TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #799: The Economic Revolution Is Already Here with Susan Kokinda

Starting point is 00:00:06 You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free. If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. I mean, that's part of the bold case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. Susan Kekinda, welcome back to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:38 good to be here well glad to have you back as we approach midterms here in the u.s last time you were here was about 10 months ago beginning of December of 2025 and i think this is a good check-in period because you made some calls about q2 and q3 at that time when we last spoke and obviously we have the luxury of retrospect today as we speak so you expected particularly around the tariff regime and the re-industrial of the United States that the tangible effects of the policies that were put in place when Trump got back into power would come in Q2 and Q3 of this year. So with that in mind, how has the Trump administration done in terms of the economic policy they laid forth in Trump, too?

Starting point is 00:01:31 Well, it's pretty clear, especially since the Dallas Midterm Convention, that the administration is really drilling down hard on the fact that these policies are beginning to take effect from the standpoint of construction jobs, manufacturing, you know, Trump, Vance, they're out there literally every day now, whether it's in Ohio or Alaska or Oklahoma. And they're talking about, you know, the jobs that they're bringing, this brand-new steel mill in Iowa, which is going to have 6,000 construction workers and then 1,700. permanent workers ultimately. So that's all there.

Starting point is 00:02:11 And when you look at the government statistics, you look at, for example, the BLS statistics, what you see is something very interesting, which is starting when we spoke back in December since you mentioned that date, I can't believe it was that long, what you actually see is what manufacturing employment had been doing up until then

Starting point is 00:02:34 because it's clear it takes time. to actually get these things going and moving. But starting in December of last year, it starts to do this. Manufacturing employee and steadily growing. Now, then it plateaus for a couple of months right after the Iran conflict starts. But what's really fascinating, I think, is that manufacturing, the increase in manufacturing jobs only plateaus for a couple of months. And then it starts to shoot up again to where it is today.

Starting point is 00:03:04 So part of the challenge that we face in terms of the mid-examination. terms is obvious. While you've got an underlying fundamental restructuring of the U.S. economy, which is beginning to show itself in these jobs, in the fact that the poverty level is dropping, and childhood poverty and Hispanic poverty are at all-time lows since we actually started counting them. In other words, you're seeing a durable shift in the population's ability

Starting point is 00:03:35 to have decent paying jobs that will actually raise a family. But does everybody feel it necessarily in those terms? Because even it's not that many people, for example, who've gotten these manufacturing jobs. The trajectory is this way. But it's still a relatively small number of people who are actually taking in those paychecks at this point. And then you've got the headwinds from the conflict with Iran.

Starting point is 00:04:03 or to really put it more appropriately, you have the headwinds from the fact that we've had a crappy economy and we have crappy allies, and that's manifesting itself largely in the price of gasoline and the price of diesel. You know, and what I mean by that is the barrels of oil are now coming out of Iran. That's no longer the issue. So why are the prices still high? Well, Well, because the Democrats carried out a war on energy and shut down our refineries and shut down our producing capacity and so on. Why is diesel high? Trump has said it. The guy that the Democrats put in, basically, Zelensky is bombing Russian refineries, which is affecting the price of things otherwise. So you have this kind of what I call the pain factor, the pain factor being deployed, I would suggest

Starting point is 00:04:57 deliberately against the American people so that as we head into this critical 30 days going into the midterms, people aren't looking at the really fundamental restructure. They hope, let me put it that way, they hope people won't look at the fundamental restructuring of the economy, which means a durable good future for more and more and more of our fellow Americans, they hope that people will just be reacting to the short-term pain at the pump. So I have a certain faith that enough of Americans are actually going to see this thing through and recognize that you're in the opening phases of an actual economic revolution. The fundamentals are there, but this temporary pain is obscuring it for a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:05:49 But I think that's the message that we've really got to drive home on. The economic revolution is real, and you should vote for it. Well, I think President Trump was, I forget exactly where, which press conference it was, but he said something along the lines of the GOP or the Republicans have done a bad job of messaging that this economic revolution is well underway. And if you look at the statistics like PMI and, you look at, you know, labor, wage growth, it is up into the right, a little slower, maybe not as widespread as many people would like. But with 30 days left between now and midterms, how imperative do you think it is to really get that narrative and get that narrative out there and highlight to Americans that this is happening?

Starting point is 00:06:39 If I'm looking objectively, I think that is the one thing that they really dropped the ball on is messaging. Yeah, no, the president said it. J.D. has said it. They've said it more. We say it. It's why we do what we do, because I think we message better than the administration, you know, in terms of these questions. But I think the president's going to take every single day between now and November 3rd to find some way, you know, to really make that message absolutely clear. And who knows, he may have some of his own October surprises up his sleeve in terms of maybe some of these conflicts being resolved. But at the same time, he was also very clear at the United Nations where he said,

Starting point is 00:07:25 I'm not making my decisions on Iran from the standpoint of the midterm elections. There's something much bigger involved here, and I'm not going to sacrifice that for short-term political gain. So, you know, when you think about it, you think of all the people throughout their lives who probably said at one time or another, gee, I wish I had a president who acted on principle and not pragmatism. And that's what this president is doing. And now people are complaining about it.

