June 9, 2021 • 69 mins
Conflict has decided the course of human civilization since the dawn of recorded history, and war has evolved in step with our species. Numerous countries spend billions every year either waging war or preparing for future conflicts. But what if there's more to the story? What if, at this point, war has become an economic necessity?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to
know a better way to begin war? Uh good? Is
(00:46):
it good for? Uh? Some stuff? Yeah? Absolutely, well, a
lot of things depending on who you ask. History hinges
on the outcome of global and regional con flicks. The
world in which you exist today, no matter where you live,
is the way it is because of some conflict in
(01:09):
the past, whether ancient or whether recent or indeed ongoing.
We know war drives innovation, along with misery, degradation, and death,
and wars themselves as long time listeners will know, our
rife with conspiracies and conspiracy theories. War generates and it
cost billions upon billions of dollars every year. We actually
(01:31):
do not know how much because there's a lot of
dirty money involved. Shout out to the Department of Defenses
disappearing palettes of cash in the billions. We remember that story, uh,
fading from the news, but we we have snapshots, like,
for example, when you look at World War two, Congress
estimates that war alone costs the US four point one
(01:55):
trillion dollars, which I promise you is a number of
us listening to the show today can truly comprehend, right, Like,
we don't even know what a billion dollars is. Really,
it's pretty hard to wrap your head around it. Uh.
And like you said, that's for the US alone, right, Yeah,
that's not a country that had its entire infrastructure or
of large swans of it wiped out by bombs. Yeah,
(02:18):
one of the few that did not. So the motivation
for war can come in any number of guys. And
we've said this on the show before, and I know
it can be a controversial opinion for some, but historically,
at the core, no matter what the rationale is, war
has always been resource driven. In very simple terms, that
(02:41):
other tribe has stuff we want, or we have stuff
they want, and we're worried they're just gonna stop talking
to us one day and take it. Humans historically are
terrible at sharing. That's also true. Uh So today's question,
I think, Matt Noll, it's it's been on our collect
of minds for a long long time. Is war more
(03:03):
than just a breakdown of communication and diplomacy and alternative strategies?
Has war in the US especially become an economic necessity?
Is the US addicted to war? Here are the facts. Also,
we're going to say war a lot in today's show,
(03:25):
So don't worry if you encounter what's called uh semantic
safety world war war, war, war, war war, it only
takes and then it just sounds like a like a
synthesizer noise um. And so generally for this show, we're
talking about actual warfare, not necessarily cold war things. But
although the build up for a cold war situation can
(03:48):
be very economically viable for a country, right well, and
it involves many of the same things to the lead
up right then a regular warwood it's all about preparation
and gathering, infrastructure and all that stuff. Yes, so I
guess it is kind of both of those things bend whatdy.
But in in many cases throughout this episode, I'm assuming
we're going to be discussing a hot war where there
(04:10):
there are missiles flying and weapons being fired when we're
using this stuff we've been building for so long. That's
an excellent point because you still have a lot of
militarization in a cold war. You're just you're preparing in advance.
You're getting that what they call it in cooking your
misses in place where you cut up all the ingredients
(04:30):
in advance so you can cook right when it's time
to cook. Also, it's the best way to go about it.
It is, it is, It's totally worth it. But uh,
we're talking about cooking at this point, not cold wars.
Just to be clear. Also, it's gonna bug me if
I don't point it out. I said semantic sayity, but
I think it's semantic satiation, right, yeah, Okay, who what what? What? What? What? Well?
(04:54):
In many ways, the best way to explain what we
mean when we say addicted to war or an econom
make necessity is to explore it through an analogy. A nation,
any nation, is kind of like a household, their bills
to pay their mouths. Defeat is work to do. And
it might be surprising to some of us to realize
(05:14):
that the annual activities of nations often obey a cycle.
Similar to the cycle maybe in your own home, you
know you have planned expenses, you unfortunately will have unexpected expenses,
and then hopefully you have planned income or profit, like
you know when your paycheck is coming or if you're
well to do you know when you're I don't know,
(05:36):
dividends come in, or when you get fully vested in
your tiger farm or your dirigible dirigible dealership. All right,
well it's not perfect analogy, but you see what you're saying.
You know, the money indirigibles is really in the service section,
you know, so totally. You can only sell so many dirigibles,
but you can repair dirigibles like all year long, and
(05:59):
aparently you can patch them using sausage skin or sausage casings.
That's a weird history nugget for you. That's awesome and
prescient because I think we all know that's gonna come
into play in a bigger way in today's episode. We're
we're referencing our episode of ridiculous history that we did.
There's a weird undercurrent to being very pro dirigible in
(06:23):
our world. It's true. I think it's just because it's
like a it's it feels like such a transportation of
the future that actually makes absolutely no sense because they're
very limited. They can only fly and like medium to
low altitudes and not hold that many people, and they're
kind of hard to board, and they spring leaks all
the time, and you know, some of them explode in
(06:44):
a cloud of fire and destruction, you know, when you
fill in with the wrong stuff. Anyway, the point is
here that even nations have to have gigs, they have
to be sustainable, they have to make money. The rules
for nations are are very very different from the rules
for individuals. That's where we get into things like deficits
(07:05):
and trade deficits and the idea of national debt. But
at the basis, nations, countries, as well as the corporations
and individuals existing within them, make money in any number
of ways. We're talking manufacturing and exports, taxation, agriculture, technology,
and stuff like that. Most nations try to have a
(07:29):
diversified collection of profit streams, and that's because nobody on
the geopolitical level trust anybody else, and absolutely should not.
If you find yourself painted into a corner and your
economy is too dependent on a single type of thing
or a single genre, then you are extremely vulnerable to
(07:50):
economic warfare. That's true. So let's take the earlier case
of operations Satanic. We talked about this recently with the
amazingly named Rainbow Warrior trawler Green Piece outfitted and France
bombed the ever loving out of I'm saying that those
are your words, Ben, I cannot claim credit. That is
(08:10):
absolutely accurate, but I had to say because it's a
lot of fun. It's a technical term, right, we figured
that out. Ben invented the phrase bomb. No, it's some
guy at a taco bell invented that. Uh. Shortly after
he went a chloopa, too far? Oh no, well, okay, wow. Well,
(08:32):
in the case of the Rainbow Warrior, we discussed this
not long ago. Listen to the episode if you haven't yet.
But France, a team of secret operatives from France went
on over to New Zealand where the Green Pieces ship
was was stationed the Rainbow Warrior, and they dove down
into the water, planted explosives on the side and it
(08:55):
exploded in ever loving stuff and uh twice, they hit
it twice and unfortunately a photographer passed away when they
did that. But it was weird because at first it
was thought, you know, it could be enemies from anywhere
that came and hit this thing, but it turns out
it was France, and New Zealand learned pretty quickly. Yeah.
(09:17):
New Zealand knew almost immediately that France was the hidden
hand behind this acted terrorism and they confronted them. It's
a very tense situation, but France had leverage over New
Zealand in a very dangerous way because New Zealand was
extremely dependent on exports to Europe. The United Kingdom in particular,
(09:37):
and Europe in this regard was moving as a posse right,
they were a supergroup, and France then was able to
strong arm New Zealand by saying, look, if you don't
play ball the way we want you to and give
us back some of our operatives, we're going to cut
off your trade relations with Europe. This would have wrecked
(09:59):
their economy, and there's no arguing about it. That is
the threat of economic warfare. If New Zealand had a
more diverse economy at the time, the conversation would have
gone differently. Yeah, they could have. They could have, um
I think pursued different courses of action. So that's what
we mean when we talk about being dependent on something.
