TRASHFUTURE - Illiquid Love

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Riley, Milo, Alice, and Nate discuss a German financier who loves financing a lavish lifestyle of yachts, parties, and handstands (?) by selling illiquid bonds. He's a miracle of modern financial markets - a Mozart figure who toured the continent with Helmut Kohl, wowing crowds of onlookers at his ability to be a businessman at the age of 14. Maybe Tom Hulce would play him in a movie? Check it out! We also discuss a start up and some quick news hits. If you want access to our Patreon bonus episodes and powerful Discord server, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/trashfuture We support the London Renters Union, which helps people defeat their slumlords and avoid eviction. If you want to support them as well, you can here: https://londonrentersunion.org/donate Here's a central location to donate to bail funds across the US to help people held under America's utterly inhumane system: https://secure.givelively.org/donate/the-bail-project If you want one of our *fine* new shirts, designed by Matt Lubchansky, then e-mail trashfuturepodcast [at] gmail [dot] com. £15 for patrons, £20 for non-patrons, plus shipping. *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind GYDS dot com). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/

Hello, and welcome back to this free episode of TF, running... Free TF. No, they don't get that. They don't get it unless they subscribe. If you have a boner from hearing Milo do that, pause the podcast until you don't have a boner anymore. Make it go back in. Don't push it back in.

Yes, if you have the boner from the show, bones, stop it. If you have the boner island, whitefish. Oh, Dr. Boners, what's that with this corpse? It's got a huge... Riley, would you do a podcast with Andrew Lowe where you review season six of the Porn parody of bones, boners? We will do that. It is Riley, Milo, Alice and Nate, and we've got a lot of fun stuff for you today.

A lot of infuriating stuff, but then just some charming stuff towards the end. Let's start with the infuriating stuff, shall we? I'd love to get... Get the Milo rant out early. Yeah, I think this one's really going to give that to us. Let's see what we do there, folks. All right. I've got the blood pressure monitor on.

We have paramedics standing by. Do not try this at home. We're erecting like a spit guard around Milo like at a buffet. Yeah, you've got to be careful about aerosols in this time of pandemic. So basically, a quick little Brexit update, and we try not to talk about it too much, the only thing I'm going to say about this... Is it going well? It's going great, but especially, you know, who thinks it's going...

It should be going better is labor. Because the official labor party position now is that they've now come out and said their position on criticizing the Tories about Brexit is we could do it better than you. You're bungling it. We should be the ones handling Brexit because we would do a better and more compassionate job of doing so. I seem to remember somebody saying that, and then certain people who will not be named, including certain former guests of this former show, saying,

No, what we have to do is we have to do a second referendum. And then, you know, it didn't go so well. I would suggest. The weird thing was, right? After labor, now that labor has, you know, it's back in the control of the moderate, sensible wing of the party, who doesn't want to do Brexit because it is an objective. It's an objectively very bad idea, according to all of them. And now is the best time to do sensible Brexit is when the people

who have made their careers on remain are now fully in charge. It's weird. The last leader who had any kind of credibility for doing any kind of leave has now been exiled and is now like, I don't know, out in the wilderness. This is the best possible time to do a safe, forensic Brexit. Weirdly, I thought like, because they're guy, Kirstarmer is their guy, like the our future, our choice people or the people's vote, Lib Dems or whatever, like Kirstarmer was their big guy.

You think that they'd be up in arms about him sort of switching position on Brexit like this and saying it should now be done. Have we checked in with the host of popular podcast, The Romaniacs and seeing how Romaniacal they're feeling? Oh, yeah, they sealed themselves into the big Romaniacal water tower. They went so Romaniacal that now it's like they're Harvey Dent. They went all the way around. Oh, damn.

They're now like, they think they think Brexit is funny and done is like flipping a coin. You know, we may have some like ideological problems on the show. I'm not going to say we've been right about everything ever. But I think if we ever if we ever had to pivot to actually the future and tech are quite good, I think we would disband before we did. Tell us, we were completely wrong about the future. It's absolutely fine. We would at least we would at least change the name.

Yeah, we would change the name of the fucking show to nice future. So there was no trash in the show, trash future. So I looked up, I looked up all the websites of our future, our choice and people's vote and all the ed. They're all gone. They're just gone. There is no trace of them on the Internet. It's like it's like when that company that Mark Simpson works for

like dissolves and he goes back to their offices and everything's just gone. And they're just a guy tearing copper wiring out of the wall. That's that's people's vote now. It's it's it's almost as good. Could it be that it wasn't actually for stopping Brexit and implementing a second? There are no people's vote and there never was. That's not the wallet inspect. So anyway, but Riley, I was promised there would be a second

woofer random. What's happening? The one person who like actually like just the couple of like rubes who actually believed that like the woofer random or whatever it wasn't just a rat fucking campaign against the left, taking their dogs to like Trafalgar Square, being like, come on, he said they were going to leave. We have to do the woofer random again. It works the last time. It got rid of the other guy.

Just kidding. They're just imagining just like one of the dogs being interviewed on like the one show or something. They go like we're the best lead. Yeah, they're getting bounced back up. Yeah, we believe there would be a second woofer random. Yeah. So listen, that guy who's like driving up and down the coast of Norway like writing, please stay in the EU on his GPS.

He's going to be furious when he finds out in six years. Did everybody please stay in the EU? I'm going on a short trip around the coastline of Norway. When I'm back, I expect there to still be a second referendum website. That's right. Margera, but with like a circle over the A. Well, if you don't measure it, so I want to do it. So yeah, anyway, that but that's the whole second referendum thing.

Weird how they've just given up. I wonder if they had another goal. Bam, Margaard. Indeed. We're going to move on now. J.K. Rowling, quick hit number two. J.K. Rowling has written another terrible new book that mainly seems to be about working out a thought experiment where men disguise themselves as adult human females to infiltrate adult human female spaces

and then do serial killing. She's hate when that happens. She's rich. She has written a trans she's written a transphobic thought experiment with a little bit of spice of Islamophobia of what what if what if the man disguising himself as a woman to murder women dressed in a burqa and like had a allow take away, which is definitely like a distinguishable thing.

She's written this book to annoy Alice specifically. Yeah, I literally this is why you have to reply sarcastically to every famous person on Twitter, because you never know what's going to land in their psyche. And then two years later, you're like, huh, that's a bit weird. I think I recognize some of the and then, you know, J.K. Rowling tweet. Why does this guy not so hard? He shoots down the International Space Station.

Of the other really funny thing was that J.K. Rowling wrote part of this. She wrote at least one character in the next that I've seen in what I can only describe as a working class voice. James Bloodfire and your belly voice so bad phonetically transcribed. Yeah, we just like a cheeky knees up round the piano, but one of these fucking transvestites been murdering. And it's just like what was it wasn't even that good. That was too accurate.

You've spent you spent way more time around these people than J.K. Rowling has. The basics of this book, right? It's a 900 page mystery story, which is awesome. That's just a whole story levels of just hating trans people. Yeah, write a thousand words, get on Twitter, post something to incinerate some more Goodwill, write another thousand words, go to bed, not maniacal at all. Like, can we talk about very briefly how like transphobia does just seem to like

expand until it rots your entire brain like. What's with that, Jacob disease? What's what's the deal with that? Nobody's ever like transphobic on the side. It instantly becomes the whole deal until it's like costing their career and their marriage and so on and so on. Like I talked about Graham Linnahan back in the day. I said, I thought about being me about me being trans less than Graham Linnahan did.

Yeah, in particular, this is yes, yes, literally, yes. And now it is all happening again. There should be like a 12 step program for turfs, because like they do is a disease and then they need help. I don't understand programming before our episode with Annie, where I realized that this this description has to be updated. Our episode with Annie Kelly, I realized I used to say that QAnon is just it's the American version of the same brain disease.

And people are like, what's British QAnon? I'm like being a turf. But now I realize that no, British QAnon is just QAnon. So this is like a permutation of it until British to until British QAnon also becomes transphobic, in which case I've got. I've got a few becomes I've got a few excerpts here from Troubled Blood, the Cormorant Strike Novel Troubled Blood Cormorant Strike Cormorant Strike sounds like a fucking like an option not used for like the attack on Mogadishu.