Starting point is 00:07:51 You know, some people have to do a little bit of a mental recalibration themselves, I think. Yeah. And I think I'm excited to get you on now because there's so many balls in the air with the reindustrialization in the U.S. here. Domestically, I know you've been covering the ThuCities problem between the through city's trap between the U.S. and China, where that may end up. Obviously, we have riots in France. You have the spread between the French Oatbahn and the German Bund blowing out to Greek credit crisis levels.

Starting point is 00:08:26 And then Canada to the north, they're making moves. I believe Quebec is voting today on whether or not they will secede from Canada or at least move in that direction. And then obviously, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, still on the borders, a ton of balls in the air. and I think you do an incredible job of weaving them all together into a coherent narrative. So no direct question other than what is the best way to look at all these disparate events happening globally and where we may be in terms of coming to a resolution with any one of them or what are the motives behind these different proxies going on around the world. Well, I think it's actually good that you throw them all out there at once because I think it does illustrate a more fundamental point, which is for literally 125 years. I mean, I date as a certain marker, 1901. It's when McKinley was killed, assassinated, our last American system president. And if you think about it, there's a certain symmetry to this because that is literally halfway. between now and 1776. So take this last 125 years.

Starting point is 00:09:47 What is characterized most of that 125 years, the United States was increasingly coming under the thumb of British Imperial Policy. That coming out of World War I, you look at things like the round table, you look at institutions that are set up like Chatham House and other institutions and discussions in Britain among the elites, they were all basically saying the same thing.

Starting point is 00:10:16 Okay, we're not going to defeat the United States. We tried that a couple of times in the last centuries and it hasn't worked. Now we have to capture the United States. Now we have to make the United States our dumb giant enforcing our imperial policies. And one of the key elements to that was you take that knowledge away from people. In other words, the fact that there's an independent American economic system, an independent American foreign policy, which is based on national sovereignty. You write that out of history. And what dominates certainly the policymaking elites in this country for 125 years, and then increasingly just sort of the common discussion within the population, is this idea that running the world from the standpoint of private

Starting point is 00:11:06 financial interests, running the world from the standpoint of British geopolitics, you know, countries being maneuvered against each other to keep the elites on top, this entire British matrix is basically gone largely unchallenged. You know, a couple of presidents stepped out of line. One of them was John Kennedy, and we know what happened to him. So what, but what you've had, again, for 125 years is a system of central banking and work. And, you're not. And, Wars run on behalf of the empire to keep the central bankers and these powerful financial interests in power. So along comes Donald Trump, and this is what he is disrupting. He started to do it in his first term, but they were kind of ready for him, and it was limited what the president

Starting point is 00:11:55 could actually accomplish in his first term. Some of it had important effect, but nonetheless, it was limited, and they were assuming we've taken care of Donald Trump. We don't have to worry about him again. But here he is back with the 2024 victory and with a cabinet that is completely in sync with everything that he is trying to do, which is overthrow the last 125 years of British imperial policy. Now, you know, and obviously the economic side of it is repealing the whole free trade policy and reindustrializing the United States. This takes time. Again, we're just beginning to see the fruits of it. And the other part of it is dismantling these imperial institutions. My colleague, Barbara Boyd, just made an interesting comment in a discussion we had. She was talking

Starting point is 00:12:49 about the elections in South America. And of course, in Brazil, Bolonisaro is leading. It's going to be a runoff, but, you know, he's ahead of Lula. And this just is a thing. pattern of nationalists winning throughout South America. And she made a very interesting point. This has all happened since USAID was dismantled. So, you know, maybe you dismantle these forces that go in and intervene on behalf of the globalist system. And all of a sudden, you see nationalist governments, you know, having the opportunity

Starting point is 00:13:24 to actually win in South America. And everything else that Donald Trump is doing, pulling, you. you know, pulling out of some supernational organizations like the Paris Climate Accords, pulling back from NATO, pulling back from the United Nations, and establishing these bilateral foreign policies where it's simply nation to nation. Trump's relationship to China is not as two pawns on a geopolitical chessboard, which is what it has been in most of the post-war period. It's Trump saying, I'm going to do what's right for my country.

Starting point is 00:14:04 And Xi Jinping saying, I'm going to do what's right for my country. And Donald Trump's saying, that's okay with me. We're going to fight it out because on that basis we can do something. And that is how he is reshaping things. So all of the things that you mentioned are just what you're actually seeing is the turbulence that is coming out, coming about over the fact that you have an administration, which is literally undoing the architecture of. of the last 125 years economically and strategically.

