It Could Happen Here - The Fake Crisis Behind Trump's Tariffs

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

As Trump fakes a balance of payments crisis to implement more tariffs, Mia faces her demons to explain what any of that means. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/10/senate-democrats...-bill-small-businesses-trump-tariffs https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/trumps-new-tariffs-shift-focus-balance-payments-economists-see-no-crisis-2026-02-24/ https://archive.vn/E3fwh#selection-479.0-482.0 https://www.toyassociation.org/PressRoom2/News/2026-News/court-orders-refunds-for-ieepa-tariffs-implementation-process-ongoing.aspx https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2026/feb/us-dollar-role-as-reserve-currency https://sudanreeves.org/2018/05/10/the-collapse-of-sudans-economy-is-accelerating-along-with-human-suffering/ https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/page-one-economics/2016/11/01/international-trade https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/ap-macroeconomics/ap-open-economy-international-trade-and-finance/the-balance-of-payments/a/the-balance-of-payments https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/bolivias-balance-payments-crisis-brings-back-bad-memories https://www.elibrary.imf.org/display/book/9781557758286/ch02.xml https://www.krwg.org/local-viewpoints/2026-03-10/scotus-decision-on-tariffs https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/gov-healey-demands-refunds-mass-182527561.html https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5775500-businesses-sue-trump-tariffs/ https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/page-one-economics/2025/oct/what-is-the-balance-of-payments https://www.investopedia.com/insights/what-is-the-balance-of-payments/ https://www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/house-bill/10710/text https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/the-balance-of-payments.html https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-434-back-to-the-1970s-again https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/frbslreview/rev_stls_196103.pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/article/952314 https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/022/0003/003/article-A003-en.xml https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3545&context=faculty_scholarshipSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn.
Starting point is 00:00:18 A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Starting point is 00:00:36 or wherever you get your podcasts. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. It's the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees.
Starting point is 00:01:03 You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at veeps.com or the Veeps app. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful. painful part of my life. And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now.
Starting point is 00:01:34 Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Lettby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story? Evidence has been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to doubt the case of Lucy Lettby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also Media.
Starting point is 00:02:18 Welcome to Iqadap and hear a podcast about tariffs and how to justify them. I am your host, Mia Wong. And today we are talking about tariffs, the Supreme Court ruling. and how Trump is manufacturing a crisis to justify the next set of tariffs that he has imposed. Oh, boy. So, all right, to recap, our last tariff segment. So people understand what I'm talking about when I talk about the Supreme Court ruling from a few weeks ago. So Trump had been claiming the ability to do tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, an act that famously never says the word tariff. And the Supreme Court was like, no, actually, the International Economic
Starting point is 00:03:03 Powers Act does not give you the power to levy tariffs, a thing that it does not say that you can do. So Trump got extremely mad about this, and he imposed a 10% tariff across the board using a different law, as he said he was going to do. Now, this 10% across the board tariff was run through section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. We're going to get into that. Okay, so he imposes a 10% tariff using this like different authority from section 122. And the next day, he goes, I'm going to raise the tariff rate to 15%. And this is the tariff rate on the entire world.
Starting point is 00:03:41 But then he just forgot to do it because he got distracted by, I think, invading Iran. So he has never actually, you know, raised the tariff rate to 15%, which he said that he had done. So it's now just at 10% on the entire world instead of, you know, all of the sort of individual country tariffs that have been in place before. And that's sort of the focus of today's episode is about these tariffs because these tariffs are already being challenged in court. And I think that that challenge has a very, very good chance of winning fairly easily. And the reason that those tariffs have a very good chance of being overturned by the courts is that, unlike the IEPA tariffs that he was using where he was claiming illegally the authority
Starting point is 00:04:30 to just do whatever he wanted this is why you would wake up in the morning and there's like 100% tariff on China like 700% tariff on Vietnam blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Trump was claiming that that act let him do whatever he wanted it did not the court found that he did not but that was how he was using tariffs
Starting point is 00:04:48 and it was the basis of how he was using tariffs for diplomacy right you know he would put a tariff on someone at random claiming this power and then he would like enter negotiations with them and he can't do that anymore now what he's done in its place is again imposed this tariffs using section 122 of the trade act now this authority is very very different than the authority trump was claiming before i'm just going to read it because it mostly explains itself do not worry about the international payment problems or balanced payments deficit that it mentions at the beginning, we're going to go over that in a second. What's important for our purposes here is that in order to put tariffs into effect,
Starting point is 00:05:28 quote, whenever fundamental international payment problems require special import measures to restrict imports, one, to deal with large and serious United States balance of payments deficits, two, to prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets, or three, to cooperate with other countries in correcting an international balance of payments disequilibrium, the president shall proclaim for a period not exceeding 150 days, unless such a period is extended by an act of Congress, a temporary surcharge not to exceed 15% ad of lorum in the form of duties, in addition to those already opposed, if any, on articles imported into the U.S. Okay, so let's look at the limits first, right?