Cormorant Strike is why the coup in Equatorial Guinea didn't go very well. Yeah, actually Cormorant Strike and Ranger Voice. I think Cormorant Strike Cormorant Strike Cormorant Strike Irene, I think Cormorant Strike is like slightly lamer than American military plan name. It would be Metropolitan Police Operation to like remove DVDs from a particular market, which will it will have initiated Operation Cormorant Strike to counter to confiscate counterfeit goods

from a gentleman on a village gate. All right, all right, all right. So here's here's the excerpt. This is about Dennis Creed, the serial killer is Dennis Creed. Yeah, Dennis Creed had always been a meticulous planner, a genius of misdirection and his neat little white van. Damn Blast of Pimp and Hell dressed in the pink coat. He'd stolen from Viv Cooper and sometimes wearing a wig that from a distance

to a scarlet pedo now sometimes wearing a wig that from a distance to a drunk victim gave his hazy form of feminine appearance. Just long enough for his large hands to close over a gasping mouth. Oh, that's not a woman. That's Charlie Mullins from Primmly Goat Blummers. It's just the air style is called me once again. His victims are never surprised when he makes his final strike because their last words are always, we can always tell.

Well, like genuinely, right? There was a bit of that in the in the burka bit, where like one of like, I guess Cormorant Strike's faithful assistant says, what's a good way to get in and out of a building with your entire face and body covered unquestioned? And he goes, a burka. And it's like, yeah, famously unquestioned. No one ever questions anyone in a burka.

No, they never do that. Yeah, because all your questions are answered. Yeah, that's right. By the burka, by cover, by the wide amount of text, you can fit on a burka. Exactly. Yeah, a lot of questions being asked by people that are already answered by the essay on my burka. So, yeah. So basically, like, yeah, it appears to be she.

I get it. Then there is that there has this hasn't happened, but this hasn't also stopped the idea of trans or transvestite serial killers being like a common and recurring trope in media because it just seems like like this obsession gets stoked from somewhere. Like some kind of rhymes with aim stream, Edia. You know, it's really funny is that somebody defended this book. I think it was in the telegraph by saying, oh, well, you didn't complain

about Buffalo Bill and the silence of the lambs. And I think one of the things was like, no, people very much very much about that. Yeah. And like the author of the book and Jonathan Demme, the director of the Silence of the Lambs, absolutely tried to distance themselves from the argument that Buffalo Bill was supposed to be a transgender person. That the idea was that like that he was someone he's not even trans. He's too weird for even that. Yeah.

I mean, the whole if you if you're familiar with the story of the film and then the book that he sought out gender reassignment surgery, but didn't meet the psychological criteria and so was rejected. Once again, bloody gatekeepers for the gatekeeping transition have saved her. Anyway, I just think it's very it's very funny that now, yeah, like, like, like you said, trans transphobia has now just taken a taken over another person. It's like as soon as she posted that Maya forestator thing, I was like, well, that's it. She's never going to post normal again. It's going to be this forever.

And hey, you know what? Now she's written an entire book about it. So another time of me being right. It's also just very weird to be like because everyone, people who have been saying like, oh, actually, when you actually read the book, it's not actually transphobic because the person actually isn't supposed to be trans. And they're doing that thing where they're like, and if you think they're actually you're the transphobia and shut up, it's awesome.

But then but the thing is, I may have drawn an extremely broad stereotype, but by identifying that stereotype with the people at stereotyping, actually, you're the one who's racist. But then there's this other thing where it's like, well, maybe people would be more amenable to that argument if you hadn't spent the last six months just like posting weird transphobic tweets. Like it's very unfortunate timing, JK. If you're going to release a book that is like you'd have to argue

a very like subtle argument to argue that it's not transphobic. Maybe the best way to promote that book wasn't with a run up of six months while you were writing the book of doing like weird transphobic tweets. Or alternately, that was a very good way to promote it among a specific audience. However, it's a viral mark. However, I think it's time for us to continue on because I have a startup. I have a really fun startup for us today. I have a startup.

It is called BitProp. Um, OK, it allows you to get like Bitcoin in order to obtain a propeller plane to fly into international waters. Wait, a propeller plane. So it's like, yeah, you can only get like an Antonov. You can't get like a jet. This is for like the low rents. I've actually used this website a number of times.

Unfortunately, the planes are not impervious to geese. Another kinds of large things. That nature swallows a company's J.K. Rowling's detective destroyed the the equatorial Guinea. Oh, I can't believe I made that reference earlier, but none of you heard it. So no, BitProp Milo, give me BitProp. Um, is it a company that will it provides props for cameo parts in films? So much better.

Nate, BitProp. I think BitProp is like an ETF or something that allows you to get idiot investors, aspirational investors to prop up your cryptocurrency. So everyone's been a little bit right, but very wrong. Even with the plane thing, the prop thing. No, not a little bit right, a little bit right. It gets you a prop of a propeller plane.

But you can then use the truck people into investing. But OK, so it is, it isn't an investment thing. It is attracting investment for something. OK. And specifically, their tagline is, imagine if we could unlock 9.3 trillion dollars for those who need it most. So I want, I'm actually interested around of actual try to get this right. Guesses. Oh, God, is it like I wait?

It's trying to do some kind of charity thing. There would ordinarily be a charity thing, but it's going to be like one laptop per child, where they just like apply tech to it. Sort of. Is it trying to get at like one of these pools of money that like no one can access? I'll give you another hint.

We enter every child in Africa into a tontine. I mean, that's actually, is it closest? That no fuck. No, no. Conceptually, you kind of have it closest. Every child in Africa is now in the fighting hellfish. Riley, is 9.3 trillion like the combined GDP of all African countries or something? It has to do with Africa.

Their problem statement is Africa is urbanizing at a rate of 23 million people per year. And by very weird to call that a problem statement. And well, the problem statement more meaning like we are going to, that's the first sentence. And then they're like, but approximately 3.1 billion of those people will live in substandard housing, which is 36% of the world's population.

So that's the problem statement, not that Africa is urbanizing quickly. OK, fine. But increasing housing demand, couples with a couple to the lack of systems in supply results in high property prices and low property quality. How does bit prop intend to solve it? I'm I'm real.

I really want to see if I can leave. You have a distributed slum lord. Yes. To Alice has got it right. Oh, amazing. Of course you do. I love to pay rent to like tenants in a way that's going to improve the relationship between

those who need housing and those who provide it. So so you pay you pay your rent to a consortium of two hundred and fifty Macedonian teenagers. It's it's actually your pay your rent to a consortium of European investors. But yes, cool. Who will happen to be from Macedonia and to be teams. Happen to be 14. Yeah.

Yeah, no, you that that's correct. What they do what they do is basically there's this problem is there's this theory in development economics that's popular by an economist called a de Soto. He is Hernando de Soto and what he says is basically the real because a lot of development economists that aren't like heterodox economists who like look at things like the distribution of wealth and so on, who look at things like

the history of colonialism that's heterodox by the way. Yeah. So that like your a neoclassical development economist is only able to think in terms of one weird trick. And so de Soto's this African woman is making five hundred dollars a week working from home. That's what they propose to do. So they they basically they always they only know to think

in one weird trick. We're going to harness the power of milfs. What is it that Africa has an abundance of milfs? One thing that colonialism could not take away from the African people was milfs. No, no. So what what what they say is they say, look de Soto's one weird trick is property rights and title.

Okay. He thinks that the problem is he's one of those guys. He's the one of those guys. He's the guy who invented that whole thing where he says basically what we need is because people in Africa often and also to a lesser extent in South America, but mainly in Africa own like live on land that isn't clearly owned by anyone.