Starting point is 00:14:36 So it gets a little messy. Well, let's dive deeper into the relationship with China because I think the mainstream narrative is particularly focused on the race with artificial intelligence now super intelligence after last week's press conference of the week before. Many people, many pundits here in the West say it's an existential.

Starting point is 00:15:01 race to win to get the AGI first so that you can have one or the other be the predominant superpower in the world. Following your commentary in recent weeks and months, it seems like it's not all what the mainstream will lead you to believe in that terms. And to your point, it's more of a sort of nationalist U.S. saying, hey, we want to take care of our interests, China, similarly, saying we want to do the same. and this ties back to the national security strategy that was released last year, which is why it came on initially 10 months ago. But what are the misconceptions in the mainstream in terms of what is happening between the U.S. and China right now?

Starting point is 00:15:46 Well, I think the main problem is not even a misconception. I mean, most of your mainstream media of both varieties, left and right, foxes, just as wacky on these questions. questions as MS now, you know, is this British great game geopolitical concept that there are always going to be permanent enemies, you know, or there is an enemy of the day, which has been picked by the man behind the curtain, basically, to keep the world constantly, keep the superpowers constantly at each other's throats so that this little financial and imperial elite sitting on top somehow still maintains all of the control.

Starting point is 00:16:31 And that's how the China, China's relations with the United States are constantly being presented, that this is going to be an existential enemy forever and ever and ever. Now, you know, the Chinese Communist Party is, you know, not an entity which we want here in the United States. But it's also important to remember it hasn't been around that long. it really has only emerged in the past 80 years. And this is an 80 years that once again, these British geopoliticians have very much been in the driver's seat. And again, from this standpoint of Soviet Union versus the United States,

Starting point is 00:17:14 communist China versus the United States, and again, in the meantime, they're sitting up on top. But go back a little bit further in terms of China. Go back to China at the turn of the 20th century. and the founding of modern China with Sunyat-Sin. Sunyat-Sin was a passionate follower of the American system of political economy. He understood it far better than I'm sure your average American understands today. He was a follower of Abraham Lincoln. His three principles of the people were based on by, four, and of the people from the Gettysburg Address. You have a tradition in China,

Starting point is 00:17:53 which is historically very close to the United States. What else do you have in China? You have the fact that they were among the world's most biggest victims of British imperial policy, namely the opium wars back in the 19th century. So it's important when you're thinking about China to realize there's another tradition there besides the CCP. and these things don't just disappear. They're there. And I think what the president is very conscious of, whether it's precisely in the historical terms that I just outlined or not, is that in every country, there is probably something which genuinely represents the national interests of its people,

Starting point is 00:18:43 aside from whatever ideological superstructure is sitting on top of it. And that's what he's trying to speak to. And I think he probably believes that Xi Jinping is the closest representation you're going to have of that inside China, which is why I think he goes out of his way to give him the bolstering that he often gives him because he recognizes that this is a man and a grouping in China that we can at least peacefully work out our differences with as opposed to. let's say if we were in a world between the John Bolton's of the world and the hardcore CCP of the world, yeah, we probably would be in World War III, not too far down the road. So, I mean, people have to think not from the standpoint of things. China bad. You know, it's like people who still carry over, Russia bad, because it was the Soviet Union. Well, it's no longer the Soviet Union.

Starting point is 00:19:46 It's no longer communist. and actually, it's probably more Christian than the United States is right now. So why are you carrying over this idea? Russia actually grew out of communism. Maybe China can too. Did people see that happening in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell? Very few people saw that. I happened to work for one of the people who did, but very few people saw that.

Starting point is 00:20:11 So maybe President Trump is looking at some kind of future like that down the road in terms of his relations with China. And in the meantime, yeah, we probably shouldn't blow up the world over Taiwan. Yeah. I think turning this to Iran now, because I think that's where, and I've been doing a Monday show with my partner, John Arnold, and we've been covering the Iran situation closely. And it seems like Iran being used as a leverage point, obviously,

Starting point is 00:20:40 in the Middle East, but also with China to get them to negotiating table, particularly around oil diesel as well. And so how does Iran play to this? How do you see Iran playing out in the next few months? From what I can see, it looks like oil is making its way through the straight. Yes, prices are still elevated, but that probably due to the refinery issue, which you described earlier. And it seems like it could be solvable if flows out of the Middle East,

Starting point is 00:21:14 continue a pace and get back to pre-war levels, which in some metrics, they are. The refined products, not so much, but the raw crude is definitely getting to pre-war levels in terms of supply hitting the market. What do you see happening in Iran during the rest of the year? Well, I think there's, I mean, I think there's two things. You know, and Scott Bessend has been very clear on this. This has been a very deliberate strategy. You know, would, do we all hope that the IRG?