Starting point is 00:06:14 instead of any rate of tariff on any country, which is what Trump had been doing, Section 122 only lets you set an up to 15% tariff on every country in the world, and it only lasts for 150 days unless Congress votes to approve it. This sets up a giant fight in Congress that Trump is not going to win. Now, we may never get to that point because the same right-wing legal group who funded the lawsuit that overturned the IEPA stuff is going after Section 122. and they're going to win. Now, they're going to win because Section 122 has literally never been implemented before.
Starting point is 00:06:50 The tariffs specifically never been implemented. And there is a reason for that. And the reason is that to even deploy Section 122 tariffs in the first place, you need, quote, fundamental international payment problems, one, to deal with large and serious United States balance of payments deficits, the different dollar depreciation and cooperation with other countries to correct international balance of payments this equilibrium. So those are very specific conditions.
Starting point is 00:07:20 What does that mean? What does it mean for there to be a problem with balance of payments? This requires us to understand what the fuck balance of payments is, and it is here where I am fulfilling my promise from that executive sort of episode where I said I would explain it in the full episode. All right, we're doing it. And oh, fucking boy, are you in for it? because Jesus Christ, oh my God, holy shit, this stuff is annoyingly convoluted.
Starting point is 00:07:47 But it is also extremely important to how the global economy functions, how it's changed. And, you know, it's not really relevant for the U.S. at all for reasons we will get into, but it is extremely relevant for the economies of a bunch of developing countries. So, okay, let's start off with balance of payments. So what is the balance of payments? I'm just going to start off by quoting the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Balance of Payments, quote, is the summary of all the transactions involving goods, services, and investments
Starting point is 00:08:16 between one country and all other countries over a given time. Any transaction that causes money to flow into a country is a credit to balance payment accounts, and any transaction that causes flows out is a debit. So this is a record of literally every purchase, in capital movement that goes in and out of a country, right? So it's goods, services, debt payments, and things can either be credits or debits. As the Fed explains, you know, things that are debits, right, things that like make your account go lower is, you know, debt payments, capital transfer payments, like buying imports. If you were importing stuff from China, that is a debit,
Starting point is 00:08:57 and then there are things that are credits to make account go up. So that's other countries paying for exports, capital transfer receipts, and, you know, financial assets. That's other countries paying for your exports. So this is tracked in, like, two accounts. There's a capital and finances account. I'm just going to call it the capital account because that's the most common name for it, and it's shorter. So there's the capital account
Starting point is 00:09:19 that is all movement of capital in and out of the country, and then there's a current account, which is like a trade record of all goods and services. Technically, there's also stuff from, like, interest from an investment goes there, but we don't really care about that. For our purposes, the current account is the account that's like trade.
Starting point is 00:09:36 and then there's a capital account, which is the account that's all of the capital moving in and out. Now, importantly, these two accounts, right? These two accounts compose balance of trade, right? This record has two accounts, and those are the two accounts. If you line up all the credits and debits and then they cancel out and equal zero, the value of all goods being imported or exported to services and stuff like that, too, is the same as the amount of capital moving in and out of the country. The two accounts will cancel out.
Starting point is 00:10:04 And this is what's really confusing about balance of paper. because why the fuck is that true, right? Why are the capital flows and trade balance? Why can't you have an imbalance? And the answer is that's how the accounting system works. And the reason the accounting system works like that is because of what balance of payments is. Now, weirdly, if you want a more detailed explanation, there are a billion detailed explanations that are extremely convoluted and annoying.