(10:21):
And just the other thing to take into account here
is that Green Peace was not a New Zealand based organization.
They just happened to be there while they were on
their way to France controlled waters in the Pacific, so
they it wasn't as you know, it wasn't as though
it was two countries coming head to head in an
act of aggression directly against the country, but it did occur,
(10:43):
you know, in their country. So it's just a weird
situation all around. But it's a really good point then
that having that leverage is really what changed the scenario there. Yeah,
and for another example, just that story is wild. Please
do as as you were saying, match account the episode.
If you haven't heard it yet, it is a it
is a bizarre ride. And maybe another way to think
(11:07):
of it if you're wondering why that seemed to be
a big deal to New Zealand, um, imagine imagine what
the current US administration would do if it was proven
that Iran bombed bombed a Green Piece ship that was
docked you know, in Baltimore or something. Right, right, So
(11:34):
here's our other question, you know, economic necessity. It's kind
of a dry term. It's kind of boring, right, you don't.
You don't hear people use that phrase too often in
casual conversation. But let's think of it in less blood
soaked terms in a way that's kind of fun. Actually,
we are of the age, all all of us on
(11:57):
on the show today, and maybe you're listening along with us.
We're old enough to remember the reign of department stores,
the old big box stores. A lot of them are
still around, but there used to be many, many more riches.
Oh yeah, yeah, and some of them had just the
weirdest names, like Dillard's. How would you spend that much
money on a business and call it Dillards? Feel like
(12:19):
Dillard It must have been somebody's name, because that seems
like the kind of thing you'd call somebody like as
a slight, you know, like you Dillard play something Beavis
and butd Head would say, I mean, come on, Phyllis, uh, Phyllis. Yeah,
But that's old school, that's just Dillard. It sounds like Dullard,
(12:40):
you know. It just sounds like a term of abuse.
It does. But they did pretty well for for quite
a while now. They've been supplanted to a great degree
by online businesses uh, such as, uh, you know Jeff.
We all know Jeff, Jeff from Amazon. He might be
in your house right now as we're recording, So tell
(13:01):
them we said hello. But here's where we're going with
this example. Since the rise of shopping malls and department stores,
especially post World War Two, there's been one period of
time that all of those retail businesses prayed for and
feared and relied upon, and that is the period between
(13:21):
Thanksgiving and Christmas here in the US that that was,
historically and probably still is today the most profitable and
stressful time of the calendar year for businesses for a
couple of reasons. I mean profitable, that's easy to guess.
Tons of people are spending billions of dollars, sometimes money
they don't have. Sometimes it's all on credit cards to
(13:43):
buy gifts, to go on trips, etcetera, etcetera. But it's
also really stressful because for a lot of businesses, this
was their one shot at getting back into the black
if the rest of the year hadn't gone so well.
And businesses in the US assure you, retail businesses continually
think about this period at some point every single day
(14:06):
of the year, and they should because their future may
depend on it. They are economically dependent on that period
of time. That's a great example, Ben, And it's not
It's not just department stores and you know, online sellers
and everything like that. It's everything. If you think just
about the advertising industry, the thing that supports most most
(14:29):
podcasts out there, unless they use Patreon or some other
donation system, ads pay for things, and in the ad business,
it's that same exact period they call it Q four.
That's where you that's where you make or break your
calendar year. Oh man. And just a peep behind the curtain,
that's where if you're if you're someone like us, that's
(14:50):
that's where you'll get a lot of weird stuff. At
the very end of the year. People say like, hey, um,
do any of you have personally perience with Dr Pepper
zero sugar or cave cave diving? Dang, that's good. Looks good, Matt.
I guess see the droplets glistening on the outside of
(15:11):
the bottle. Uh. I kind of wish you could see
that on the podcast land. But either way, she'd go,
get yourself refreshing Dr Pepper. Um. But you know, it's
like It's like it's not only make it a break
of time, it's use it or lose it time for
a you know, for brands, because they literally have this
money remaining they have to use or like rolls over
into the next fiscal year or whatever. So a lot
of mad money feeding frenzy spending going on in Q four. Yeah,
(15:35):
that reminds me, Matt, I forgot to send you the email.
Would you be willing to cave dive into um a
cavern system that was filled with Dr Pepper zero as
like an extended mid roll. Yeah, yeah, we'll get you. Well,
we'll probably be able to get you out of there. Okay, great, So,
(15:56):
uh no, I gotta show you out that that is enormous.
The President, you were killing it today because uh you're
you're right. The ad industry does have that cycle. People
might be surprised to learn. I think we mentioned on
air in the past. The defense industry has that cycle too.
It's the well we're cursing on today's show. So it's
(16:17):
the weirdest day in the Defense department. Because they have
a cut off for times that funds can be allocated,
they have to spend all that money, so their budget
doesn't get cut the next year, you know, whatever their
little uh, whatever their fiefdom may be. And so you'll
see these increasingly desperate calls going by time zones. And
(16:40):
the very last one, of course is like the furthest West.
That's those are the final approvals, and everybody is trying
to spend money because if they don't, like you said'll
they'll use it or they'll lose it. And this economic
example in retail holds true to a degree for others
swaths of the economy. This is, if you are uh
(17:05):
high mucky muck at a department store, or if you're
a high mighty might get a big online business, then
you know very well that profit projections around this period
of time are baked into your yearly estimates of profit
and loss. Your supply chain is oriented toward working at
its peak during this time. And then there's an army,
(17:28):
an army size amount of temporary workers that are hired
just to be warm bodies on the job. Is also
applies this shippy and production, etcetera, etcetera. But over the years,
over the decades, especially after the horrors of World War Two,
that are still very much with us today, scholars began
to ask, have the US, the former USSR, and other
(17:51):
nations haught themselves in a trap like that Elvis song,
suspicious eye, suspicious line, us, suspicious minds, minds. We can go, yeah,
like that one. All right, thank you you guys safe
on that one. But have have we become not a
country that is capable of waging war, but a country
(18:14):
that relies upon the act of war as a means
of financial stability? And is it just us? And does
it just us? We'll pause for a word from our
sponsor uh AS as our pal Robert Evans likes to
say goods and services, you know, maybe Raytheon or Illumination
Global and limited O pop by, and then we'll be
(18:36):
back to dive in to some disturbing things. Here's where
it gets crazy, Matt Noel, let's just cut the podcast short.
What's the answer. Is the US addicted to war? Hi?
It's complicated. I mean they're addicted to war in the
(19:01):
same way that Robert Palmer is addicted to love. Right,
it might also be an economic necessity for him. We're
we're on a just referenced roller coaster here, guys. I'm
loving it. Um. It's been a weird day for us. Uh. Yeah,
you're right, it dives into the realm of conspiracy and Matt,
(19:24):
you're absolutely I agree with you. Absolutely. The answer does
feel complicated, but maybe not complicated in some of the
ways we might assume. During World War Two, which was
the last hot global conflict, ouch as we record this,
has anybody checked the news? Guys global, it's posible. Quick,
somebody google, So Vietnam's out, viet is out? Yeah, war
(19:48):
and terror and does that count? It never ended. It's
like lobster Fest. It's not global. I guess. Yeah, I
guess the whole isist thing too. Yeah, I guess that's
the last global conflict and now we are in and
endless wars like promotions at Red Lobster I don't know.
I'm so obsessed with lobster Fest. But anyway, Yeah, during
World War Two, multiple nations became what we call war economies.