They can't develop it or take out loans against it. And that's what if we do enclosure again? Yeah. What if we do distributed enclosure and turn everyone into a landlord? That's cool. Um, and so I can't end badly and it's especially good if the land isn't owned by the people who live on it, but is

owned by some guys in Europe who may or may not be Macedonian teenagers. That's right. Uh, so basically, so this theory basically says, look, if you can give someone title to their land, they'll eat for a day, but if you can sell that land to some Macedonian teenagers, they'll pay rent for the rest of their lives. That's, that's sort of kind of what they say, right?

But if you, if you can find, so basically this is a social enterprise, right? So it's funded by like other social investment funds who tend to do impact investing or development. Bill Gates, Bill Gates involved. Uh, it's the kind of thing he would be involved. Yeah. Uh, they say they solve, they so bit prop and tends to solve

this issue with technology. You know, the issue of this systemic, like an aggressive underdevelopment of Africa by European colonial powers. We're solving the commons is what we're doing. Also, like, you know, it's, you wonder, it's, do you really, do you really think that like the issue is, is, is, is property rights as opposed to just what believe they do? Yeah.

Of course they do. Yeah. So they say my, my startup pith helmet through the use of technology information and new business models, bit prop acts as a conduit, taking property owners previously invisible to financial institutions and making them visible, creating value and enabling access. We develop the micro property, uh, and owner to the point where

they can become a client of a financial institution. Oh, well, that's exactly what everyone wants. Yeah. Everyone wants to be able to go and hawk to a bank. Yeah, exactly. That's the joy of it. They have to borrow though. Um, how else do you become a milf?

So bit prop, basically what they do is they, they use like surveys of people in the area and they look at the history of the land to then award you an unofficial probability based title on the blockchain. It's a God, man. Just go back to the rubber quotes as it was more honest. Well, but wait, hang on a minute. How the fuck does this work?

Because like, if it's not, if it's not like authorized by the government of the country it's in, if it's not like a legal title, that's like, what is the point of it? I think the, if the, the idea is, is that most of these things are de facto, not to your right anyway. So they're trying to give someone a document that they can borrow against. Yeah. It's libertarian stuff.

It's pure libertarianism. That's why Hernando de Soto is like fetid by the American Enterprise Institute stuff. That's also why it's, it's so important is that it's an end run around the government of these countries. Like it just, just in case they want to start like protecting their people from exploitation in any way, which some of them may do at some point, then you just, you make them irrelevant.

I gotta be honest with you. I kind of bogged down in the technicalities of it. Can we just comment for a moment on that guy's Conquistador ass name? Hernando de Soto. I mean, de Soto was a Conquistador also. I know. That's the point I'm trying to make. This guy is basically, he tried to like create a sort of like

blockchain tithing system in Africa and he's got a name that sounds like he would fucking want to be buried with a, you know, a fucking galleon full of silver. Why do you have to wear this morian to like, to give me this mortgage? I've just actually been thinking about the concept of a start up called Pith helmet and what it would do. And I've realized it would absolutely be, there's a real problem in Central Africa with child soldiers and a lot of these child soldiers, they're actually really woefully under-equipped.

And we have discovered a very safe way of manufacturing helmets to keep those children safe using a disused orange peel. And so it is actually a proper, you know, a war-ready helmet made from Pith. So we're calling this start up. You went to Prince William voice for this. We're calling it Pith helmet and we haven't researched the history of that name at all. It wasn't registered at company's house. So we assume that's a good thing.

And so far in Africa, we've failed to attract investment. Anyway, thank you for coming down to the Kings Road for the launch of this stupid charity. Anyway, the helmets. By the way, so if you want to know who what Elsa DiSoto is famous for, he's the president of a Peruvian think tank called the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, which may as well just have the same thing as Langley. This Chilean think tank, the Institute for Advanced Calico-Telectism Studies. Yeah, it's basically, it might as well just share a phone number with Langley.

Basically, so how this actually works, right, is Bitprop doesn't do this for free, of course. No, no, no. So they go to my new start-up that enables all kinds of like rural education across South America, these schools of the Americas. Checked on the name, wasn't registered in company's house. Thanks for coming to this launch of my new charity, the school of the Americas here on the Kings Road. That was like, that was like Austrian guy on the Kings Road.

Here on the Kings Road, we really just love educating little children abroad. The Koenigstgasse. All the schools are really cheap to build because it ends the basement of pre-existing builds. Okay, so how Bitprop actually has its business model is that they go and they secure the title of land using a bunch of like bullshit and magic. Then they'll go to the person that they secure the land title for like, hey presto, congratulations, we've secured this land title. And then they take a bunch of money from people in Europe

and then they build an apartment complex on that person's land. I love to like have some de facto land in Tanzania, and then four white guys in an SUV show up with like covered in Ann Cap stickers, get out and they're like, hey, here's a deed to this. Do you have any children? And so, Bate, then what happened? Would you please direct me to the nearest child brothel? And so then we'll have any children who might need helmets.

So what happened? Really trying to get rid of these, mate. What happens is Bitprop then. I love this idea that the distribution of the leadership of this is like three quarters serious dangers and one quarter like affable toffs who don't know better. A guy called Toby who's wearing a signet ring. Honestly, we've made a bit of a ricket here with the helmets because they're not big enough for adults and there's a much bigger market for adult helmets.

And also apparently equipping child soldiers might be a bit internationally illegal, like not morally illegal, but factually illegal. So basically, right, you're someone who's living in an informal dwelling, let's say, in the outskirts of like Johannesburg or whatever. Bitprop comes in, they say, hey, we're going to ask all your neighbors if you really do live here, then give you a Bitcoin wallet that has your property on it. And then we're going to build a bunch of apartments on your land, and then we're going to keep the rent from them for the first 10 years.

And then you can keep the rent from them subsequently once our investment has been paid back. Yeah, and if you wanted to just keep your property that you had already, get fucked. Yeah, no, fuck off. And also, by the way, and also I love this idea. We're like, no, in order to try and make up for or begin to make up for make amends for like centuries of just like horrifying imperialism. They are not trying to do that. What they're trying to do is to rationalize Africa.

And their way of doing that is like, we're going to get in the SUV, we're going to drive to the outskirts of Johannesburg, and then we're going to name this street something like Fond Mises Street and start counting. But basically, right, even if you take them at face value, they're basically saying we're going to try to make up for all these years of imperialism by creating the conditions for the housing crisis in Africa. Because they didn't get a housing crisis like we did. We need to give them a housing crisis on the basis of highly financialized property assets.

I mean, also amusingly, creating the conditions for imperialism. Yeah, these guys are going to be protected by Yerke Van der Klerk 100%. Yeah, I've got some good news for you, pal. Okay, so these guys I've got standing behind me. What they've actually done is they've secured you the legal title to your property, but also you're being evicted. And you can come back in 10 years. Yeah, you seem very upset, but I'm armed.

And there's a guy here who will give you a free helmet if you want it. I would take it to be honest, around here is pretty dangerous, huh? So basically, this is the founder, Carl Samelli, was interviewed in Barrens. Oh, no, he's a Swedish. Oh, stop it. I love to invest in Africa. Stop it. We never did the Nicolaeunilism the first time,

but it doesn't mean we can't start now. We're just confronted with essentially the villains of the constant gardener and our response is like, what if a Swedish guy was Italian? That's right. We're put a good show. What if that? In Sweden, we love to talk with our hands. Okay, so the founder, who shall never be named again, was interviewed in Barrens

and says, when asked the question, when asked the question, why provide a loan for a rental unit and not just upgrade someone's main residence? You know, like why not just give them a better thing? Yeah, just do changing rooms. Get Carol Smiley down there. Samelli said, Oh no, my collection of teapots.

Samelli said, but that way there's no revenue. This way the rent provides revenue because food and money is more important than a good house. Money is more important when you're poor. You know what they have in Africa? Pyramids. You know what else is a pyramid? Hierarchy of needs. Ergo.

You know what else is a pyramid? This business. So it's like to get kind of pyramid. So yeah, it's like, oh, we couldn't, we couldn't just, you know, again, this, this charity, we couldn't just, you know, build people better houses. We need to create, we need to create the, we need to create landlord, tenant and owner, employee hierarchies in Africa. Otherwise they'll never get their own 2007.