Starting point is 00:21:44 had thrown in the towel after the kinetic phase of it. Sure, we all hope that. But it didn't. You know, as my friend General Holt always says, in war, the enemy has a vote. And the IRGC keeps voting because they're just not going to give up. So we went from the kinetic phase to the blockade phase. And now we're in the economic strangulation phase with Operation Economic Outcast. And I think that that is what is now going to be the killer blow in terms of this.

Starting point is 00:22:14 regime because they simply cannot survive what the United States is doing to them economically at this point. The IRGC is not just military. I mean, they ran 60% of directly, officially ran 60% of the Iranian economy. And that's precisely the sectors of the economy that Bessent and the Treasury are targeting. So they're strangling that regime in a way that I don't think. they can escape. Now, President Trump has been very clear, he said on a number of occasions, this thing's going to end after the midterms. Now, why does he say that? Does he have some

Starting point is 00:22:53 30-day military strategy? No, he knows that the IRGC is hanging in there, hoping that the Democrats are going to win the midterms. I mean, that's why the IRGC sent this letter to the American people a week ago, you know, saying, you have the chance to change things. Now, what's actually very interesting about that letter, and I just did my Monday show on it, is unlike a lot of people who saw the headlines, I read it. And it is, I really wonder if somebody in Iran wrote it or somebody at Chatham House wrote it or the Council on Foreign Relations, because it completely rewrites the history of Iran and the United States. It blames the United States for the overthrow of Mossadec. When everybody knows, this came, I mean, yeah, the Dulles brothers went along, but everybody knows

Starting point is 00:23:42 this was British policy because Mossadegh had nationalized British Petroleum, Anglo-Iranian company it was called at the time, right? This entire 25-page screed put out by the IRGC talking about the entire post-war period never mentions Britain once, never mentions what the actual history of this region is, which is that Iran is one of many, many, many different proxies. that the imperial elite have used to keep the Mideast under their control, constantly at these levels of warfare, sometimes simmering, sometimes, you know, the history of the perpetual wars we've seen since the 1990s, where tens of thousands of our people, our casualties, and millions of people in the Mideast, our casualties. The president had been very deliberately pulling the plug,

Starting point is 00:24:41 on all these imperial proxies, going all the way back to his first administration when he went to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip and told the Saudis to stop supporting Islamic fundamentalism. And they did. You know, he's been very, and then he set up the Abraham Accords. And now we have the Board of Peace to try and actually resolve the crisis in Gaza. All of these things are moving. But sort of the last hardcore proxy that the British, could push that button, you know, and get the response they want was the IRGC. And I think Trump is taking it out. But again, the IRGC pretty much said it. Oh, no, we're going to wait out through the midterms because we want to try and hurt Trump. We want this to play into the political equation in the United States so that maybe we'll have a lame duck president and we'll have a lot more people who are more friendly to us. Will they last through the midterms? I'm not really sure, given what Bessent is doing economically. But those are the different elements of this thing. It's not as it's portrayed by the idiotic talking heads in the press.

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Starting point is 00:28:10 care. Moving to Europe and Canada specifically again, rounding this out as we go around the world. What do you see having there? Obviously, we had riots break out in France over disgruntled students fighting for better treatment in schools and better services. In schools, you have Mark Carney in Canada openly saying that he would like to tie his nations head closer. to Europe. And it seems like there's a realization happening across Europe and Canada that their lack of investment in an actual economy over the last three to four decades is coming to bite them in the ass.

Starting point is 00:28:56 The U.S. isn't here to bail them out. And I think you would portray European Parliament, European Union, and Mark Carney as sort of shoe-ins for the city of London or fronts facades for the city of London. How desperate are they right now? Oh, I think they're very desperate. Because look, think of it. Think of the old adage, you know, empires rise and fall. And they do. And there's a reason for that because imperial economic policies are based on looting and stealing, not building, not growing. There's never a future for an imperial system if it doesn't have some new place to go loot because it just eats its own population. And that's what you've seen in Europe. That's what you're seeing in Canada, where they,

Starting point is 00:29:53 they, you know, foolishly continue or criminally continue to impose insane ideologies like free trade, where China's taking advantage of it and it's wiping out the European auto industry. the green policies, which have destroyed their ability to produce even if they weren't competing with Chinese EVs. So what you're seeing in Europe and Canada is countries which are being literally sacrificed on the altar of these globalist policies by leaders who care nothing about their populations. And you can see it in Canada with Carney in these trade negotiations. It made no sense for the Canadians to walk out of those trade negotiations. It made no sense economically. It only makes sense politically when you understand Carney's portfolio is to try and stop Donald Trump.