Starting point is 00:10:29 The Reserve Bank of Australia weirdly has like a readable one for people who aren't like engrossed the financial stuff. However, comma, I'm going to try to explain it. So balance of payments is the record of everything that moves in and out of a country. You know, so that's goods, that's services, that's money, it's stocked. When I say it tracks everything, right, it's the record of everything. That means it's recording both sides of a transaction. So what does that mean? Okay, imagine a receipt, right? It's a receipt for a burger. You have bought one hamburger. On the receipt is the thing you bought, the burger and how much it cost, which is the money you pay for it. Balance of payments tracks both the burger and the money you paid for it because it tracks
Starting point is 00:11:16 international trade, right? It's tracking international movement of stuff. And because both the burger and the money changed hands across borders, right, it tracks both of them. And that is why when you put all the credits and debits from both accounts together, it adds up to zero, right? Because, you know, think about like the, the net transfer of funds on that burger, right? On the one hand, there is the burger, and on the other hand, there is, you know, how much money you paid for the burger. And those two things are equivalent, right? The value of the burger
Starting point is 00:11:49 is how much is worth. So, okay, that means that in the accounting of it, right, the account on the receipt, which shows both of these things is balanced, because it's tracking both of them, right? And this is the same way it works for an investment. You buy shares of a company. So, okay, there's the money for the shares and the shares themselves. And they're both being tracked and they both go into the record that balance of payments keeps. So there are some convoluted things about this. And this is the reason why you need to combine both accounts instead of each account being balanced by themselves. Because sometimes the record of the burger goes in one account and the record of the money for that burger goes in a different account.
Starting point is 00:12:33 This is convoluted. It's because of like how income is classified. It's a mess. You can go read the Reserve Bank of Australia. But that's why you need both accounts together to get the balance of payments, right? Because both the burger and the money for the burger are in the balance of payments somewhere,
Starting point is 00:12:50 but they might go in different accounts. So you need to put them together and that's how you get the balance of payments. And see, that's why it's called the balance of payments, right? They balance out. See, now you're getting it. Now you're getting it. This is why it always balances out to zero, because it's the balance of both the money and the object, right?
Starting point is 00:13:07 So, sharp-eared listeners may be going, wait, hold on. So Section 122, which is where the tariffs are from, is about a deficit in the balance of payments. How can you have a deficit if it always balances out to zero? And the answer is technically speaking, you can't. So, okay, what the fuck is going on here? Why is Trump using, and Trump specifically is claiming that there's a balance of payment's deficit and there's a crisis in order to impose these tariffs? So what is going on here? Why does this law exist? You will find out after these ads. Woo, cliffhanger.
Starting point is 00:13:40 Hey. Canadian women are looking for more. More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, athletes.
Starting point is 00:14:04 leads, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd, and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final Rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would.
Starting point is 00:14:34 But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a one-night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search warrant. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped.
Starting point is 00:15:02 This season, an epic battle. of he said she said, and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. Ask for! Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Starting point is 00:15:18 or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16,
Starting point is 00:15:37 you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and different perspectives, and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want to chart side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life, this episode is a must listen.
Starting point is 00:16:20 Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast starting on February 24th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live in South by Southwest. It's just the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting. from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry. And the winner is... Creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio.
Starting point is 00:16:51 Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. So, to explain what is going on here, we need to take a detour back in time to when this was written. This act was written in 1974, but we need to go back a little further to 1971. Now, in 1971, Richard Nixon makes probably the most consequential in a macro sense change to, like, how currency functions on a global scale in probably half a millennia, when he pulled the U.S. off the gold standard.
Starting point is 00:17:35 So what does this mean? It means that Nixon ended what was called dollar convertibility or the ability to go to the government and trade your dollar for a certain amount of gold. So this fixes the value of the dollar to the value of gold. So the value of your currency is sort of relatively constant in that, like, it's this much gold, right? But it means that your macroeconomic policy is constrained by your gold supply. So why did Nixon take the U.S. off the gold standard? And what does this have to do with balance of payments? Surprisingly, everything? So, okay, what? What? What I've been describing about balance of payments, I've been describing modern balance of payments.