They'll never get a big short. Those are the best hierarchies. They're missing out so much. All of them are working perfectly for us. If pyramids are so bad, why do they bury kings in them? So how do you actually then go about getting the deeds? So they say, not in the legal system. Okay.

That's always sounds good. So, extra judicially, if you prefer. This guy's just fucking Dave Courtney. Don't worry. None of this is legal. It can't be, you know, no one likes lawyers. They're all immoral. That's why we're keeping this strictly illegal.

Get pulled over by the South African police and just immediately volunteering unprompted that you have several thousand highly illegal deeds. And in reality, what we mean is the history. We've done the research in townships. We saw that 93% of the people feel secure because as long as the community supports you, no one can get you out.

We've got to get those numbers lower. Well, no, it's the theory, of course, is that everyone will feel secure if only the market could operate efficiently. And then it never does because that's just an engine of human misery. Also, like even if you were a capitalist, right, there are markets operating in these places, right?

This isn't just even capitalism. It's an evangelism for a particularly western and extractive form of capitalism. Interestingly, what they say is that part of deed granting is to try and quote-unquote protect people from corruption of companies or governments or whatever because companies can say, just begin like get hiring your Jerk van der Clark type

to like clear people off of the land and then like build a parking lot on it. And then you show up with your deed and they point out, hi, it says here at the bottom, oh, by the way, this is wildly illegal. This is nothing. When I show up in the country

that I'm trying to overthrow the government of what I like to say is don't worry, this is actually a social enterprise. You can rent the country back to discounted rights for the next 10 years. Essentially, yeah. So they say our dream is that we do this so well because we have the commercial incentives to do it well

because if we do, the risk in our property investment goes down, that we are on a voluntary, private basis, mapping land step by step. And then we get the council to acknowledge this is a low-cost digital and technology-based title deed. Wait, that argument is like, why would we rip people off?

That would be bad for our reputation. We wouldn't murder people, that is illegal, even in Sweden. Our goal is regulatory capture. It's rarely expressed so bluntly. Yeah, it is purely just this libertarian experiment disguised as a social enterprise based on someone who ran an institute for democracy

in South America in the 70s. Because also, it's like, somewhere like South Africa is one of the more stable governments in Africa, and it has one of the bigger, I would imagine, regulatory frameworks. If they really wanted to just help these people officially own the land that they're on,

why wouldn't they offer to help the South African government determine this and give them deeds? Because it's a libertarian neocolonialist project that views Africa as terrenolious. And so you can just... None of these people live in countries that have laws, at least not ones that we respect. And therefore, we will simply apply our own

and hope that retroactively they're reckoned. I was actually at Oxford with Terrenolius and he helped me go up with the idea for the helmets. Great bloke, honestly, mate. Yeah, it's like, what... Remember Colonia Dignidad in Chile? Boy, do I? Yeah, this is basically like...

I was at school with her. What if we... I think she has a telegraph. What if we took Colonia Dignidad? I shagged her sister. She's really fit. What if we took Colonia Dignidad and then just made it kind of cutesy on the blockchain

and hoped it would just distribute itself by how great everyone saw it was through the mechanisms of the market? Yeah. Phrenologia Dignidad. If you're listening, honestly, call me. It was a great night. Yeah.

So, yeah, and even on the off chance that it works, it just creates a whole new set of problems. It's something that we love to see. This has been one of our most detailed start-up cycles because this is possibly one of the more evil ones that we've talked about. And yeah, it's also a cocaine-ass idea. It's like you have to be on so much cocaine

to think of this and be like, this is a fucking awesome idea. This is totally going to work. I don't foresee any problems with just writing out a bunch of Ds that have absolutely no legal basis whatsoever. It's just hoping that people of the government will realize that, oh, this is good. Let's just adopt this company.

Do you want me to read your name? If we rename Kinshasa to Rothbard, then it's going to be more legitimate and people will have more confidence in the investment of it. Kinshasa, I think you mean Colonia Dignidad. Yeah. So, even then, right, like also this approach is, again, it's like it's popular in American think tanks,

which means it's never going to go away. Which means it's very bad. But it's like completely discredited among every serious person. What I think is important to bear in mind here and why I agree with your point that this is far more evil than the stuff we normally deal with is that what we normally deal with is kind of like a birdbrained approach

to monetizing or securitizing a problem that doesn't really need a tech solution that's more just like either an inconvenience for a certain class of people or like a pesky labor regulation for a different class of people. And in this case, I think it really does betray that attitude what you're describing that like the entire premise,

the entire conception can be absolutely illegal and that doesn't stop it as long as it's being done to a population that people think, well, it doesn't really matter either way. And I would point to something similar in the United States and maybe this will get me canceled as a take. But I really do think that a lot of the approach towards things like charter schools and school vouchers

and things along those lines is basically, or things like Teach for America is, we think this will help and if it doesn't, who cares because these kids were always going to not count in our society anyway. Oh yeah, the same thing with subprime mortgages, right? Like the original housing crisis, just exactly the same thing. Original and still the best in my view.

Why is it always black people? Weird. Yeah, it's almost as though that there is this idea that capital gets to just kind of like freestyle among certain populations of people to kind of just see what works and then once things are proven on them, and then maybe take them up. It's almost as though this is a wildly racist endeavor

as have all of these other things that we're talking about. Yeah, just turning like a fifth of the earth's surface into a Bon Appetit test kitchen. Why not? Let's see. The Laboratoire Garnier. I think that there's maybe a bit of light at the end of the tunnel here, which is that I suspect that this idea is so stupid

that they might end up just losing all of their client's money because the idea of just wandering into an African township and being like, yeah, we own this now, and we're going to build this apartment complex, and then renting those apartments out to who? Like management consultants? If all the people in the township are just like, no, we live in these apartments now, what are they going to do?

Hey, you know what? We can only hope that basically what they do is they come in, build all these- Run out of money to pay Jerk Van der Klurk. And then run out of money to play Jerk Van der Klurk, and then everyone just goes on a rent strike and lives in the nice apartments. Yeah.

Great. I love being part of social development. I've long had a passion for building economic development across borders. Woke Van der Klurk. Yeah, that's right. Let's move on. With his Dutch brother.

Yeah, let's move on. We are going to- I've got a new guy for us. I love him. I've loved learning about him. He's a guy of many details, so- Is he a big guy physically? No.

Sorry. Oh, so it's not Greg Stubey. So, this is Lars Windhorst, and he is another rich- So, name alert. He is a German financier who is like in his late 30s, but started being famous as a financier as like a 14-year-old. Oh, boy. So, he's in the news-

If only there were a German word for that. Oh, well. He's in the news now because one of his perfectly legitimate investment vehicles, chain finance, which was designed to rescue several other of his perfectly legitimate embattled investment vehicles. He's inverse German Dave Courtney. Appears to have-

There's nothing illegal about this. I must make it clear that it is not illegal in any- I have permits for every single one of these transactions. Look, I got this one from this Swedish guy. You can look at them from a distance of 10 paces. So, basically, what he appears to have done is, he appears to have been selling illiquid bonds to H2O asset management, concepts I will explain in a moment, causing-

All I got was the H2O is illiquid. Got you. Which is ironic because it's illiquid bonds. Yeah, that's what I was getting for as a joke. Causing a run on the fund from its investors as allegations of impropriety that have been swirling around it have finally come to a head. So- I hate it when the allegations swirl around me.

So basically- Just getting a phone call like, is your H2O running? So, just- You shouldn't have located this H2O fund in the middle of Siberia, where temperatures are so low that it is never liquid. So, basically, one of these illiquid bonds that Windhorst sold the fund, or allegedly illiquid bonds, was apparently to settle a lawsuit involving the settlement of other illiquid bonds

he'd sold to a former Russian energy minister. Well, that sounds very legal. Yeah, I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds extremely above board and I will not be inquiring for- None of these people will get murdered at any point. So, basically, Lars Windhorst is a guy who- He says, no, I'm not selling illiquid bonds. All those other times throughout the past that have every couple of years

I've come up in the news for selling illiquid bonds, that's not me anymore. I don't do that kind of thing. Right, Link. Darling. What the fuck is an illegal bond? Illiquid bonds. Illiquid bonds. So, basically, I thought you'd never ask.