(20:15):
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is
very much a move. Yeah. This is when an economy
prioritizes creating weapons of war, things that are necessary for war,
everything from uniforms to food supplies to the ammunition to
the actual machines of war. Anything you may need to
(20:38):
actually wage war. Even even things like concrete manufacturing concrete
and other things will be needed to build while in
some other country or you know, while engaged in a
battle in some other area, so all those support systems too.
And this usually happens again, like we talked about, when
(20:59):
there's open conflict, when it's a hot war, when uh,
when governments are fighting against each other, essentially, even if
it's through proxies, and the governments of the each individual
actor that's involved there, dude, they just they they open
up that bank vault, they get all their wallets out collectively.
Everybody's like, all right, well, let's see, I see what
(21:20):
we can do here. How can we contribute? Oh? I
know for sure that factory over there was making Volkswagens
for a while. We're gonna need to then make tanks there. Okay, great,
And they just start allocating new even like existing infrastructure
to war. Make it rain, make it rain, picture picture
(21:42):
picture governments, like picture of the US government during World
War two, kind of like Tom Cruise his character and
Tropic Thunder when he's doing the dance and he's like,
oh yeah, it's time, right, Like you can have as
much funding as you want. There is no limit in
terms of finance. There is a harsh limit in terms
(22:02):
of timeline. So like just a made up example and say,
all right, we want you to you have a clothing factory.
Now we want you to shift from making dresses and trousers.
You're only making uniforms. Now you're like, all right, that's fine,
we need X millions of dollars to to retrofit and
(22:22):
to get up to speed. And they're like, okay, well,
how about we give you twice that and you get
it done. Now, that's that's how it happens. And well,
there's the other thing here that simultaneously while that's occurring,
because really what you're doing is, if you're a government
and you're making all of these things, well, at least
in the case of the United States, you're shipping all
(22:43):
of that stuff somewhere else. You're loading it onto ships
and onto planes and things, so all of that money
is essentially going away from the country the interior of
the country. What's happening simultaneously is that there's a tightening
of the belt of a lot of other spending that's
occurring inside the country, and there's a rationing of food,
which which we saw here and many other countries where foods,
(23:06):
food supplies had to be rationed for a regular old citizens.
And again, since manufacturing is shifted, kind of the the
perceived prosperity of each individual citizen kind of goes down
a little bit because you're not getting new goods. You're
not getting you know, you maybe not have the funds
even to make those new goods, but they're definitely not
being manufactured, right. Yeah, And and there are pretty robust
(23:29):
studies that show on an individual level there there can
be a profound negative impact right because of the things
that you're naming as the government becomes more like a
purpose built machine, an engine with one task than things
that do not help the task of that engine quickly
(23:50):
fall to the wayside. They become backburner ideas. Will work
on education later, you know what I mean. Uh, we
need to make sure our country will still exist before
we throw money at school building projects. So you can
see the logic there, but you getting surreal situations. I
love that you mentioned the car industry. It's fascinating. Uh.
(24:10):
The car industry went through plot twists that would make
m Night Shamlan like lose his mind. He even couldn't
handle it because like just for a perspective of how profound,
like how serious war economies are, how much money has involved,
how much power and influence. One the year right before
the war began, the US automotive industry and that year
(24:33):
alone made more than three million cars, and then two
war happens during the course of the war. Like you said, Matt,
the US auto industry, Corporate America would call it a pivot.
Throughout the entirety of World War Two. The US auto industry,
(24:56):
the whole thing, the whole kit and caboodle, the whole shebang.
May get this a grand total of one hundred and
thirty nine cars. For years it went from three million
to one hundred and thirty nine total instead, yeah right,
it's that low. Um. So instead they were building tanks, airplanes, jeeps, torpedoes,
(25:20):
you name it, right for one customer, Uncle Sam, that's
all they were doing. And uh, people were paying more
in taxes as well. You if you made over uh
two hundred thousand dollars for a time, your income was
taxed like over. Yeah, but you know that's that's for
(25:43):
the people outside of the real system. I would argue,
what right, I mean, it's like we're in that different
of a situation now. I just feel like, you know,
I hear I go again on my soapbox about taxes,
but I feel like so much of my tax money
goes towards these types of programs and things that I
don't directly see, uh in my day to day, But
this was a time when it was obviously crucial, uh.
(26:04):
And I get it, I definitely do. I'm not saying
we don't need to contribute tax to defense, but tax dollars,
I think, over the years have become overwhelmingly more and
more allocated towards defense. UM. And if the country is
borrowing all that money, then the cash overwhelmingly as well
goes toward national security and growing the military. And again
(26:26):
something we're seeing today, things like education and infrastructure improvements
UM tend to fall by the wayside in favor of
building a bigger, better, more intimidating military. Right yeah, yeah, exactly,
And then it becomes enormously difficult for the public and
politicians to justify those non sexy needed expenses, like hey,
(26:50):
let's let's fix that bridge before it collapses. Let's make
sure to take care of the non war expenses that
we all know we can't sorry, it's we can do that.
I mean, yeah, right, we could blow up a bridge.
Check this out. The Interstate Highway System, which was created
(27:11):
to the Highway Act of n was definitely informed by
difficulties that the US faced in World War Two because
they didn't have a very efficient way other than rail
to get soldiers, you know, from the interior of America
to a coast where they would be shipped off to war.
(27:32):
So that's how they were able to justify it. The look,
the unethical life hack that we are implying here is
probably best to set aloud and bluntly. If you want
to get support for anything from a from a large
amount of the U. S. Public, just somehow make it
(27:53):
about national security or national defense. It can be like, um,
it can be having if you're if your rhetoric is
sharp enough, I bet you could pull off something like
there needs to be an ice cream store in every
town with a population of more than a thousand for
(28:14):
national security. Somehow pull that off. Then people would be like, yeah,
I'm patriotic, Yeah it's not. It's bigger than me liking
ice cream. You guys, that's what you would say, and
that's that's how the system works. You can think of. So,
I think we've outlined the drawbacks and the benefits of
(28:34):
a war economy. You can picture it like um in
a in a fighting game, like in Street Fighter or something.
You choose characters based on their attributes. Right, So a
war economy has a lot of offensive powers, right, and
it has. It has tremendous agility in some ways. But
(28:57):
then it also has some really clear weak spots, you know,
especially on the microcosmic level, for the life of the
average person living in that country. But you can think
of it as a necessary evil. I mean, no matter
how you feel about war, if you consider yourself a hawk,
if you consider yourself like a conscientious subjector the truth
(29:21):
is this, the US war economy saved Europe during World
War Two set a lot of other things in motion.
We're not saying that we're all good, but that is true.
The war economy and World War two worked for a time.
Oh yeah, well, I guess I guess it comes to
(29:43):
that other question. You know, if it did work so
well and it was profitable for many sectors, how do
you then stop doing that? How do you go back
to what it used to be to a peacetime economy, Like,
how did those car manufacturers then shift back to just
(30:03):
you know, making f one fifties again? It seems it
seems like it would be difficult. Well, yeah, I mean,
to quote Dave Chappelle, war is a hell of a drug,
you know. I mean, once you once you got that
taste for it, um, and you are dependent on it,
and you really it's really hard to wean yourself off
of it as a as a whole, like in terms
of rhetoric, because it gets people elected, right in terms
(30:26):
of the actual infrastructure and the actual you know, um economy,
the economic drivers that are giant corporations like Lockheed, etcetera, um,
that are such a huge part of the economy, and
of course they do create jobs, um and and these
are all tied into political rhetoric where people like, well,
we can't ease off of this because then everyone's gonna
lose their jobs, everyone's gonna be homeless and destitute and
(30:49):
starving in the streets. We need this. This is who
we are, you know. And it's just true. It has
become almost as part of like our identity is We've
got to go bigger and harder, faster, and stronger with
all this, like you know, war manufacturing. Yeah, what we're
talking about has gone to such an extreme degree. Again,
we're not making value judgments. This is simply the situation. Uh.