Starting point is 00:18:16 If you go back and read stuff from the Fed from this era, when they talk about balance of payments or talking about flows of gold, in this period, every dollar that leaves the country represents an amount of gold. And the more of it that leaves the country, the more pressure that puts on the U.S. gold reserves, because, you know, there's less and less of it. This is what they're talking about when they talk about balance of payments. Right. Now, what's interesting here, and this is something that's important for our modern purposes, is that the problem that the U.S. was facing in the 50s and 60s that causes Nixon to do this when they're talking about having balance of payments deficits, which they are in this period, right? And this is why this law is written is because this is a
Starting point is 00:18:58 period where this stuff is talked about. The problem isn't a trade deficit, right? And this is very important. Trade deficits and balance of payments deficits, not the same thing. all. In fact, in this whole period, when the U.S. is running these massive balance payments deficits to become a problem, they have a trade surplus, right? They have a trade surplus. So like, okay, how are they like losing gold then, right? Like, how are dollars flowing out of the country? Well, it turns out that what's actually making this a balance of account deficit where like dollars are leaving the economy, which means gold's leaving the U.S.'s vaults, is that the U.S. is spending too much in its military. It's always so.
Starting point is 00:19:38 It's fucking military spending. It is always fucking military spending. Holy shit. It's the reason everything is broken. It's literally just always military spending. We're spending too much gold on the damn military. Right. So the deficit, and you were talking about a balanced payment deficit,
Starting point is 00:19:54 the actual deficit is that in order to pay for wars and to do military bases, they are spending money in other countries. And this is technically like part of the balance of payments, right? Because it's money leaving the country. And, you know, like technically, speaking, the balance of payments as we've been talking about it, right? Like the account is balanced, but we keep spending dollars in order to obtain military bases and then also in order to bomb Korea and then Vietnam. And the dollars have to come from somewhere. Now, again, the dollar
Starting point is 00:20:24 at this point is gold. It represents a fixed amount of gold that the U.S. has. And those dollars are coming from the U.S. government. So that that's what the actual quote-unquote deficit is in this case, right? You will see this described as like, oh my God, they're paying for stuff from the current account from the capital account. No, no, no. Technically, yes, but like, what's actually happening here is that the U.S., right, it's gold leaving the country because the U.S. is having to buy
Starting point is 00:20:50 shit for military bases, right? And it's not getting enough gold back from trade to replenish the amount of gold that the U.S. is spending on these military bases. Now, in theory, this is fine because, technically speaking, you're spending dollars and as long as no one tries to actually convert those dollars into gold, you'll be okay. Enter one Charles de Gaulle, president of France, who begins to en masse convert American dollars into gold
Starting point is 00:21:18 in order to end the dollars' reign as the World Reserve currency because he was pissed off at the U.S. running the world. This is not like Charles de Gaul anti-imperialist. DeGal does not want like the end of imperialism. DeGal wants there to be equal footing or more equal footing between the different imperialist powers, right? just wants France to be like a major world power or the peerless power as well, right? Canadian women are looking for more.
Starting point is 00:21:48 More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we'll be. hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your
Starting point is 00:22:15 podcasts. I'm Clayton Eckerd and in 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor. Unfortunately, it didn't go according to plan. He became the first Bachelor to ever have his final rose rejected. The internet turned on him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. But what happened to Clayton after the show made even bigger headlines. It began as a night stand and ended in a courtroom with Clayton at the center of a very strange paternity scandal. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract. Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. Please search for it. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. This season, an epic battle of He Said She Said,
Starting point is 00:23:05 and the search for accountability in a sea of lies. Listen to Love Therapeut. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, this is Joe Winterstein, host of the Spirit Daughter podcast, where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And I just sat down with a mini driver. The Irish traveler said when I was 16, you're going to have a terrible time with men. Actor, storyteller, and unapologetic Aquarian visionary. Aquarius is all about freedom-loving and,
Starting point is 00:23:48 different perspectives, and I find a lot of people with strong placements in Aquarius are misunderstood. A son and Venus and Aquarius in her seventh house spark her unconventional approach to partnership. He really has taught me to embrace people sleeping in different rooms, on different houses, and different places, but just an embracing of the isness of it all. If you're navigating your own transformation or just want a chart-side view into how a leading artist integrates astrology, creativity, and real life. This episode is a must listen. Listen to the Spirit Daughter podcast,
Starting point is 00:24:22 starting on February 24th, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcast. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. It's the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.
Starting point is 00:24:42 And the winner is, creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at veeps.com or the Veeps app. The power the U.S. gets from being the world reserve currency is extremely important.
Starting point is 00:25:09 So what is the reserve currency? The reserve currency is the currency that all global trade is done in. and because it's the currency that all global trade is done in, all of the world central banks have to hold a bunch of that currency, right? And that's why it's called the reserve currency. But I say all of the world central banks have to hold it, except for the United States, which does not have to hold dollars, because it's our fucking currency.