Starting point is 00:30:52 And so he's trying to use the tariff retaliations coming now from Canada to, again, damage Trump going into the midterms. And his industry minister came right out and said it. Melanie Jolie, she came right out and said, we are targeting these tariffs politically against specific states. I mean, she's come right out and said it. So they're trying to hurt Trump politically. And of course, what's the impact on them economically? Well, one of their big Ontario steel plants just announced they're laying off 500 to 900 people. And across the board, for all of Carney's huffing and puffing about Canada strong, their economy is just an extractive economy where everything gets shipped out of the country, raw materials, just like a colony,

Starting point is 00:31:46 and the population itself is collapsing. So that creates a certain kind of desperation among the European elite, among Carney, because they're trying to confront this change that Donald Trump is leading in the world with not too many arrows in their quiver, which is why the danger of war with Russia is definitely something people should not be ignoring. The Europeans and Carney are just going to keep egging Ukraine on, excuse me, to the last Ukrainian, because a defense mobilization might be the only thing that saves their economies. But they are very, very desperate. there's no doubt about that. What do you think the likelihood?

Starting point is 00:32:35 I mean, they're desperate few hours in the quiver. So, and I'm assuming war with Russia is like the nuclear option. Like, okay, let's send them in. What do you think the likelihood of that is at this point? Well, it's, you know, you have to be quite mad to, you know, to push it that far. But desperate people are mad. I mean, I'm not ruling it out. You know, I'm not one of, you know, people running around saying we're going to be at war

Starting point is 00:33:01 with Russia tomorrow, because part of it is Putin, Putin also understands the dynamic. He understands it's coming from Europe. He understands what Trump is doing. He gets along with Trump. When it comes to standing up to the globalists, Putin and Trump are pretty much on the same side. So I think the major mitigating factor in all of this is two things. Number one, Trump is going to pull the string back wherever we have the power to do so. And Putin also understands just how crazy these people are and hopefully is going to give Donald Trump the time to actually end this war and to really shut down the system that is creating these imperial puppets, you know, who are driving us toward war. But it's something that people should not ignore. It's real.

Starting point is 00:33:56 You know, and bringing this back domestically, how much credence can we put in polling data that's coming out leading up to midterms? I think there's been a lot of discussions I've been following on X. It looks like, I forget if it's the House or the Senate, looks like one of them will say with Republicans and one is going to go towards the Democrats. But I've learned to not really trust the polls. But then you read the tea leaves of public sentiment on X. And it seems like that Gen Z is a bit disenfranchised with everything that's going on and everything that has gone on since Trump started his second term. A lot of the younger generation, and particularly the males who were hoping that immigration policy would be aggressive and immediate has not met their expectations. And this is having knock on consequences in the sense that they can't get good jobs.

Starting point is 00:34:52 At least that's the perception, what do we, what do you? think about the polling heading into midterms? Is it accurate? What should we be looking at? And what No. I mean, have the polls ever been accurate? Have the polls ever been accurate related to Donald Trump? No. No, I mean, I dismissed the polls completely. Now, that being said, do I, am I going to make a prediction myself? No. But what I will say is that if the administration continues what it has kicked off since the Dallas Midterm Convention, where it is going to be out there every single day painting a picture for people of what this nation is becoming. And again, this is the challenge.

Starting point is 00:35:39 The enemy is hoping that people will vote from the standpoint of what I feel today. But a citizen of a great republic should be voting from the standpoint of which, Where do I want my country to go? And is it going in that direction? And I think the administration is going to be spending every minute of the next four weeks, you know, delivering that message, which I think is more subjective. It's as much subjective as it is objective. You know, everywhere they go, they're going to point to some big economic win.

Starting point is 00:36:16 You know, in Ohio, it was Stalantis, Bayer, and some aerospace company. But there's a subjective side to it, and J.D. Vance said it. And I think this gets to the Gen Z question. When he was in Texas and he was talking about the new shipbuilding facility that's going to be built there, and it's going to employ 10,000 people. He said, it's not just 10,000 jobs. it's 10,000 boys and girls who are going to look at their parents and see them having a productive life. And I think that's extremely important. And I think that is the problem with Gen Z.

Starting point is 00:36:55 Gen Z has never lived in a productive society. I mean, the ones behind them even less so. But the funny thing is when you look at, when you kind of look at what's going on between Gen Z and the younger ones, the younger ones are actually a little bit more optimistic because they're kind of experiencing a sense of Donald Trump's world. But think of your Gen Zers, right? Their grandparents lost their jobs because of NAFTA. Their parents lost their house in 2008 or their pension, and J.P. Morgan got bailed out. Then, you know, maybe they were getting a start in life and then COVID hit, right? They've never seen a society that works. It's one of the toughest generations to get across this idea of a productive society and a society where you will have the opportunity to make your life better.