So, basically- Some bonds around here. A bond. Some bonds around here. Don't react close to a bond. A bond is a debt instrument that you can buy or sell. So, if you sell a bond, that means I pay you a bunch of money, I own a claim on your money plus an interest rate coupon.

And liquid securities, that's a stock or a bond, is one that's relatively commonly easily traded in pretty high volumes around markets in pretty easily transparent market-determined prices. So, it's a loan shark. Well, an illiquid bond is one that it's a security. It's very, very hard to sell. So, if Microsoft issues a bond, for example, it's very easy to sell that. There's a very well-defined market for it.

You could probably sell it on just an investment platform. Our country issues a bond, same thing. If one of those right-wing tech companies that emerges because Google's two SJW sells a bond, that's called an illiquid bond because there's no market for it. It's not widely known. It probably doesn't trade around at many brokerages. Much like the title that those ANCAPs came up with.

It's a thing that you've just kind of made up for yourself. I love downloading 8chan's bond trading platform. So, basically, an illiquid bond is just a security that, once you buy, you're kind of stuck with. It's very hard to sell. So, if the bond stops performing, you're stuck holding this relatively worthless investment. Well, that makes it sound great.

I can't see how this could go wrong. What could go wrong with selling wallet inspections? And I love selling them to very dangerous people because those people are always very reasonable when they're upset about the performance of their investment and never do things like chop you up and put you in an oil drum. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. If you try this with a new cryptocurrency,

you might get some really angry Rick and Morty emails from people, but you probably won't get flayed and boiled alive. Apparently, the lawsuit with the Putin guy is now settled. It was settled because basically, because H2O asset management, which is a hedge fund or an asset manager that's located inside the French bank in the taxes, has nothing to do with it, but is located inside.

That's a thing. It's like the suit of businesses. It has been settled. What I mean by this is, do not dig in a specific hole outside of Arkhangelsk. When I settle a lawsuit with a Putin guy, what I like to do typically is change my name, move to Hawaii and never eat or drink anything ever again.

That's right. Actually, all of my business dealings are entirely above board and safe, which is why I have my staircase butted every single day. Interesting. You should talk about the staircase butter because Peter Mandelson was an advisor. Of course! Of course! That cannot be a dodgy deal in Britain

that Peter Mandelson is not involved with. So I want a very, very slippery staircase there, Peter. I want to talk a little bit more about it. Just like settling my lawsuit with a Putin guy and then opening a vlog where I review the various food and drink options on board domestic Aeroflot. You ask what we did at his country estate.

Well, we certainly didn't hunt the most dangerous game. I'll say that. Well, excuse me. You say that country estate is hunting dangerous game because the comparison that I have with this is Lex Greensill because everything about this, which is a charismatic, globetrotting financier who's obsessed with planes and can't stop buying planes.

Harking the big eye emoji again. An asset manager. He's doing a handbrake turn around the corner in the eye emoji. It's someone who's trying to out logistics Epstein. So Epstein thinks he's a successful pay to file with one plane. I could become the Amazon of paid affiliate. Oh, that's not an impression of anyone in particular. No, that's an impression of a general Australian ambitious pay to file.

So basically, right. But what I'm saying is right, in both the cases of Greensill and Windhorst, there is this ambitious financier with a slightly checkered past. Asset managers that seem like enraptured by them. So in Greensill's case, it was GAM in Switzerland. And that was like, if you haven't listened to our episode Frankenstein's balance sheet,

we unlocked it a couple of months ago. I urge you to go listen to that before listening to the rest of this segment. Yeah, it's key to understanding this. But the short version is that this guy, Lex Greensill, basically made it legal for him and nobody else to just print his own money. And what we're going to get to is the key mistake Lars Windhorst made is he didn't do that first before doing all the other stuff. He was too eager.

Yeah, he jumped the gun. Don't try, Lex. Here in Switzerland, nobody has a checkered past. So basically, yeah. So in this case, it's H2O asset management. In Greensill's case, it was GAM. And in Greensill's case, it was all about supply chain financing, Sanjeev, Gupta's diesel power generators that were just privatizing

a bunch of green power subsidies from the UK government. Which is all very good and cool and normal. In this case, what happens is there are several players, right? There is Lars Windhorst, his advisors, including Peter Mandelson, his old firm. What the fuck does Peter Mandelson advise them on? Political connections, basically. It's basically just I want to have someone who's politically connected.

Windhorst is himself a major Tory donor. So his advisors, his old firm, Sapinda, and his new firm, Tenor. And then also, we have Bruno Crastes, who run... Excuse me. Bruno Crastes, or Crust or something. He's French. He's French. He runs H2O asset management.

And they cannot stop and have been unable to for several years stop buying these terrible illiquid bonds issued by... Oh, I know it's bad for me. Once he bought, he just can't stop. These terrible illiquid bonds issued by Windhorst, Windhorst's various firms that are all like kind of private equity firms. So rather than like with Greensill, what he did... Is there an explanation for this that doesn't rhyme with Lanny Mawndering?

Yes, it rhymes with Anzi scheme. Anzi's bonds are so illiquid, but every time I bite into one, it reminds me of my childhood. Okay, so basically, we have... The French Crescentine brother is such a powerful bit. So basically, we have H2O, right? And what they're doing is they are... Anytime Windhorst issues a bond, they will then buy it.

Great relationship to have. That bond is frequently very hard to trade, because Windhorst tends to like raise the... He tends to buy like defunct, dying or paper companies that just don't do anything or fail immediately, raise tons and tons of debt from them, engage in some circular financing allegedly, which we'll get to later,

and then just keep investors pumping the value up by having them over for lavish parties in his house. Does that work? How does that work? Why does that work? Why is that allowed to work? So first of all, when it comes to the companies, what he does is pumps,

and then presumably he does something later, which rhymes. Yes, he pumps more. Yeah, he invented whobbistics. Pumps does technically rhyme with pumps. It's a pump and pump scheme. This is from the FT. The FT, by the way, Robert Smith, Bondhack, his writing on the FT, and this is essential reading.

Just hours before Windhorst's lavish annual party held at his office in Penthouse in Savile Row, which incidentally, I think I've been to. I don't live in my office. I have an office in my penthouse. It's different. I'm pretty sure I went to his house in 2012. Look, there aren't a lot of Canadian wine tasting happening.

That's a very peculiar microclimate, this office in Penthouse. I was very... I think maybe that there was an... Sorry, are we deposing Riley for the remainder of this episode? Can you explain for me your travel on the dates of... Riley just following his nose in a fugue-like state as someone moves a tray of oysters slowly towards a penthouse on Savile Row. So I...

Just like gliding blissfully up a button staircase as this guy comes down. So basically, I think I was at some party held by like a Canadian friend of a friend, and then they were like, okay, we're all going to an after party now. And I was like, huh, weird, why are we on Savile Row? And then I went into the building, and then I got up, and then it was like, huh, why is this...

Is this an office or does someone live here? And I didn't think much more of it, and I only really remembered it having read about this guy. So I think I've been to this guy's house. Hey, we all like to go and get suits at the after party. You want to come get measured up, bud? So hours before Windhorst's lavish annual party held us his office in Penthouse on Savile Row,

H2O's Bruno Crastis had filmed a video in Paris explaining why he had invested more than a billion euros of client money in the debts of businesses that included almost, that included a loss-making lingerie maker, another loss-making lingerie maker, an Abu Dhabi brokerage, and the Hertha BSC Berlin football club. Okay. Oh, no.

Why did I open an Abu Dhabi lingerie range? Oh, no. These guys, what I love about these guys is that they clearly just love having a good time, but there's no real business involved here. It's just like, well, what should we buy? Well, something with titties, obviously. Because the thing is, they don't even actually then use...