Starting point is 00:25:33 And if we want more, we can just print more, right? So this is kind of called like senior age privilege, but the power of this, right, is enormous. And the dollar status as the reserve currency is actually really important to us in terms of explaining these sort of balance of payments deficits and crises. So, okay, here's the St. Louis Fed on why countries have to hold world reserve currencies. Quote, governments and or central banks keep, you know, like reserve currency on hand for several reasons, including exchange management, insurance against sudden loss of ability to pay for imports
Starting point is 00:26:07 caused by a halt, capital inflows, such as foreign direct investment to the domestic market, foreign purchases of domestic stocks or bonds or domestic borrowing from the rest of the world, insurance for other economic contingencies such as wars or natural disasters. Now, the second one is what's of concern to us, right? It's insurance against sudden loss of ability to pay for imports. And that's what's commonly known as a balance of payments crisis in the current day. When you run out of dollars to pay for your imports or to pay for your foreign debt, which is a real issue too, right?
Starting point is 00:26:41 usually your money goes to the foreign debt and then you're out of currency and then you can't, you know, like import more shit. This is a balance of payments crisis. And they're actually pretty common or decently common in a bunch of developing countries and they are almost always completely catastrophic. It's one of the foremost causes of modern revolutions because when you have one of these balance of payments crises, you can't afford to fucking import things. Because you don't have enough dollars. You can't import oil or, you know, fertilizer or food because you don't have enough dollars to do it and your government has gone through all. of the dollar reserves.
Starting point is 00:27:12 As I talked about in the ED, Sri Lanka is probably the most recent example that the country, you know, just ran out of dollars to purchase shit with and the ensuing unbelievably hideous shit that everyone had to suffer through caused people to burn down the president's fucking mansion.
Starting point is 00:27:27 You will know, and I said this before, you will know if the U.S. has a balance of payments crisis because you will see the smoke and flames outside of your window. And it's not just like Sri Lanka, right? Like the revolution in Sudan. Like the reason that there's a civil war in Sudan right now to some extent is because of one of the
Starting point is 00:27:41 these crises that set off a revolution, even though, you know, what usually happens in these cases, right, is that a country has one of these crises and then someone, usually the international monetary fund will give them a loan and so they will give them dollars in exchange for, you know, like turning the entire economy of that country to a debt servicing machine, which means, you know, like taking food out of the mouths of babies to pay that debt back. And this also often causes revolutions, right? So like Sudan had a balance of payments crisis in like 2018, late 2018, 2019, and they eventually got an IMF bailout deal, but like the price of bread increased by 250% and people drove Omar al-Bashir out of power. However, you will note that I have been
Starting point is 00:28:23 saying that these crises are caused because countries run out of dollars. But we can't run out of dollars because those are United States dollars. We can just fucking print them. We literally cannot have this kind of balance of payments crisis because it's all our own money. And we can just print shit in our own money. Jesus Christ, this is so silly. Losing my mind. It's not possible. You can't do it.
Starting point is 00:28:52 Oh my God. Now, however, why is the law like this, right? Like, why is there a law written talking about the U.S. as if it could have a balance of payments deficit? Again, like right up until 1971, when Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard, it actually was possible to, you know, make the U.S. run out of dollars because you could run out of gold.
Starting point is 00:29:14 And this is what, like, the gall was trying to do, you know, by, like, making the U.S. convert all this dollars in the gold. But Nixon just said, fuck it. The dollars are floating currency now. And since its value isn't pegged to a certain amount of anything else, right? And that's the way it's been ever since. We can't have these crises. Now, the countries that have these crises in modern day
Starting point is 00:29:32 are ones that peg their currency to, like, a specific amount of dollars, right? And they tend to run out of their risk. reserves trying to like stabilize the value of their currency by offering conversions of their currency into the dollar at the official rate by like letting people go convert their currency into dollars. But again, we can't have that because it's dollars. We owe shit in dollars. And also in order to have like a full on balance payments crisis where you can't pay for things, right? It requires no one to be like willing to lend you money. And it's like, okay, like who is not going to lend the United States of America money?