Starting point is 00:37:49 You're going to have to work hard and it's not going to be instantaneous. But that opportunity is now there. They've never seen that. They've never had that opportunity. So it's always been how many gig jobs can I put together so that I can maybe get a mortgage when I'm 40 years old? Well, it's understandable why they're disenfranchised. and I think they're the ones who are the most susceptible to what is clearly this whole psychological warfare campaign.

Starting point is 00:38:15 Trump hasn't done this, Trump hasn't done that. All the things they're saying Trump hasn't done, either he never said he was going to do or he's done. Like immigration, massive changes in immigration or H-1B visas, which he tried to do one way and the court struck it down and now he's doing it another way. I mean, he's actually doing these things. but if it isn't immediately affecting, especially this generation, then I think it's easy for them to play on that. So, you know, I believe there is absolutely a pathway, and I'm working on it every hour of every day, to win the midterms, both in the Senate and in the House. but I think it is going to be a product of how many people are out there actually radiating out this sense of the reemergence of the United States as an industrial superpower, as a proud sovereign republic

Starting point is 00:39:17 in a world of other sovereign republics. If people get that idea in their heads, or let's add the icing on the cake, what Jared Isaacman at NASA is talking about. You know, not just a permanent industrial economy on the moon, but moving on to Mars, moving on to the moons of Jupiter, for heaven's sakes. I mean, we actually have missions planned to explore the moons of Jupiter. You know, people start thinking once again in terms of what is this essential human quality of, wow, there is an amazing universe out there, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life figuring out how it works and making it a better place. That's how we used to think. That's why you can tap into

Starting point is 00:40:02 that with some of the older generations, but that Gen Z generation never had that. And I think it is the toughest nut to crack. But I think we're going to win a lot of them over anyway. I think one pathway in is letting this generation know that you don't have to go to college to have a good life. In fact, if you go to college, you're probably going to have a crappy life because of all the debt that you're going to carry with you to your grave. You can have a great life becoming a skilled tradesman. You can make a quarter of a million dollars a year as a CNC operator who knows how to use SI, AI, SI, right? The more that we get out the fact that there is a different way of living your life than what you've been sold or what you've been scrambling to do, I think we're going to rescue more and more people from that generation. How many of them we rescue between now and November?

Starting point is 00:40:59 I don't know. But, you know, there is a pathway, a very clear pathway that I can see to winning these midterms. Yeah. I mean, that's been another knock I've seen on X in recent week. is that comparing Democrats and Republicans around election season, the Democrats are much better at mobilizing the vote compared to Republicans. And do you think Republicans are learning that lesson? I think many people are like Cernovich has been very vocal that they haven't.

Starting point is 00:41:34 But I think that that'll be. No, I think there's, yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, doom telling in terms of A lot of people are mobilized. Obviously, Elon Musk is out there. Trump is out there with his super PAC. There are ground games going, I mean, again, I'm here in Michigan. You know, there's layers of ground games going on. The Senate candidate Mike Rogers has got a complete statewide operation going on,

Starting point is 00:42:04 which is going to pull all sorts of other people along with them. The party's got operations going on. Musk has got operations going on. Turning points got operations going on. It's much improved from what it used to be. And also the fact that the Republicans have gotten over the fact that you don't just vote on election day. We all wish it was just one day. The president just pointed out that I think he said India had elections yesterday and the votes are all counted in one day and they do it, you know, at the polls.

Starting point is 00:42:35 Why can't we? We want that. We don't have it. So until we have it, you fight on the battlefield. you've got and Republicans are now saying, yeah, get out there. Get your absentee valid. Go to early voting. Don't leave it till the last day when the Democrats might shut down your polling place or something like that. So I think I think overall they've gotten much better. All right, freaks, you know I don't take sponsor money from products I wouldn't use myself. So listen up. The Aven Bitcoin

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Starting point is 00:45:34 industrious United States. Another way is to, present the opposite of that or the alternative to that? And what is the alternative in your mind if midterms don't go in the direction of Republicans? Well, let me just say this. And I don't want to take any pressure off of anybody. I think Donald Trump is going to be able to continue to rule and govern and do amazing things no matter what the outcome of the midterms. Now, obviously, if the Democrats take both the House and the Senate, there's going to be a lot more roadblocks and nothing will happen in the Congress except for bad stuff.

Starting point is 00:46:15 The president is just going to continue to govern through executive orders, foreign relations, and so on. So, you know, I just want people to sort of have that in mind because you fight the wars and sometimes the battles don't turn out, you know, the way that you think they will. I think it's going to slow down the economic progress that this administration is taking. But I think the real danger, and it's sort of implicit in your question, the real danger is that it will continue the consolidation of this Democrat socialist, communist phenomenon in the United States, which is obviously extremely dangerous.