(31:11):
The effects of the war economy in the US and
abroad reached a threshold where now it might be better
to ask whether it is even possible to h to
wean ourselves off of this strategy or this policy. And
that's a huge subject of debate in the modern day,
(31:31):
you know. And Uh, to be fair, I think we
should look at the argument for war after you hear
these facts. It might be surprising to learn this, but
there is absolutely no shortage of scholars who argue that
war is, on a grand scale, a good thing overall
(31:51):
for humanity. It's great article, uh from Forbes, which actually
book review of a pretty interesting book that I don't
completely agree with by a guy named Ian Morris. The
title he nailed the title though, it's war. What is
it good for? Conflict in the progress of civilization from
primates to robots? WHOA Okay, yeah, let's see there's a
(32:14):
lots unpacked. Well, let's let's look get some excerpts here.
Hard as it maybe to believe in general, imperialism has
advanced humanity by making it safer and wealthier, and by
aspiring to a universalism beyond tribe and ethnicity. Okay, all right, okay,
we'll play these reindeer games. Uh really quickly. You know
(32:38):
what makes me think of I mean it's it's uh
sort of pop culture reference, I guess. But uh, there
is a very well known um in certain circles, I guess.
Quote from the Fallout video games as war. War never changes,
and in each game there's a different follow up, and
they all are serving the same thesis. The first one
is the Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth.
(32:58):
Spain built an empire for from its lust for golden territory.
Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But
war never changes. It's true, It's true. And when we
look at when when we look objectively at strategies like this,
even if they can be horrific, you know, the reason
(33:21):
that they keep being used is because they work. They
accomplish what the people who push for them want to accomplish. This, Uh,
this Forbes article really stood out to me. The writer
Robert D. Kaplan agrees with the author Ian Morris, and
he goes on to say the following this is this
(33:42):
quotes a little bit longer, So I'm hoping maybe we
can both troy and up on it, guys. He says,
imperialism has led ultimately to what Morris calls a global
cop a role that the US has played, however imperfectly
since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. America may get
into Middle Eastern quagmires, but it's navy and air force,
(34:03):
not to mention, the reputation of its land forces and
intelligence apparatus project power sufficiently throughout the world so as
to reduce the level of conflict and so far eliminate
major interstate war. And that reviewer there also goes on
to say, or at least he expresses that he believes
the national unity that occurs when you know there's a
(34:25):
time of of hot conflicts like that, it can lead
a country, such as it did for the United States,
towards a quote mass college education, which is really interesting,
and the explosion of suburban life and civil rights for minorities.
You can kind of think about this if you look
to the boomer generation, right, the greatest generation, the baby
(34:49):
boomers and all that good stuff. Um, that's really where
you can see what happens when there's a large expansion
for for military and military use like this, and then
it kind of comes back to an inward facing economy. Um,
you can kind of see the the positives there. Yeah,
but those positive I the idea there is that that unification,
(35:14):
maybe also through something like serving alongside people in the
military that you wouldn't normally meet, that engendered this these
ideas of equality, and it made pushes for a more
equitable society more plausible, more viable. But I it still
feels a little rose colored. Just honestly, it feels like
(35:37):
they might have a horse in the race influencing their opinions.
But there is no question that war, well, conflict in
general is enormously profitable for private entities, depending on which
side they're odd. Like we said, Uncle Sam's got his
wallet out. He's he's a little drunk on global conflict.
(35:59):
The sky's the limit, you know what I mean. He'll
he'll reassess how much you spent when he when he
sobers up after after the war. Uh, defense contractors already
make billions in a normal year and a conflict, especially
an ongoing one, is you can see why it would
(36:21):
be handled the way that pharmaceutical companies look at a
treatment regiment. It's not a pill to cure you, but
there is a pill that will treat the symptoms so
long as you take it every day. Wow. And you
can see why flags were raised when the war on
a concept, the War on terror was announced back in
(36:42):
the day, because it felt like perhaps this was just
something that would be unending and would is a lever
that essentially got pulled somewhere that caused the United States
to have a consistent need for new weapons, new manufacturing,
and knew a new semi war economy. Basically. Yeah, yeah,
that's I think that's especially a student, because a conflict,
(37:06):
especially an ongoing one, gives you things that businesses love.
Guaranteed income delivered on a predictable cycle. Right, there's you
know what will be happening and allows you to plan, uh,
plan in advance. And there's a lot of patriotism too,
because you can also say, well, look, we have to
do this research so that we remain the pre eminent military. Right.
(37:30):
I have a distinct memory. It's a pretty naive, childlike
thing that I thought when I guess I must have
been in like early high school or maybe even late
middle school. But when we quote unquote went to war
with Iraq, right, I remember this distinct feeling of, oh
that we're at war and we hadn't been right prior
(37:51):
to that, or there have been like desert storm and
all of that. But that was maybe like a little
before my time, or it was. It didn't feel quite
the same. But then all of a sudden, it's like
we are going going to war. Um, And in my mind,
it's like I think of war, and I think of
like war at home, like war, you know, on our
own soil, And that just doesn't happen anymore in the
United States. Not to say that it couldn't write, Uh,
(38:12):
it always could. That's the that's the naive part I think,
and and it works both ways. But it's we've been
in constant conflict ever since, ever since, and I just
I think there's no other reason than for the economic stuff.
You guys. It's not like we're benevolent, not like we're
trying to help people out. We have a dog in
(38:33):
the race every time we put our troops on the
line like that, And I think it's a lot of
times a little bit obscured um by rhetoric and all
of that. But I truly believe that it is because
of this addiction to all of the things that we're
talking about, and then the idea of like somehow being
a new imperialist kind of era. You know, Yeah, I
(38:55):
don't want it to rail is too much. But this
this brings up a question that's been on my and
for a very long time post World War two, or
even be generous and say post Vietnam. Does it ultimately
matter if the US wins these conflicts like to the
to the corporations, doesn't matter. No, I don't mean unless
(39:19):
losing means like I was saying, war at home, you know,
war that keeps US from producing. I don't think they
care at all. I don't think they care who the
weapons go to. We we know all the time we
sell weapons to folks that are not quote unquote good
you know, or have the moral high ground, um, like
what's going on in uh in Israel right now and
(39:40):
Gaza rather right now. It's like we I think there's
a big effort in Congress from the legislature to not
sell weapons that are going to be used for inhumane purposes,
but it happens all the time. Well that also, that
also is a regardless of political opinions. There that that
also that funding cycle is a subsidization of the U. S.
(40:06):
Defense industry. It's it's a weird it's a weird loophole system.
But you're you know, you're writing cynical as it is
to say. I to also wonder, uh whether or not
I wonder how these corporations define victory, right is victory?