It appears that the companies don't ever actually then do much. They're just used as vehicles through which debt can be raised and then traded among them to give the appearance of a profit. Lars is like, how could more lingerie models be at my penthouse slash office at any one time? Why is this Canadian guy here? I want the lingerie model. So basically, what H2O Asset Management said is,

yes, we invest in everything Mr. Windhorst gives us, even though the companies are only related by being owned by Lars Windhorst, because, quote, we know him quite well now. Okay. Well, that sounds good. Because... You do one of those icebreaker things.

He told us two facts about himself. Yeah. The thing is that the more people know about each other, that makes them more disinclined to do any kind of dodgy dealing that involves one another. Yeah. Also, I love that as your investment thesis for this very serious fund that, again,

has wowed investors with very good consistent returns that have happened regardless of the wider economy. People, they think that Mr. Windhorst is pulling the wheel of rise with the fraud. He might be committing with these companies, but what you understand is we already know that he has many convictions for fraud in the past, so we are fully aware of this.

We are actually at less risk with him than with someone else we don't know. I'm trying to think about how much I would have to trust someone to invest a billion dollars with them in secure bonds. It's a lot. Yeah. That's a lot of trust that I would need to have in that person. But what if they were German?

We can talk about what that means towards the end when I think I do the more serious comparison. It means crimes, allegedly. I can't say that, but there's not a lot of other explanation as to why H2O asset management would continue pouring money into this guy. Oh my God, he's Lionel Hartz. He's living in his office.

No, money down. It's like, also known as Miguel Sanchez. So basically, that's what that's... You see, I'm not issuing a bond at all. This is now from This Is Money magazine. One of your regulars. Yes. Will we talk about this many finance figures?

I sort of have to do that. I love the idea. They're doing unwitting after-party surveillance. It's presumably like a financial markets magazine, but I love the idea that it's just a magazine for people who like money. And it just talks about money in a sort of just like, oh, this is my Sophia Money Coots in the magazine this week

is talking about where to hide your wads of cash around the house. I've passed a very minor in oil driving in the back garden. Even as a schoolboy, Lars Windhorst dreamed of running a business empire when asked an art class at the age of nine to draw what he wanted to do as an adult, he drew a skyscraper surrounded by trucks and boats emblazoned with his name. He wanted us to do 9-11.

On the ground around it was labeled South African Township. Age 14, Windhorst burst onto the global stage when he built an electronics import business. Leaving school two years later to build up the firm, he was hailed as a Wunderkind by German society. Oh, that's that word. And Chancellor Helmut Kohl took Windhorst on him on tours of the world as an example of their country's entrepreneurship.

Revving up the eye. The Germans are so weird. Welcome to the German investment thing. Here's a 14-year-old boy. As you can see, because we have stripped him completely naked, you can see that it is not a dwarf, but a child. So there's no hair on the body at all. I love how weird the Germans are.

Yes, some German children have been known to generate electronics importing businesses. This is like something that Trump would do, but in a less creepy way. When I look at this boy, he's such a, he's a smart boy. Look at him. Look at him. He's going to be huge.

He's going to look at those feet. He's going to be enormous. He's importing stuff. He's bringing stuff in. He's bringing stuff in. Lots of people that don't know where to get the stuff. This guy, he's 14 years old at that age. At that age, what was I doing?

I wasn't bringing stuff in. This kid, this kid is the only way that Donald would have been proud of Eric or Don Jr. as if they turned out like this. Why didn't you build a business? With that kid in Germany. He's my real son. Yeah, congratulations to this kid

who is now legally Baron Trump. Yeah. So, but I love also- Baron von Trump. It was just like, ah, we are genetically good at entrepreneurship. So I brought this child who was imported DVD plays. Sure.

Imagine a German business visitor child running it. But I also imagine like how fucked up he, he's like the Michael Jackson of the financial world. Taken on tour by Helmut Kohl as a kid and shown off as like a brilliantly talented freak. Like, of course, he's in a bunch of- Y'all is a Jackson foon. Of course, he's involved in a bunch

of like shady bond issues with Russians. Obviously. The Jackson foon is such a good bit. That's an episode title right there, I think. Yeah. So like, obviously he's incredibly fucked up. Like, of course that's what happened because it's like, it's like,

it's like the German economic and miracles Mozart. But so yeah, that's why I say, is it any wonder that everything this guy ever did has been an absolute fiasco? Because once the dot-com bubble burst, right, and he stopped being a child, oh no. Basically, he immediately like went bankrupt,

but just started borrowing more and making bigger and weirder bets. But he was seemingly immune from ever having to work a normal job ever. And so in- Yeah, he was hanging out with the fucking chancellor. Yeah. So in 2003, his business was completely bankrupt.

He was 72 million euros in pounds, rather in debt. And his credit rating was so low, he couldn't get a mobile phone contract. But his parents gave him a 16,000 pound loan. That was a nice little- And then- Mom, dad, they feel less like- Then he persuaded two investors

to give him four and a half million pounds to start investing again, for some reason. Two investors, they feel less like. Yeah. But then, and that's the weird thing, right? One of them was an entrepreneur called Rob Hersov. And he, they launched an investment firm called Sapinda Together,

which was, again, wildly successful, building up a balance sheet then of more than 900 million pounds. But he did that just by buying up, or just distress, German property after the financial crisis. So he's just a landlord. Oh, well, that's a great business.

Every time, and then when he tried to do something other than being a landlord, he immediately started fucking up constantly. Oh, I hate it when that happens. So, and disaster struck again. And this is the weird thing, right? This is why I find Lars Windhorst so fascinating, because he's so frenetic and weird

that none of these stories ever really resolve or tie together properly. It's just, it's like the movie Uncut Gems. Stuff just keeps happening to him. And he's able to like- Guys keep exchanging like $25,000 in envelopes. Yeah, it's, well, that kind of is his life, right? Like it is Uncut Gems.

He's just always borrowing from people to pay other people, making crazy bets, being chased by people. He crashed a plane in Kazakhstan on Boxing Day in 2007. Hey, Lars, all right, puppy. I heard you crash your plane. And then- Now you're trying to pour in your ring

and you crash a plane. What the what's up with you? I'm not worried about you. He lost an ear, which was later attached, but was then immediately, again, indicted for fraud, paid a huge fine for his ear. His seven ear in the dog. Was given a suspended prison sentence.

But the thing is, while that was happening- Got in a fist fight with the weekend for some reason. Is while that was happening, he was also charged for embezzling investor money from his distressed property company. And also at the same time, fighting off a lawsuit for a US-based hedge fund that accused him of manipulating a bond price and called it a liquid.

I've never manipulated a bond price. If you read my website, the first thing it says is Lars Wintorz does not manipulate bond prices. Anymore. Yeah, I think the matter is closed. And you know, I'm not lying now, because I have admitted to doing it in the past. Right, so that's what I mean.

Like, it's impossible to keep things straight with this guy because 45 different things are constantly happening to them. And he's always seeming to manage to stay just barely ahead of all of them. But his life appears to be nothing but pure financial chaos. Awesome. So of course he had to move to London. Yeah, of course.

Because the only place that someone like- Was the only ball pit big enough to contain him? Yeah, Mayfair is because like Mayfair is a deeply corrupt place. No. But like, I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate the kind of business that does get done there. Much of the- Many of the businesses in Mayfair are engaged in money laundering.

Engaged in what we like to call the Kazakhstan plane crash industry. Basically, yeah. If you wanted to arrange a Kazakhstan plane crash for someone, Mayfair is where you'd go to get it done. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I can get my suit and my Kazakhstan plane crash on the same street. Yeah. So like, Mayfair is a place where weird criminals go to try to swindle one another.

So- I'm a regular in Mayfair and I usually find the more illegal I say I am, the more interested people are. Kind of. So basically, this is from the FT again. Hoping to put all this behind him, Mr. Windhorst moved to London six years ago. But it was-

You know what this is? This is the guy from Uncut Gems, moving into the second act of Eastern promises. Yeah. Him just being like, actually, when it comes to the financial crimes, I'm really trying to put that behind me and cut toxic people out of my life. So I think it would be a lot better. It would be a lot better for my mental health

if you would please stop refining to the financial crimes previously. Some tactics that he then used to impress investors in London, in addition to like just having a bunch of important people on his boards, included Windhorst set up a soundproof office in Savile Row. Well, that can only be good. The gigantic show eye that we all pile us around now fully in effect. In here, no one can hear you scream or commit bond fraud. Not that anyone would do this in here.