Starting point is 00:47:03 and is very much just one more product of how the British Empire has created ideologies and organizations to destroy the American system. I should mention at this point, again, my colleague, Barbara Boyd, has just written a pretty substantial pamphlet or a short e-book, however you want to look at it, which is on the Promethean Action website, which goes through the actual historical origins of communism. And it's not what people think. It's created by the British, and it's always been deployed against the idea of the American system, our unique form of economics, which says production rules, not money. British system says money rules. The American system says production rules. Communism was created to attack that production rules kind of ideology. And she traces over the last 200 years, how that has actually played itself out. That, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, a victory for the Democrats is going to continue to build up this phenomenon in the United States. And the purpose of that,

Starting point is 00:48:20 that, that movement, as this administration has made clear, is to destroy our very form of government, I just think that what it's created to destroy is even bigger than just our form of government. It's a form of economy, which is the only form of economy that's ever going to give anybody a future. So that's the danger. The danger is this phenomenon that's being built up through these midterms and which could, you know, take on, you know, further growth were they to prevail? And I think most of the Republicans are doing a pretty good job of identifying at least the political danger of that. I think where it really needs to be deepened is what the economic danger is, which is to turn us right back into a junk heap where we're a bunch of victims and losers on the government dole and the government decides who gets to live and who gets to die like they do up in Canada right now.

Starting point is 00:49:23 You know, that's ultimately where this thing goes if you don't stop it. I think we can stop it. No, I think the DSA is filled with individuals of bloodlust for certain archetypes of Americans and successful people. And it is incredibly dangerous. I think Canada's made system is a walk in the park compared to what some people would like to happen here. I mean, you hear. Would like to have. And in Canada, one out of 10 deaths are a system.

Starting point is 00:49:53 one out of 20 deaths are assisted suicide. And some of those are people who are not terminally ill. Some of those are people who just said, I'm lonely, I want to die. And the government says, okay, here, let's hurry that process up. Their parliament actually did a cross-benefit study of how much money they've saved because people killed themselves. So, yeah. It's very disgusting.

Starting point is 00:50:17 bringing this back to immigration, but moving back to Europe. And again, I think that's a broader city of London question I have. It's like, do the people in Europe, in France, and the UK, right now specifically, are they subjected to this city of London rule to and are they beginning to wake up? Again, going back to the French protest. I'm sure you've seen the video of the police escorts

Starting point is 00:50:44 of the illegal immigrants who landed on the coast of, the UK over the weekend. And who knows if I have a certain algorithm that's just feeding me this and I have confirmation bias, but it seems like people in Europe are beginning to wake up to the ills of this, this sort of open borders economic policy and beginning to. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at the votes in Germany, you know, for the a F. Day. It's now the leading party in a couple of the areas of Germany. Marie-LePen's party is the elections are next year, but they're on a trajectory to win despite the fact that they threw her in jail and, you know, tried to silence her and so on. No, I think there's tremendous opposition to this, and I think there's opposition to it in

Starting point is 00:51:32 Britain or in England. You know, the challenge in most of these cases, and I think this is going to get us back to Donald Trump, is it's not enough to just be against. the bad stuff. That's a necessary first step, right? But you also have to have some kind of, you have to be ready to govern, right? You have to actually have an idea of how do you, how do you extricate your population from this looting, financialized parasitical system, and how do you start to build again? And I think the weakness throughout Europe is there's not enough people who are conscious of those kinds of policies that can do more than oppose the bad stuff, but actually give people a pathway to see how you build the good stuff. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:52:28 that's where Trump is so important for the United States and in a certain sense so important for the world. And the rest of his administration as well, the fact that people on his team, whether it's J.D. Vance, whether it's the trade rep, Jameson Greer, whether it's Scott Bessent. They're openly reviving Alexander Hamilton and the American system. I just posted on X. There's a new fellow who just got appointed some assistant under whatever secretary in Treasury. And he's, I guess he was being sworn in or welcomed. And he's proud. And it's under a painting of Alexander Hamilton. And he says, what better way to get sworn in than under the watchful eye of Alexander Hamilton? This is extremely important.

Starting point is 00:53:17 This has not been part of our economic or policy dialogue, as they said, for 125 years. So it's really, really critical that the alternative to the globalist system, which is not some crazed free market, everything goes, we all get to make as much money as we can. and we don't care what the consequences are. But rather this American system that says, no, we do care about the consequences. The consequences are you have to produce. You have to grow. You have to actually make your decisions

Starting point is 00:53:49 from the standpoint of the future, not from how much money I'm going to make today only, right? That alternative has to be put back into the policy debate in Europe. And I think it's going to be a real challenge in Europe until we see more of that. Yeah. I mean, speaking of the Treasury and appointees,

Starting point is 00:54:13 bringing in Judy Shelton was a bit of a shock. Last week, as a sound money advocate, as a sound money advocate, I was happy to see that because Judy is a very staunch advocate of a gold standard. And somebody who actually understands how the Bretton Woods system worked, and what a disaster it was, that it was dismantled. So, you know, the obvious question, it's not just sound money. It's somebody who are they actually thinking of how do we, you know, recalibrate back to a saner international financial

Starting point is 00:54:49 system? Is that something that could be on the agenda for the last two years of the president's term? That appointment certainly is intriguing from that standpoint. It is. I mean, Scott Besson, and famously at the Manhattan Institute, what was the July of 24, saying he wants to be part of the global economic reordering and help the present navigate this. And then you have, I mean, in my world, the world of Bitcoin and via extension, broader crypto and stablecoin specifically, it looks like despite the Clarity Act not passing, the executive has given all the agencies, the SEC, the CFTC, the OCC, the go-ahead to rulemaking around there.