Starting point is 00:30:10 money. Like, are you fucking kidding me? This is, this is the vaguest crisis of all time. This bill, however, was passed again in like 1974. And it was only three years after the U.S. was off the gold standard. And so people were like, okay, we're going to do this thing in case we ever go back to a situation where this stuff is possible. But right now, like, we literally
Starting point is 00:30:30 structurally cannot have a balance of payments crisis. Like, we can't have one. You can't have a balance of payments deficit. This is not the same. as a trade deficit. Trump is trying to argue that, oh, we have a trade deficit. Our current account,
Starting point is 00:30:45 which is like the trade account is like 4% below balance, but then if you look at the capital account and you put them together, it balances, because that's just how it works. Oh, that means we're in trouble. And nonsense.
Starting point is 00:30:57 Absolutely bullshit. He's also claiming that there's like fundamental international payment problems, which, like, no, there aren't because fundamental international payment problems means you can't pay for your imports or, like, your debt. and if we weren't able to do that, you would all know.
Starting point is 00:31:13 So, they're going to lose this lawsuit because this is the fakes crisis that has ever existed. And now you know how fake it is and also what balance of payments is. I'm going to close on a story about this, which is that there is a scenario in which this knowledge has actually saved countries before. And specifically, like, the country
Starting point is 00:31:38 that this saved was Cuba. There's like the Cuban Revolution, right? And immediately after the Cuban revolution, the government, it's not like clear of it their communist yet. There's this very, very short window where it's like not quite entirely clear what the fuck is going to be going on with this new like Cuban government. And the government sends Che Guevara to the U.S. to negotiate with a bunch of American banks, right? And Che Guevara actually understands this stuff, right? He knows what balance of payments is. He knows, he's able to, like, talk to all of the sort of Manhattan bankers who are talking about this stuff on their terms, right? And like, they literally, the line they say about it was like, yeah, he talks like a banker, right? He understands balance
Starting point is 00:32:19 of payments. He understands all of this stuff. And what he's able to do, and this is critically, like, why the nation of Cuba, like, like, why the Cuban revolution succeeded, was that he was able to get the U.S. to give him all of his gold? Like, because he was able to, to convince these bankers because he understood what they were talking about in their language and he was able to convince the U.S. government to get him all this fucking gold because he understood how this shit works. And that's why Cuba was like functional as a country after that because they had managed to get all of their gold reserves, which previously had been being held in the U.S. So, you know, you never know when you too might be at the head of a better revolution,
Starting point is 00:32:59 or you might be the one person in their new revolutionary coalition who understands the balance of payments is and you too can get your gold out of the United States before the government realizes that your communists and would have locked it down and frozen it and taken the gold. So this is But It Could Happen Here, the podcast that helps you take your country's gold reserves like Che Guevara. Oh boy. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
Starting point is 00:33:29 For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Clayton Eckerd. In 2022, I was the lead of ABC's The Bachelor.
Starting point is 00:33:50 But here's the thing. Bachelor fans hated him. If I could press a button and rewind it all I would. That's when his life took a disturbing turn. A one-night stand would end in a courtroom. The media is here. This case has gone viral. The dating contract.
Starting point is 00:34:07 Agree to date me, but I'm also suing you. This is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I'm Stephanie Young. Listen to Love Trapped on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Next Monday, our 2026 IHeart Podcast Awards are happening live at South by Southwest. Since the biggest night in podcasting. We'll honor the very best in podcasting from the past year and celebrate the most innovative talent and creators in the industry.
Starting point is 00:34:34 And the winner is... creativity, knowledge, and passion will all be on full display. Thank you so much. IHeartRadio. Thank you to all the other nominees. You guys are awesome. Watch live next Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific free at Veeps.com or the Veeps app. Hey, I'm Jay Chetty, host of the On Purpose podcast.
Starting point is 00:34:55 My latest episode is with Hillary Duff, singer, actress, and multi-platinum artist. You desire in family like this picture, and that's not reality. My sister and I don't speak. It's definitely a very painful part of my life. And I hope it's not forever, but it's for right now. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Amanda Knox, and in the new podcast, Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby, we unpack the story of an unimaginable tragedy that gripped the UK in 2023. But what if we didn't get the whole story?
Starting point is 00:35:34 I've just been made to fit. The moment you look at the whole picture, the case collapsed. What if the truth was disguised by a story we chose to believe? Oh my God, I think she might be innocent. Listen to Doubt, the case of Lucy Letby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.

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