And features tabletop models of his private jet and 223-foot luxury yacht along with a sign- Do you remember those, Riley? Along with a sign reading, just get it done. Is he a Brexit guy? Is he a get Brexit done guy? So he's- Simplas.

He's a patron of London's Serpentine Gallery of Contemporary Art and tends to woo backers. If you want to distance yourself from money laundering, there's no better thing to be involved in as a hobby than contemporary art. He has a rare art. He has a massive rare contemporary art collection that was briefly seized by lawyers representing that Russian financier. Amazing.

And his plane and also all of his wine. Like he's constantly just having different bits of his assets. I know how you ended up at this party. He's constantly just having his assets frozen by different people. He went to a police auction for wine. And- Or he- So basically what he does is he'll introduce investors to his powerful friends

and he'll bring them over to his Mayfair offices and he'll wine them and dine them- This is how much coal he's- He's known me since I was a young boy for some reason. Yeah, you could say we have an almost Greek warrior- Like relationship is one and all. So basically what happens is investors find themselves like wowed by his reportedly relentless work ethic,

which he says involves working for more than a thousand hours a year on his plane, only sleeping four hours a night and doing handstands to keep himself awake. So- Binance people are the old stupidest people. They are the most credulous fucking rubes. Just doing a- Whenever I feel I'm about to fall asleep at the veil of my car, I just do a quick handstand.

Yeah, I've been in many serious car accidents. I love this. And the thing is, right? He's just like telling a fanciful story, and then some rube with an asset management firm will be like, here, oh yeah, interesting. I will invest a billion dollars- I was really impressed by the wallet inspector's work ethic.

To your wallet inspector training company. So- Exactly. Even though before he was lying about being the wallet inspector, he now actually has got his official wallet inspection license, and he's per the days of unofficial illegal wallet inspecting behind him. So I'm confident in this situation, I'm going to get my wallet back. If we say that we are on the left,

how can we claim to believe in police abolition and rehabilitative justice unless you accept that this guy can pretend to be the wallet inspector several dozen times with no consequences? I want to be very clear. This guy rocks. He is very cool. Because who is he defrauding? People we hate.

The only risk is like, if H2O completely fails and a taxes has to bail it out, that creates a risk for French taxpayers, which- The only risk is if he bets everything on the Lakers game, and then while having his enemies locked in the security door of his store. Well, I mean, that's the question, right? Like- While his hot girlfriend is going to the casino. He did basically.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, I got to be honest with you. As long as I don't want people to have that much money to be able to do stupid investments like this, but in the interim period when they do, if there's no public funds involved, then it's all just rich people losing their money to a guy who does handstands because he calls it brain cardio.

Then I mean like, I'm okay with it. Yeah, you know, to be clear, this guy's really fun. So a review of the financial times of his startups finds that much of the money behind them is borrowed, often on very strange terms. Oh, no. We got to keep this guy alive. Can we form a volunteer protective detail for Lars Wintour?

The rate of interest is given in tins of shoe polish per year. A reflection of Wintour. Like, look, look, on the one hand, like the Conservatives have the volunteer border force. I think what we have to do, or like the bikers for Trump, I think what we have to do is we have to form the Pennsylvania Secret Service, dedicated exclusively to keeping this guy alive

as long as possible. Absolutely. Like a curling team with dry towels rubbing down every staircase he walks down in front of him. Just slapping cups of coffee out of his hand constantly. Lars, you can never eat or drink anything again. Unless it's made by us. Yes.

So basically, so he makes these very strange... So to keep all these companies afloat, he just needs to have them lend money to one another and borrow money from other people and keep these money flowing in from H2O. And so, and often these... And the thing is like European stock exchanges are like almost completely unregulated.

It's a massive wild west out there. Yeah, because we trust everyone to be good. So that's why wire carbon is able to happen, like that kind of thing. And most of the companies that Wintour asset investment firm own, I've never turned a profit. I see also Jan Marselech, another extremely cool guy, kind of in the mold of this guy.

Exactly. Yes, but unlike this guy, I don't want to save Jan Marselech from being mud. I don't care about Jan Marselech. Oh, Jan Marselech's already dead. Absolutely. Let's be completely clear about that. That man is in a vat of acid decomposing as we speak.

And he's just going around going like, oh, is this a Russian guy? What I'm doing was this very illegal business with him. Anyway, I'm now wanted by Interpol, which I'm sure will not have to worry is a Russian man. I'm doing illegal business with this. And keep telling everyone about how illegal it is. I'm sure he completely trusts me to not tell Interpol

about the nature of the legal business. I sound exactly like the other guy. There is one voice in German speaking countries and they all have to share. So basically, here's how some of the financing arrangements work, right? So Wintour has a company. So for example, he had one called Amethay and Agri in July 2014.

That's his two daughters. That company has a subsidiary, issue a bond for 125 million euros at a rate of 8.5% per year. He then buys a plurality of those bonds through a personal offshore company. So I want to make a 26-way parlay. This is what it is.

This isn't because he's the only counterparty in any of this. So what he'll do, he's doing this. He's having this conversation with himself in the kitchen of a restaurant that he doesn't own. I want to make a 26-way parlay. Incidentally, I am the Los Angeles like this. How this works, right? Is he will have a company that he is invested in,

issue a bond, that the bond will be bought by a company he owns offshore that will then sell the bond back to the original company at a massive write-down so that the original company can say on paper they made a profit of like 8 million euros. Even though all that's happened is money's moved around. Wasn't there some Italian guy who did this?

I think, yeah, it was Francisco Scheme. Yeah. Francisco Pyramidiglia. Yeah. So, and the weird thing, right? And here's the strange thing about it is that Windhorse reputation basically means that no one will do business with him because like he's sort of kind of unofficially... Except for this one French guy.

No, it's not just the one French. It's mostly the one French guy. But like Goldman and all the other big banks, they do one trade with him, then he fucks them and then they're like, well, we'll never do business with you again. And then he just goes to the next one. Awesome.

I mean, that's a pretty good deal, right? If they all have that money to throw away once, then you just keep doing that until you run out of banks or I guess be murdered in a plane crash and get stuck. We just need to throw a party lavish enough to get some Goldman guys there. He may listen to this and invite us to his house. Awesome.

Do I think we can get him to invest in Trash Future? I don't know, maybe. Lars, I thought. If you all just follow me into this soundproof office. So. I have an excellent Canadian wine. No one will be able to hear any of the illegal things which we say, which they would not anyway,

because we've been not saying them. I'm just envisioning like an Agatha Christie style setup where he has to create a particular item to lure each individual member of the staff on into his soundproof office for his reasons. What do you think they would be? What would they be? For me, it's the Canadian wine.

It always does. Yeah. Canadian wine, some like rare patches. Alice, I have some of the rarest Soviet uniforms for the Forestry Service internal police service. It was in Latvia. Only two of them were made. Hussein, I have the secret album by a band

called Huberstank never released before. It is a cover. It is as them as a Gundam. The Martin Shkreli thing of like buying the exclusive Wutang album, but it's Huberstank. Milo, what's bringing you in? I think for me and Nate, it would just be like, I also have these fine vives.

Would you care for a vive? So basically, right? I have a fully working Vauxhall Corsa. As you know, for Nate, it would have to be a grill of some kind. I have a green egg that heats up immediately. So a lot of it, so he does this kind of thing, but unlike Greensill, who has one thing that he does and does very, very well, which is supply chain finance.

Handstands. Windhorst and Greensill just like doesn't, he has one thing he does very well. He has built a lot of official connections, but he's kind of a nerd. This guy. Wait, wait, wait. I have a question.