Is victory a better life for the bystandards and the
(40:29):
innocence who live in these countries abroad? Or is victory
a great Q four? I was literally about to say
the same thing. I mean, so we know that that's
what it is. I don't think people in positions of
power within a company and an organization like that have
the luxury of being able to be humanitarians. We see
it all the time. You know. It's at the end
(40:50):
of the day, you can put up a good talk
about how, oh all we care about is protecting our
our citizens in this town and the other. But I
think we also know from history that at the end
the day, most people who are beholden to shareholders and
and all of that are just looking to please them
and to continue to make more money because companies like
this require year over year growth like forever, you know
(41:15):
what I mean, you can't ever stagnate or your shareholders
are gonna be like what wtf? You know, like everyone
that invests is expecting constant growth all the time. And
the only way you can do that for the global
economy and the U. S economy, you know, wide and
all of that. Um. Yeah, I want to I want
to make one comment. Sorry, I kind of I just
(41:35):
kind of held it for a minute, but I just
want to backtrack for two seconds. We're discussing this concept
of all of a sudden, we were at war in
two thousand three, I think it was two thousand three
when we invaded I Rock Um under false pretenses. By
the way, well you just got to remember the United
States has been involved with so many conflicts that would
(41:56):
perhaps not be considered war, would be more like a
national emergency like when Bill Clinton declared one while you know,
just before that when you were a little bit younger,
for an intervention yea or or yeah, or for an
intervention like in the coast of a war or in
a lot of these other conflicts where the U. S.
Military ends up taking part in some smaller, large way. Um,
(42:20):
it's just you're correct about being at Capital W War,
but it's just weird to think that it's it. We
have been the global police, Globo cops. Oh god, that's good,
but that was the other guy. Okay, well it's excellent. Um,
but no, it's just true. You're you're you're both absolutely right,
(42:42):
and I was. I was only pointing out that memory
because of its naivety, and also because we really have
always kind of been at war, but they're sort of
above board war and there's like belowboard war, and it's
like we always have to have something to service this addiction.
And once we went to a Capital W war, it
was kind of like payday, you know, it was kind
(43:04):
of like all bets are off, So why would we
ever want to change? Why would we ever want to
not be in this situation. I'm giving the perspective of
the CEO of you know, Globo bomb, right right, Yeah,
I mean, it's it's true, and there are millions of
people who have laid down their lives in pursuit of
of doing what we believe and what we were taught
(43:27):
is the right things to do. You know, like the
access powers of World War two, we're an existential threat.
There would have been a war regardless of what the
US did. The question is how are the waters muddied
now in the modern day. And you have to wonder,
(43:48):
you know, it's exercise empathy. You have to wonder whether
it feels awkward in those boardrooms you're sitting there, and
you can you can easily predict now after your last meeting,
just how much money you will make, but you are
unable to predict just how many people will die as
a result. People who are your fellow citizens, and people
(44:10):
who live oceans away that you will never meet. This
is not meant to paint with too broad or to
brutal a brush. There are a lot of defense contractors
who will, in good faith, sincerely argue, you know, hey, look,
I'm working toward a greater good. Sure, business is business,
but I'm not out here trying to kill people. I'm
out here trying to build better ways to protect lives
(44:34):
of citizens of people who are from my country who
are in the arms services. And this defense contractors in
other countries will argue this as well. This is not
just us rationale. But there's no way around it. Though,
I mean, like that can be true, you can believe it,
but there's no way around it. You are also making
a ton of money in the process. The defense budget
(44:55):
is the capital s spice, and just like in doom,
the spy ice has to flow the shadow of orwell
in eternal war looms for good reason. Let's take a
moment for a word from our sponsor, and then let's
look at the math. Like, just for a second, we're
gonna look at the math just for a sex trap in.
(45:17):
We're going mathematics, all right, and we're back. Here are
the maths. It was that you're not that was your idea.
So so the next part might not make all of
us so happy. Military spending right now, as we record
(45:41):
from October one to the end of September this year
is going to ring in at around nine hundred and
thirty four billion dollars that we know of, so that
doesn't count black bag stuff, which is inevitable. This means
that military spending is the second largest expense in the
(46:02):
entirety of the federal budget. The only thing that beats
it the Social security. With that much money involved, that
many people involved. It's really difficult to articulate the full
extent of the ripple effects here, especially when you consider
that the d O d that the Department of Defense
is the single largest employer inside the United States, and
(46:25):
it makes sense depending if you think about its size.
There over one point four million human beings on active duty,
and that's around seven hundred and eighteen thousand civilian personnel,
so that that's two separate groups. Just so we're understanding this,
there's another one point one million people who are in
(46:45):
the National Guard, which is another separate thing, National Garden
Reserve are being grouped together there. And that's not even
counting the other millions of people who are employed in
those other related industries that we've been describing here, your Raytheon's,
your Lockyeds, your other giant manufacturers. It's it's crazy to
think that there are so many people working for this
(47:07):
single industry. Really yeah, because it's kind of like a
a meta industry and uber industry. It's an industry of industries.
There's a very complicated Venn diagram there that I don't
I don't want us to have to draw it, but
if you want to, please do draw the ven diagram.
What you see is this meta industry and send it
(47:29):
to us uh conspiracy I Heart radio dot com. The
thing is, Matt, you're you're absolutely right, just for a small,
small snapshot aerospace and defense, that industry alone. That that
doesn't count as the military budget. That's a separate three
(47:50):
and ninety six billion dollars. It's an event diagram, you know,
because there they work hand in hand. But that figure
there are nice six billion. It's about one the GDP
of the US, which doesn't sound like a lot until
you realize we're talking about the g d P of
the U S, which is one of the biggest numbers.
So while people might want not want to say, hey,
(48:13):
let's keep up those foreign interventions, they definitely don't want
to stop building the weapons and the hardware that inherently
makes those interventions possible. If the budget and the need
this is a very ugly truth and a lot of
people don't like to hear it. If the budget and
the need for these things evaporated overnight, it would be
(48:34):
an unprecedented economic catastrophe. The Great Depression would have its
name changed. It would just be the first one you know,
or something like that, or it would be the old
depression now or in the new depression, because millions of
people are out of work. Everything is closing down with
(48:55):
like we can't even project the ripple effects. It's like,
if you talk about the oil industry ending overnight, does
that mean that there's a certain callousness at play here?
Like shouldn't we be able to predict or model this
type of stuff? Or like what this type of behavior
kind of creates the ripple effects? We should know and
(49:16):
we should know that we're too dependent on it. But
but I feel like there's a certain kind of like
wilful ignorance towards that by citizens, by lawmakers, and by
the CEOs of these companies, or maybe the CEOs are
the ones that know the most but just give the
least amount of maybe like I don't know, I'm sorry
if I'm breaching here. I just feel like there should
(49:38):
be a scenario where we should be able to model
this stuff out and and not be completely surprised when hey,
so look go it turns out we're all war junkies now.
But you see, the companies able to create such models
and world simulations are all in the defense industry, So
there's no incentive to create one that would prevent it. Well,
(50:03):
I mean, that's that's the thing, right, like why why
be the architect of your own demise? Which is a
pretentious way to put it, but it is something to
think about and it's very valid concerned. I mean this,
this is an argument that goes across the world, defense industries,
(50:23):
across the world, and I think it is very good point.
I see it as the no you first problem. Won't
explain what we mean in a second. But there's this
belief that the US, as a global superpower, has been
able to project force in a way that prevents larger conflicts,
(50:44):
so you're you're having smaller conflicts to prevent future disaster.
And the argument says that without the US as global
cop whereas the world's policeman, the human species would enter
a chaotic era of unrestrained power graphs. You know what
I mean, Your your Russia, you want Crimea, you want
the rest of Ukraine, He's gonna stop you. The US
(51:08):
is out of the game. So is that possible? Is
that real rationale that not having this power, not having
this friendliness towards or this openness towards global conflict, is
that on balance a good thing. Some argue yes, and
that last point often is one of the primary arguments
(51:30):
for maintaining at least some vestiges of a wartime economy. So,
in short, is the US addicted to war? Is the
US economically dependent on the conflict business? The answer is yes,
but which is kind of irritating. But it's true the
(51:51):
US yes, But yes, yes Dillard, But the uh, it
appears that this country is in a very real way
partially dependent on global conflicts continuing, or at least the
threat of that conflict occurring. But there's a matter of perspective.