Starting point is 00:55:32 And I think it's pretty clear, if you're paying attention, the stable coins have a role here on the monetary side of things as well. Yeah. I mean, what's clear is that this administration, this gets back to the AISI question. I mean, this administration is staffed with people who understand, you're in a new world. You know, a lot of people say, well, let's just go back to what Abraham Lincoln did. Or go back to what Alexander Hamilton did. Well, in principle, yes, in terms of national banking, in terms of the fact that you want to have sovereignty over how your credit and your currency is issued and deployed.

Starting point is 00:56:11 But how does that work in the 21st century? That's a very, very different question. So you can't just cookie cutter the national bank in the form that Hamilton had it or the national banking system in the form that Lincoln had it and just plunk. We're going to do that again in the 21st century. What is national banking in a 21st century with the kinds of things that you're talking about? I don't have an answer to that, but I have a feeling that there are probably more people staffing this administration, people like Besson, J.D. Vance, Judy Shelton, and others who have probably thought more about that than anybody else on the planet. Awesome. Well, I know you're an extremely busy woman right now, soon as I want to be respectful.

Starting point is 00:56:59 of your time. Any final parting notes, thoughts, words of wisdom before we wrap up here? Well, I often go back to a quote that Scott Besson said where he said the Democratic Party strategy is to compensate the loser. You know, first they make you a loser and then they compensate you, you know, by throwing you welfare checks or drugs or, you know, gambling apps or, you know, gambling apps or. whatever, to keep you pacified. As we go into the midterms, I think it's extremely important for Americans to ask themselves the question, am I going to make my decision on these midterm elections from the

Starting point is 00:57:44 standpoint of being a perpetual loser and just hoping that somebody will lessen the pain for me in the short term? Or am I going to make my decision from the standpoint of somebody who sees, the golden age that Donald Trump sees. And I know people get kind of irritated when he talks about it because the price of hamburger is still too high and diesel is too high. And here he is talking about the golden age. But honestly, the man's mind is in the future, the future that he is fighting very, very hard to create.

Starting point is 00:58:16 And I think if enough Americans put their minds into that fight and that process and try and paint for themselves a picture of a proud United States, which has sovereignty over the key elements of its economy where one income can raise a family. And when you can look at your kids and your grandkids and say, you do have a chance at a better life than I had, if people rediscover that identity and make their decision in November from the standpoint of that's what I'm going to fight for. And honestly, I'm going to fight for it whether I even see it in my lifetime. Now, I don't think we're talking something terribly long-term, but I think that's still an important concept.

Starting point is 00:59:02 You fight for something important because it's important and it's good, not because you're necessarily going to feel the benefit of it today. I think, you know, people just sort of have to take a deep breath and think about those two identities and decide which one they want to be. Yeah, it reminds me of a tweet I saw over the weekend that a quote from August. And it plays into the never doom and it's all mindset thing, but it's bad times, hard times. It's what people keep saying. Let us live well and time shall be good. We are the times. That's been sitting with me for the last few days because you get consumed by all the doom and the algorithm.

Starting point is 00:59:44 But at the end of the day, it's a decision to be productive to go do things. And you can change your mentality and change the world. That's right. Susan, really appreciate you. I'm sure we'll check in at some point. Hopefully, we don't have to wait 10 months, but thank you. I was going to say, I was shocked that it's 10 months. We don't have to wait that long.

Starting point is 01:00:07 Thank you for, thank you for the work that you do. I deeply enjoy it. It's incredible analysis, unique analysis that you won't get in the mainstream. So for listening, make sure you go check out Promethean action. Check out the YouTube channel as well. It's a different name, right? It's Promethean. YouTube.

Starting point is 01:00:26 Permethian updates. Updates. Yeah, the channel was Promethean updates. Awesome. Well, until next time, Susan, thank you. And peace of love for Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening,

Starting point is 01:00:53 where that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and ad free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app and go to Fountain.fm to find that $5 a month, get you every episode a day early, ad free, helps the show, gives you incredible value. So please consider subscribing via Fountain as well. well. Thank you for your time. And until next time, okay.

TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #799: The Economic Revolution Is Already Here with Susan Kokinda

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