Does he actually do the handstands? Has anyone seen him do the handstands? When you listen to this, do you do the handstands? When you're at the party, then you want to do a handstand and you thought, oh, that's weird. I just, I badly want to know because, like I fully accept that he is doing the like obvious thing of lying about only sleeping four hours a night,

working a thousand hours a week and all of that. But surely if you say, oh yeah, every time that I feel I'm getting a bit like unbusiness, I just pop a handstand. You've got to do at least one for that billion dollars, right? He doesn't seem that tired. I mean, he's doing a handstand. It seems like he just says it like shit and is like, I don't know, maybe they'll believe it.

I respect him more if he wouldn't, right? If he just like says that and like, yeah, I just do a handstand and everywhere I was like, well, that checks out. That seems legitimate. He has a billion dollars. That's even funnier if he just doesn't, if he doesn't know how to do a handstand,

never done a handstand in his life. Guys, when I do a handstand and my cock on balls look like an elephant's head. So basically, and the reason that people keep investing with him is that for some, the massive crazy illiquid bond transaction goes well for a while, even regardless of what the broader economy is doing. It's very interesting that in this contract, it says we will make money for a while and then there are three dots.

And then the contract just goes on to talk about something else entirely. Anyway, I see no reason to look into this. I was hoping to make money for a while. Is that a full operational Vauxhall Corsa? He's a version of how he'd uncut gems that just, he's prominently in the third act of uncut gems. He's been in the third act of uncut gems since he was 14. The guys are just like stroking the bonnet of the Vauxhall Corsa

and he's like stapling his fingers like, this is how I win. So the question remains, right? Like, you understand why someone like GAM would invest with Greensill and Gupta, right? Because it's a way of using securitization to privatize government subsidies. That's obvious. There's a clear reason why they do that. Yeah, it's the same end run around national governments as our startup. Then the question right is, and I think one thing,

and no one has cracked this yet, why H2O is investing with Windhorst? It doesn't have that clear value proposition. If anything, it seems like a very bad investment. It's caused a run on H2O's fund. They've had to gate it, which means they've had to prevent people taking their money out from crashing the fund entirely. They have more than a billion of illiquid bonds. It's just guys supporting debt.

I love the theory that just whenever they start questioning him about the bits of his investment vehicle that are really shaky, he just does a handstand. He's like, oh my god, Jean-Pierre coming here, huh? This guy is doing handstand. We have to, ah, 3 billion, huh? Bring it in. He just like, he offers them something. Their heart's formed this desire in his soundproof office.

This French guy is about to pull out. He's ruining his fund. He's just like, what about a perfect Renault twingo? And then he brings out three dancing dwarfs out of his briefcase. How could I say no, huh? Yes, he's just like mad. Like the most easily fooled people. It's so funny.

This guy's just like a magical realism guy. He lives in magical realism world. But also the other thing to remember, right, is the extent to which H2O and Wind Horse will jump through crazy regulatory hoops, including saying, okay, well, no, I've bought back my liquid bonds, but actually then what happened was H2O then just engaged in like a short swap agreement for those illiquid bonds, bought a small amount of money against them with brokerages like Merrick Capital, Brandon Hill Limited, and Shard Capital,

all of which are intimately connected to Wind Horse himself, as though the two counterparties kind of might be in it together. And so that's why I'm going to now be very careful when I say, well, what I say next. So that is my opinion, dazzling investors with constant seller returns for a while, and then everything completely falling apart as soon as growth slows, or as like Robert Smith expresses some like doubt as the legitimacy of your organization, that it all immediately falls apart like a house of cards. Based on these strange, illiquid, exotic, and difficult to understand securities

sold on companies like La Perla or Naked or various like gas producers that just have never landed a contract to extract natural gas or whatever, and has a history of borrowing money to pay off personal obligations. It seems like- What you're essentially saying is you're asking as a curiosity, not as an implication, but genuinely asking in good faith, you are asking the listener to find you a non-criminal explanation for this. Yes, yes.

Mr. Windhurst, a lot of your former clients seem to take you to court a lot, like, yeah, yeah, they're all obsessed with me. They can't get it out. I know they're so in love with me, and then I move on to something else, and then suddenly they start remembering about the soundproof room and what we did in the twingo, but you know- I'm such a Gemini. Yeah, just as I have a really like toxic taste in clients, and you know, you say-

A new bit gay Austrian. You say that it looks like I'm selling this illegal bond, but actually, no, it's extremely complicated. No one actually knows what is going on, including me. You think there's more to this bit than just an Austrian guy who's gay and there isn't. It's just- That's the whole thing. Alice, clients can be of any gender.

So- Look, if you get people enough poppers, they'll sign anything. So, yeah, but basically- What if he sues us for calling him gay? But we're not. I love lingerie models. This is on the record. I think the problem here is that it's not that big of a logical leap

to speak into existence, an Austrian-Californian financial criminal. Like it's just- You know they're out there. Dealing crystals, good vibes only, rare tranche fucking financial crimes, illiquid bonds, toxic clients. And of course, I am the German financier who is a little bit gay. It's a reference. It's a reference to a rube joke.

No, it's a reference to the sketch, the Nazi general sketch, the Smith and Jones. Never mind, never mind. We do not acknowledge the reference. It's like the fucking- It's like Delzophos. We don't acknowledge the existence of the rube joke. I love the idea that we're effectively because of Milo and I doing Britannology and exploring weird, deeply British cursive shit.

We're just going to start talking about like a 60s comedy show that only boomers have seen as if everyone knows what it is. Hello, I'm Julian and this is my friend Sandy. So basically, right, I think yeah, that's the correct question here is what is the non-crime explanation for this? And why is this asset manager continuing to pump money into wind horse? I mean, if you want to- Please satisfy the questions of our enormous motorized eye.

Ultimately, like if you- This is, I mean, how is this of interest to someone who like, would consider themselves politically left, for example, it just seems like rich people defrauding rich people. The thing to remember is that- Yeah. Gen is that A, cool. B, the thing is right, number one, when your economy is oriented around the line,

then your economic activity increasingly just becomes make numbers go up. And it's easier to make number go up by lying than it is to actually like build a thing, to make the La Perla lingerie. It's easier to have a successful economy in the neoliberal model by borrowing against La Perla than actually making the bras. Yeah. Well, what is cheaper to make? Bond issue.

Several hundred thousand pairs of lingerie or a single perfect Renault Twingo. Yeah, on paper, every single one of these models has four boobs. Which has doubled the value. It's easier to make, to basically declare a bond issue than it is to effectively make the thing. Make the thing, yeah. And so- Please make the episode title a single perfect Renault Twingo. And so basically, right, like that's just it.

Like the frauds at the high level are funny until when they come crashing down, the people who are responsible for cleaning up after it always, it's never Lars Windhorst. It's never- No, it's Kazakhstan-y aircraft mechanics. But it's never, it's really just, it's you know, it's taxpayers. It's you. This is the profligacy that we can't afford.

It's not libraries in Wolverhampton. Anyway, until that happens, this guy is officially on the protection TF list. He must be protecting your costs because he's very fun. Trash huge of red notice. Dispatch yourself to Mayfair. Find this guy and like slap drinks out of his hand. D-butter this man's staircase. Protect Lars Windhorst.

Start mopping up with toast. All right, I think that about tears it for today. As you know, there is a Patreon. Do subscribe. It's five bucks a month. You know the deal. Five bucks a month. We got maybe, maybe we'll have some new t-shirts by the time this comes out.

We're considering Hanna's vonk and the clog heads t-shirts. If you'd be interested in your Hanna's vonk and the clog heads. Do do at us to let us know you'd be interested. Slugs from Den Hogg Tour. Then do at us and maybe we'll make the decision to make them. The other stupid thing that we are in talks for and seriously considering at the moment are challenge coins. I don't know why we decided to do this, but I'm so glad we have.

I've invested in a number of t-shirts. So yeah, that's the deal. It's the whole deal. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'll see you on the bonus. Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, our theme song. From our soundproof room to yours.

Our theme song is here we go by Jinsang. Find it on Spotify. Later.