(52:14):
It's cost benefit. Or is the US straight up dependent
on war because so so much of the economy profits
from it? You can call that the war monger argument.
Or is the US dependent on war because not creating
and not maintaining these capabilities leads to a greater problem,
more conflict, more disaster, more death. We could call that
(52:35):
the peacekeeper argument. Are we to quote rust Coal, the
bad man who keeps the other bad man from the door.
I haven't seen that in a long time. That's the
sound of him carving up his lone star cans takes
takes him the whole season for you to know what
he's carving such a good really is a great show.
(52:56):
The rest of him couldn't come close. Second season sucked,
Third season was good. First season was singularly great in
my opinion. But no, it's is that what this is about?
Are we who? What bad men? Are we even keeping
from the door, you know, the other ones? That's the
thing I mean, is it is it an illusion? Is
it an it? Four ask kind of manipulation of all
(53:17):
of our like our attention to say, oh, we're we're
under threat. It seems to me like the threat that
we're under stuff that that this large scale warfare stuff
has a hard time even dealing with, you know, like
suicide bombers and like things that we have a hard
time predicting, and that you can't just nuke out of
existence because the moment you do that, then another crop
(53:38):
pops up. Or the way they're organized, like it's hard
to you know, kind of nip it in the butt
in that way. Right. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean,
the the logical problem with war as a policy is
one of is really one of prejudice or maybe pre
existing perspective or framework. Is a good way to put it.
It's a little nerdy, But you guys who are saying,
(53:59):
if we to find something as a war more countries
than we are automatically dictating, certain policies were also triggering
some legal mechanisms. Those policies mean that our go toos
for resolving things are going to be coercive forces. Whether
that's sending a military force actual hot conflict, whether that's
(54:20):
helping a country militarize its police, whether it's the prison system.
The list goes on. And I heard once war called
the great simplifier, and it wasn't a compliment, to be clear.
It's a simplifier because it makes your choices and your
strategies uh a lot more clear cut, even if they
(54:43):
are not the best approach. If your immediate policy is
use the hammer, then it becomes incredibly easy to treat
every disagreement as a nail, ignoring the complex facts that
led us to that situation in the first place. It
becomes even more tricky when profits get involved. Someone is saying, well,
what are we supposed to do with all these habits
We're just gonna not use The next you're gonna say
(55:05):
we have to stop making hammers. God, we're a hamm
a factory. We're gonna need more nails, guys, We're gonna
need more nails. And it's also the kind of thing
where we've been part of different sized companies, and I
think what happens when you have a large enough sized
company is nuance gets lost in the shuffle constantly. Uh,
(55:26):
And you have to have a blunt instrument approach to
all of these things. And that's what happens with war
and and and instead where maybe like we might you know,
miss a podcast episode or lose a couple of doubt, whatever,
you know, And in the government scenario version of this,
people die because of that blunt instrument approach. And because
of that lack of nuance and that lack of empathy
(55:46):
and that lack of seeing you know, the collateral damage
of of the choices that lead to these economic booms,
right yeah, And and again it's like the old proverb,
you know, when elephants wage war, the grass it's the
grass that suffers, you guys. And that scenario where the grass,
I think, Matt, no, wait wait, wait, hold on the
(56:08):
hammer factory scenario, we're one scenario past, okay, got it, Okay,
So it just lends it lends itself to another whole
uh section of conspiracy theory that we aren't even touching
on this episode. But this concept of we've got all
these hammers and we're a hammer factory. We can't stop
(56:31):
making hammers right now, and we we've got this surplus
of inventory. We gotta find nails for these hammers to
be needed for. This is the concept that then the
interests in the factory, or the factory itself or whoever
owns the factory, then has an economic interest in creating
problems for those hammers to be used for so i e. Conflicts, militants, disasters. Uh.
(57:01):
That's a scary concept and it doesn't mean it's a
happening or it's real or anyone would ever do that,
but it does mean there would be an economic incentive
to do it. Yeah. Yeah, if that if that can
If that observation is confusing or makes anybody a little
bit uncomfortable, consider that. Consider the sheer amount of time
(57:21):
and energy that prison industry lobbyists spend on writing on
having inputs on incarceration laws right like mandatory sentencing, things
like that. There there are conflicting motivations, but they add
to this the unfortunate truth that again, war regardless of
(57:45):
the ideologies it's dressed up, it regardless of whether or
not the politicians believe what they are telling you. Wars
ultimately and will always be about the control of resources.
National security has never been as simple as let's make
sure the enemy forces, you know, don't bomb Pascagoula or
(58:05):
Pittsburgh or Keepsie or whatever. I'm just thinking of p towns. Um,
that came out weird, but you know what I mean, Like,
it's not just about protecting these physical assets. It can Providence. Yeah,
actually they actually actually call Providence p Town. Really that's
a weird flex. Okay, good to know, good to know us.
(58:29):
So it's also national security is also stuff like let's
ensure that our important businesses continue to function as normal.
That's why so much attention is put on the straight
of hoar moves in the past. Uh, they you know,
they're countless war games. It's always under surveillance because people
don't want that straight to get blocked, to worry about
(58:52):
it messing with oil prices. Sure, it's also why it
was such a you know, um, I mean, obviously there
are very real reasons that this was the case, but um,
political uh divisiveness over shutting down businesses during COVID, over
when businesses would return, because it's a political stance that
like no businesses everything it must maintain. And I know
that that literally connects back to people's livelihoods and people's
(59:15):
lives and um, you know it's all that. But I
do feel like it was made to be a political stance,
and I think that's because it sort of goes into
that sort of hawkishness, that mentality of businesses. Everything all
else is secondary. We must continue making our GDP grow.
I mean, that's why national defense maybe in uh Guatemala
(59:38):
the nineteen fifties was something more like, let's make sure
agricultural policies are in our favor, you know what I mean,
and if the current government isn't cool with that, let's
let's make a new government. Or that's why you know,
at one point, well at two points in history, the
United Kingdom said, let's make sure China knows they need
to buy our opium like they have to do it,
(01:00:02):
and we'll go to war for it if we have to,
We'll do it twice. The list, the list goes on.
National security is one of those words, that has a
lot of ambiguous meanings. There's a lot of wiggle room,
and it would be nice if more politicians and pundits
were honest about that problem. But I want to go
back to something, uh real quick before we close up.
