at GE and other people became these icons that cutting costs, cutting people's salaries, firing people to make the bottom line, to make profits bigger and bigger and bigger.

Put it in the hands of a few wealthy investors who are already wealthy and make them more wealthy. That's the course we've been taking, and it's taking us into this death economy. We have an opportunity now to turn that around. that around to redefine what it means to be successful humans, to create a life economy. I have to say, Danny, I'm excited to still be alive at this time when we're moving this direction. I think everybody listening to this program should feel blessed that you live at this time, that we're here now, that we have this opportunity. We are understanding that we're on a trajectory that's dangerous, very dangerous, whether we're talking about what's going on with the potential wars

and nuclear explosions, climate change. It all comes back to an economic system that we can call the death economy. These other things are symptoms. They're not the problem. They're a problem, but they're not the problem. The problem comes back to human greed that's defined in this idea of a death economy.

But human greed is not inherent in human beings. I don't see it in indigenous cultures. I don't think we had it for most of our 200,000 years. people took care of each other that was important to be part of the community. You know, Native North Americans had this thing called the pot potlatch and part of it was giving away

what you had. It wasn't trying to take more from people. It was giving away. You know, and the people I worked with in the Amazon, if you're a good canoe builder, you build canoes and you give me a canoe in exchange, I'm a good hunter, so I bring back some good meat for you on a weekly basis or whatever. There's this exchange, but it's recognized

is that if anybody is suffering needlessly, I mean, people may suffer because they got, they broke a leg or whatever, but if anybody is suffering needlessly for want of something, the whole community suffers and you take care of it, I think that's human nature. And I think we've moved away from it

by a philosophy, a mindset, perception, we get back to touching the jaguar. Let's touch that jaguar and turn the perception around of what it means to be successful humans, be successful human beings, being human. Let's be human.

I get what you're saying. I agree with you. But due to the trajectory that we're currently on right now in this world and this nation, do you really see that as a possibility?

I do. How so? How would it be implemented? I wouldn't be sitting here with you if I didn't believe that. I wouldn't be writing books. I'd be out, you know,

whining and dining and bringing myself silly. I don't know. I don't know. No, I do. I think we're moving in that direction. Really?

Yes, I mean, solar, wind. Solar and wind? I have moved us away from fossil fuels. They're at their infancy. But 20 years ago, everybody said solar will never be economically feasible. It is. But that's just one example. What I hear, and I've had the opportunity to travel around the world speaking because of these books that have gotten to be so popular.

And more recently, doing a lot of it by Zoom. And everywhere I go, I see that people. are really waking up to the fact that we have to change. And that's the first stage. They're not actually changing. Remember, perception. Our perception is changing. The next step is to implement actions that honor the new perception,

and then that changes reality. We haven't really got to taking the actions in a very strong way yet. And as you mentioned earlier, we're being distracted terribly by the war in Israel, and Gaza, the war in Ukraine. and so many, so many distractions. The political outrage that's hitting this country right now

is, you know, a big distraction. Yeah. And there's so many distractions, but people still around the world are getting that we need to change. I mean, yes, I do think there's hope. I would hate to put a probability on it because I also think there's a pretty high probability

that we won't go that direction. And if we don't make the changes that we need to make, we're headed toward more and more catastrophe, I truly believe. So there's these two paths. In fact, they have, Algonquin speaking people where I come from in New Hampshire. A long time ago, said human beings at some point in history are going to be offered the opportunity to take two paths. One path will lead to their destruction as human beings.

The other will lead to a much more glorious world. I think we're at that crossroads right now. That's my belief. And I'm sticking to it. It may not be true. But it gives me the hope that we can take the right path. And I see people around the world wanting to do that. Yeah.

I think it's got to be a lot more microscopic. It's got to be at a way more foundational level. It's got to go way deeper than just solar and wind and green energy. Absolutely. I don't think the solar and way, I think that in some ways actually one of the distractions that we've been talking about.