(01:00:25):
Two things, really, the the idea of unwinnable wars and
the question of what what next? You know, how to
address this dependency or this addiction, whatever you wanna call it. First,
absolutely right, one of us said earlier, there was a
big shift when the US began fighting wars against ideas,
(01:00:48):
a war on drugs, a war on terrorism. Oddly enough,
I think for a second declared war on poverty, but
that that went to the wayside very quickly. These are
unwinnable wars. And when we say winnable, we're not saying
that they are automatically waged in bad faith. And we're
absolutely not alleging that independent that individual people involved in
(01:01:12):
these conflicts or people who join the armed forces are
somehow inherently bad, absolutely not. Instead, a problem with these
wars on ideas, the thing that makes them unwinnable is
that they have no definitive, discernible end point. You can
never you know, go on an aircraft carrier with a
(01:01:34):
giant banner and declare victory over something like Terry. I mean,
you could do it, but it would be a symbolic
gesture at best. You know, um, And it's like, what
what is I mean? I know this is sort of
different than we're talking about, but the war on drugs
is one that's always stuck in my cross, like what
does that look like? What does winning the war on
drug look like? Does that mean eradicating all drugs forever
(01:01:55):
and all time? Does that mean? I mean, do you
not acknowledge that by waging this war, people are gonna
find more creative ways of doing the thing that you
look at prohibition? I mean it literally created a whole
sector of crime because you're trying to force people to
do a thing. It does doesn't work. It doesn't And
I think to your point, then it points to the
idea that they knew that it wouldn't work. It is
(01:02:17):
not about working, it's not about winning. It's about creating
the need that you can then fill by selling stuff,
whether it's new ideas or whether it's products. It's a
nail factory, it's a nail factor. Oh well, and these
these unwinnable wars go on and on and on, and
the defense spending that so much of our economy relies
(01:02:40):
upon that spice, Oh it flows, and we have always
been at war with East Asia, etcetera, etcetera. But like
with just this brief, you know, we're going long here, Sorry, Paul,
But with just this brief exploration of the many, many,
many factors that intertwined the US economy will conflict on
(01:03:01):
one level or another, it is sadly, tragically clear that
there is no answer right now. There's no answer that
is simultaneously realistic, simple and achievable. Because this is this
is what it meant when I said no you first,
This is the problem. The world's great powers are in
(01:03:21):
a standoff corporate as well as state level. The first
ones to fold, the first ones to get you know,
clean from war, are going to suffer enormous consequences. Like
you're like like Matt, Let's say you're your defense contractor
a get a name? Is it like Mad Industries, Metallic Mattheon? Alright, No,
(01:03:45):
your defense, your your defense corporation? Be you got a
cool name? Oh how about Brown, Tron Brown and these
these Matthiod and Brown Tron are neck and neck right. Uh,
they're kind of like a Boeing air bus thing. Come
(01:04:06):
on out right there the two two giants that can
build stuff. Well, let's say Mattheon says, we're gonna stop
associating ourselves with military contracts. We want to do sort
of a swords the plowshares thing police robots from now on, right, Yeah,
(01:04:27):
something harmless domestic. Yes, so so uh Mattheon pivots. And
this makes Brown Tron's uh day because Mattheon stocks plummet.
Brown Tron snatches up all these contracts, all this newly
available funding, their stocks explode. It's amazing. Uh. And there
(01:04:49):
you know, the Wall Street is publishing articles like is
there anything Brown Tron can't do? And the answer appears
to be no. Actually they are nailing it. That's what
I would be at least saying in my beach to
my shareholders. I would mean it, you know, from the
heart when I said it. But the joke's on you
because in in fifteen years, law enforcement robots are going
(01:05:13):
to be all the rage, and nobody's gonna need weapons
of ore anymore because of the nano, the nanites and
all that. So yeah, whatever, Uh, we're gonna be fine
over here. Whatever my company was called, Wait Wait, Wait
to play the long game. I love it. This happens
with countries too. I mean a country. We talked about
(01:05:36):
this with nuclear disarmament. A country that dismantles its military
capabilities may well see itself become a vassal state of
another nation that wasn't so quick to give up the
bloody game. And it's it's a problem. It's the nuclear
problem writ large. It's the movie moment. It's the standoff.
(01:05:56):
Someone always says, put down your gun, and someone else
always says you first. That is where this species is at.
And oftentimes when the other person actually does put down
their gun, the other party just picks it up and
shoots them in the face with it. And you know,
it's it's a it's a lesson from fiction, but it
has its basis in the real world. And that should
(01:06:20):
that should disturb people, quite honestly. And that's where we
leave it today. Folks. What do you think is war
and economic necessity for the US? What about other countries?
And if we are indeed in a war economy or
like a hybrid war economy, should we try as a
nation to move towards a different system. What what would
(01:06:44):
that be? You know what I mean? I I don't,
I don't know. Uh, there's there was one example. I
was looking at examples of unorthodox kind of economic prioritization
and systems, and probably one of the most interesting is
but TN, which rates itself not on g d P
(01:07:04):
but on g d H gross domestic happiness something like that. Uh,
and they still have that sounds nice, right, yeah it does,
and they still have their problems with you know, persecution
of ethnic minorities and so on. But how what what
is the answer? Conspiracies and conspiracy theories abound here. We've
(01:07:25):
I think clearly proven that to yes, to some degree, Uh,
conflict does function as an economic necessity for different sectors
of the US. What's the alternative? How do you get there?
Do we want to get there in the first place?
I mean, the inner flower child in me says, yes, please,
(01:07:46):
let's let's get past war. But it doesn't doesn't seem possible.
But we'd love to hear your ideas for sure, So
go ahead and uh pick up the gun and reach
out to us on Twitter, Facebook, where we're conspiracy stuff
or conspiracy stuff show over there on Instagram. We also
have a phone number. That's right. You can pick up
(01:08:06):
the horn, which is, in my opinion, uh, superior to
the gun uh. And you can give us a call
at one eight three three S T d W y
t K. Leave your message at the sound of Ben's
dulcet tones. Three minutes is the time. That is your
time to do with what you will. If you need
more than three minutes, we have some other means of
communication that might be a little better suited to your needs.
That's right. You can send us a good old fashioned
(01:08:29):
email where we are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com.
(01:08:52):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul.
Mission Control deconds. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to
know a better way to begin war? Uh good? Is
(00:46):
it good for? Uh? Some stuff? Yeah? Absolutely, well, a
lot of things depending on who you ask. History hinges
on the outcome of global and regional con flicks. The
world in which you exist today, no matter where you live,
is the way it is because of some conflict in
(01:09):
the past, whether ancient or whether recent or indeed ongoing.
We know war drives innovation, along with misery, degradation, and death,
and wars themselves as long time listeners will know, our
rife with conspiracies and conspiracy theories. War generates and it
cost billions upon billions of dollars every year. We actually
(01:31):
do not know how much because there's a lot of
dirty money involved. Shout out to the Department of Defenses
disappearing palettes of cash in the billions. We remember that story, uh,
fading from the news, but we we have snapshots, like,
for example, when you look at World War two, Congress
estimates that war alone costs the US four point one
(01:55):
trillion dollars, which I promise you is a number of
us listening to the show today can truly comprehend, right, Like,
we don't even know what a billion dollars is. Really,
it's pretty hard to wrap your head around it. Uh.
And like you said, that's for the US alone, right, Yeah,
that's not a country that had its entire infrastructure or
of large swans of it wiped out by bombs. Yeah,
(02:18):
one of the few that did not. So the motivation
for war can come in any number of guys. And
we've said this on the show before, and I know
it can be a controversial opinion for some, but historically,
at the core, no matter what the rationale is, war
has always been resource driven. In very simple terms, that
(02:41):
other tribe has stuff we want, or we have stuff
they want, and we're worried they're just gonna stop talking
to us one day and take it. Humans historically are
terrible at sharing. That's also true. Uh So today's question,
I think, Matt Noll, it's it's been on our collect
of minds for a long long time. Is war more
(03:03):
than just a breakdown of communication and diplomacy and alternative strategies?
Has war in the US especially become an economic necessity?
Is the US addicted to war? Here are the facts. Also,
we're going to say war a lot in today's show,
(03:25):
So don't worry if you encounter what's called uh semantic
safety world war war, war, war, war war, it only
takes and then it just sounds like a like a
synthesizer noise um. And so generally for this show, we're
talking about actual warfare, not necessarily cold war things. But
although the build up for a cold war situation can
(03:48):
be very economically viable for a country, right well, and
it involves many of the same things to the lead
up right then a regular warwood it's all about preparation
and gathering, infrastructure and all that stuff. Yes, so I
guess it is kind of both of those things bend whatdy.