I don't know, I'm not a climate expert, but I don't think that the solar and the wind and all the fight about climate change, I think it's more of a dog and pony show than really serious. I think it's been more of a political football.

If you lived on one of those islands that being inundated right now, you might not feel that way. What island? A bunch of them. on the Pacific Ocean that are sinking, or they're not actually sinking, the ocean is rising around them.

And we're definitely seeing glaciers melting tremendously. I go to the Andes in these, Kotopoxi, these great mountains that have these, the glaciers are melting rapidly. There's a lot more desertification in Africa. Yeah, but isn't this all cycles? Aren't these cycles? The climate change and the rising

and it's been falling of the ocean level, isn't this been happening, sent for hundreds of thousands of years in cycles. Sure, there are cycles. In fact, I think in the Renaissance period, the climate was way warmer than it is now. And I think usually those were, if they happened abruptly,

it was because of the great volcano went off someplace. Cosmic impacts, younger drives. And I think the catastrophe, there you go, Pacific Island countries facing faster sea level rise, UN says. Yeah. And I think the equivalent to a big volcano going off in our times has been the incredible use of fossil fuels, the industrialization that has, you know,

how can it not be impacting the atmosphere? How can it not be impacting the climate? I think it's definitely impacting the climate, but I don't think it's, I don't think it's going to be as near and as catastrophic as a issue to human lives as the media makes it out to be. I think the media, I think like things with like the media and a lot of the climate

activists, I think a lot of it's disingenuous and it's used as a political football, like I said. You know, you have these guys flying around to these Davos conventions and their private jets. There's like a hundred, like a thousand private jets that show up there and to do this talk. And, you know, they all want to implement these things with these big corporations. And, you know, how. How many deaths is it going to, how many deaths is it going to be responsible for it? And how, in what period of time is it going to be responsible for that?

Like if you just look at the United States of America, look at the deaths that happen every year from drug overdoses. I think it's like upwards of 100,000 a year, right? Is it reasonable to say that climate change would be responsible for 100,000 American deaths a year in the next 10 years? I think it's reasonable to say that climate change is responsible for way more than 100,000 deaths. in Africa right now. Right now. Right now.

With the desertification, the change of climate, all these people trying to immigrate up to Europe. We're seeing it in Latin America, too. We're seeing tremendous changes. We're seeing fires in the Amazon that never occurred before extreme droughts. Yeah, they're setting fires in the Amazon. Well, but they're also just happening in extreme droughts, areas that I go into that never had droughts before are having droughts.

So I think it's happening now. And I would just say, look, assuming you're in a car, and you're slowing down and there's a cliff over there and you're saying, well, the car's slowing. I don't need to use the brakes. We're not going to go over the cliff here, the closer and closer and closer to the cliff. No, I don't need to use the brakes.

The car's going to slow down. And maybe it will. But why wouldn't you just step on the brake? So if there's a possibility that we are creating the problem or a large part of the problem, wouldn't it be reasonable to do something? about it if there's a possibility we don't know for sure let's say let's come by into your your contention we don't know for sure right but there's that possibility and it's distinct

possibility so we should do everything we can to put put on the brakes don't don't wait for the car to come to a stop by its own inertia let's put on the brakes totally and we have this opportunity again i want to say that creating a life economy is not putting us back to live in caves. We're creating a new economic system that benefits all life. And we've had it before throughout our history. Indigenous people still have it. We can do it. We can do it. And yeah, solar and wind are not the answer by any means there's just one tiny, tiny speck of a possibility that's been happening. But there's all kinds of possibilities that can happen. If the Mayan people had really understood what they were doing, they could have

prevented their culture from collapsing. But they didn't. And now they're telling us, you're making the same mistake. Yeah. I think, you know, at the end of the day, getting back to your history

and everything that you've done, I think a lot of this has a lot to do with the fight for power in the world of the big superpowers, the nation states. At the end of the day, those guys are going to do whatever they want because at that level it's lawless, it's anarchy.

Yeah, that's a sad part. And I think, I think, you know, one of the first things that we could do, I think one of the most obvious things we could do is to make it illegal for corporations to buy laws and to buy policymakers. Totally agree. Reverse, yeah, the laws that have given corporations so much power. Like Citizens United and other ones. Yeah.

totally agree with you. And, you know, and I also agree, the leadership is the problem, and it's always been the problem, you know, where you had Rome had a pretty good democracy for a while until finally one of the leaders, one of the Caesar, decides, no, no, no, I want it all for myself. And I think we're, you know, that's, that's, I think that's been the downfall, you know, the hubris of our leaders throughout history has been the biggest problem for us. And how do you get around that? I don't know. I don't know.

But I think if we can redefine, change the perception of what it means to be successful humans. So it isn't about owning a bigger yacht. It isn't about having a bigger house. It's about doing things that feel better, that make things better. You know, when I was an economic hitman, I was making a lot more money and I thought I was living the American dream. But at some point, when I told you about I had went through this epiphany, but at the same time I was also recognizing that I was not happy. I was living on alcohol and valium. You know, we didn't have some of the drugs available today.

Quailudes? Yeah. You know, I was, you know, flying off from Boston to Indonesia. It went one period of three months I went, I think, 12 times. Wow. And that's halfway around the world. And so I'd arrive at a destination at night and go into the bar and drink myself silly and then take valium so I'd fall asleep. And then the next morning I'd stuff myself with caffeine until I could go into a meeting and negotiate a multi-million dollar contract.

And I realized, geez, I think I'm happy because I'm living the American dream. then why am I living like this? Why am I doing these things? I'm not happy. Right. And I think there's an analogy there with where we are as a species now that we think we're happy by having bigger yachts and bigger houses or whatever.

You know, I downsize my house a lot, and I've got to say, it doesn't weigh with a lot of worries and cleaning bills and electrical bills. I'm so happy to live in a much. much, much, much smaller house today. Tiny house. Yeah, yeah, man. I think going back to your idea about aliens,

I think one of the ways we could reset ourselves and reset our perspective if aliens landed here, it'd give us a new perspective on the world and the universe, maybe that overview theory that your buddy, Edgar Mitchell, had happened to him, would happen to the world if the aliens came, but they won't fucking come. Well, we are the aliens.

It's not humans. It's our philosophy. of life right now. I'm modern. I'm not a human philosophy, but a modern. And that may go back a couple of hundred, maybe a couple of thousand years, but it's still modern in terms of overall human history. Right. Well, John, thank you so much for coming down here and doing this. I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun, Dan. I really enjoyed this. I really enjoyed this talk. It's been inspiring and eye-opening. And tell people where they can find your books, find more your talks, get in touch with you, all that stuff.

John Perkins.org. I'm an orgasm. I'm an organism. Beautiful. I'm not a calm. I'm an org. John Perkins thought of all the information is right there. And I love it if people sign up for my newsletter, which comes out about once a month,

and it's incredibly brilliant and it's changing the world. No, but you just put your email address in the little box right there. Oh, look at that. There's your website. Oh, my God. Who is that handsome guy? Handsome devil. And look at that.

You update your book. I love how you do updates of your book. Oh, my God. Look at that. Awesome, John. Oh, that's in Russia. That was at the World Economic Forum. World Economic Forum.

St. Petersburg Economic Forum. International, with Putin. There's Klaus Schwab there? Yeah, I imagine he was. Wow. I didn't meet him. Okay. All right.

Thanks again, John. Oh, look at that. Everybody go to John's website, John Perkins.orgasm slash books. You can find his books, all of his incredible talks and lectures. Thanks again, man. I really appreciate it. Also, we did a Patreon exclusive Q&A. If you guys want to go check out that on Patreon, it's linked below.

It doesn't say much. It doesn't say much, so, yeah. Don't get your hopes up. That was because we just done it all here. Good night, everybody.