But in in many cases throughout this episode, I'm assuming
we're going to be discussing a hot war where there
(04:10):
there are missiles flying and weapons being fired when we're
using this stuff we've been building for so long. That's
an excellent point because you still have a lot of
militarization in a cold war. You're just you're preparing in advance.
You're getting that what they call it in cooking your
misses in place where you cut up all the ingredients
(04:30):
in advance so you can cook right when it's time
to cook. Also, it's the best way to go about it.
It is, it is, It's totally worth it. But uh,
we're talking about cooking at this point, not cold wars.
Just to be clear. Also, it's gonna bug me if
I don't point it out. I said semantic sayity, but
I think it's semantic satiation, right, yeah, Okay, who what what? What? What? What? Well?
(04:54):
In many ways, the best way to explain what we
mean when we say addicted to war or an econom
make necessity is to explore it through an analogy. A nation,
any nation, is kind of like a household, their bills
to pay their mouths. Defeat is work to do. And
it might be surprising to some of us to realize
(05:14):
that the annual activities of nations often obey a cycle.
Similar to the cycle maybe in your own home, you
know you have planned expenses, you unfortunately will have unexpected expenses,
and then hopefully you have planned income or profit, like
you know when your paycheck is coming or if you're
well to do you know when you're I don't know,
(05:36):
dividends come in, or when you get fully vested in
your tiger farm or your dirigible dirigible dealership. All right,
well it's not perfect analogy, but you see what you're saying.
You know, the money indirigibles is really in the service section,
you know, so totally. You can only sell so many dirigibles,
but you can repair dirigibles like all year long, and
(05:59):
aparently you can patch them using sausage skin or sausage casings.
That's a weird history nugget for you. That's awesome and
prescient because I think we all know that's gonna come
into play in a bigger way in today's episode. We're
we're referencing our episode of ridiculous history that we did.
There's a weird undercurrent to being very pro dirigible in
(06:23):
our world. It's true. I think it's just because it's
like a it's it feels like such a transportation of
the future that actually makes absolutely no sense because they're
very limited. They can only fly and like medium to
low altitudes and not hold that many people, and they're
kind of hard to board, and they spring leaks all
the time, and you know, some of them explode in
(06:44):
a cloud of fire and destruction, you know, when you
fill in with the wrong stuff. Anyway, the point is
here that even nations have to have gigs, they have
to be sustainable, they have to make money. The rules
for nations are are very very different from the rules
for individuals. That's where we get into things like deficits
(07:05):
and trade deficits and the idea of national debt. But
at the basis, nations, countries, as well as the corporations
and individuals existing within them, make money in any number
of ways. We're talking manufacturing and exports, taxation, agriculture, technology,
and stuff like that. Most nations try to have a
(07:29):
diversified collection of profit streams, and that's because nobody on
the geopolitical level trust anybody else, and absolutely should not.
If you find yourself painted into a corner and your
economy is too dependent on a single type of thing
or a single genre, then you are extremely vulnerable to
(07:50):
economic warfare. That's true. So let's take the earlier case
of operations Satanic. We talked about this recently with the
amazingly named Rainbow Warrior trawler Green Piece outfitted and France
bombed the ever loving out of I'm saying that those
are your words, Ben, I cannot claim credit. That is
(08:10):
absolutely accurate, but I had to say because it's a
lot of fun. It's a technical term, right, we figured
that out. Ben invented the phrase bomb. No, it's some
guy at a taco bell invented that. Uh. Shortly after
he went a chloopa, too far? Oh no, well, okay, wow. Well,
(08:32):
in the case of the Rainbow Warrior, we discussed this
not long ago. Listen to the episode if you haven't yet.
But France, a team of secret operatives from France went
on over to New Zealand where the Green Pieces ship
was was stationed the Rainbow Warrior, and they dove down
into the water, planted explosives on the side and it
(08:55):
exploded in ever loving stuff and uh twice, they hit
it twice and unfortunately a photographer passed away when they
did that. But it was weird because at first it
was thought, you know, it could be enemies from anywhere
that came and hit this thing, but it turns out
it was France, and New Zealand learned pretty quickly. Yeah.
(09:17):
New Zealand knew almost immediately that France was the hidden
hand behind this acted terrorism and they confronted them. It's
a very tense situation, but France had leverage over New
Zealand in a very dangerous way because New Zealand was
extremely dependent on exports to Europe. The United Kingdom in particular,
(09:37):
and Europe in this regard was moving as a posse right,
they were a supergroup, and France then was able to
strong arm New Zealand by saying, look, if you don't
play ball the way we want you to and give
us back some of our operatives, we're going to cut
off your trade relations with Europe. This would have wrecked
(09:59):
their economy, and there's no arguing about it. That is
the threat of economic warfare. If New Zealand had a
more diverse economy at the time, the conversation would have
gone differently. Yeah, they could have. They could have, um
I think pursued different courses of action. So that's what
we mean when we talk about being dependent on something.
(10:21):
And just the other thing to take into account here
is that Green Peace was not a New Zealand based organization.
They just happened to be there while they were on
their way to France controlled waters in the Pacific, so
they it wasn't as you know, it wasn't as though
it was two countries coming head to head in an
act of aggression directly against the country, but it did occur,
(10:43):
you know, in their country. So it's just a weird
situation all around. But it's a really good point then
that having that leverage is really what changed the scenario there. Yeah,
and for another example, just that story is wild. Please
do as as you were saying, match account the episode.
If you haven't heard it yet, it is a it
is a bizarre ride. And maybe another way to think
(11:07):
of it if you're wondering why that seemed to be
a big deal to New Zealand, um, imagine imagine what
the current US administration would do if it was proven
that Iran bombed bombed a Green Piece ship that was
docked you know, in Baltimore or something. Right, right, So
(11:34):
here's our other question, you know, economic necessity. It's kind
of a dry term. It's kind of boring, right, you don't.
You don't hear people use that phrase too often in
casual conversation. But let's think of it in less blood
soaked terms in a way that's kind of fun. Actually,
we are of the age, all all of us on
(11:57):
on the show today, and maybe you're listening along with us.
We're old enough to remember the reign of department stores,
the old big box stores. A lot of them are
still around, but there used to be many, many more riches.
Oh yeah, yeah, and some of them had just the
weirdest names, like Dillard's. How would you spend that much
money on a business and call it Dillards? Feel like
(12:19):
Dillard It must have been somebody's name, because that seems
like the kind of thing you'd call somebody like as
a slight, you know, like you Dillard play something Beavis
and butd Head would say, I mean, come on, Phyllis, uh, Phyllis. Yeah,
But that's old school, that's just Dillard. It sounds like Dullard,
(12:40):
you know. It just sounds like a term of abuse.
It does. But they did pretty well for for quite
a while now. They've been supplanted to a great degree
by online businesses uh, such as, uh, you know Jeff.
We all know Jeff, Jeff from Amazon. He might be
in your house right now as we're recording, So tell
(13:01):
them we said hello. But here's where we're going with
this example. Since the rise of shopping malls and department stores,
especially post World War Two, there's been one period of
time that all of those retail businesses prayed for and
feared and relied upon, and that is the period between
(13:21):
Thanksgiving and Christmas here in the US that that was,
historically and probably still is today the most profitable and
stressful time of the calendar year for businesses for a
couple of reasons. I mean profitable, that's easy to guess.
Tons of people are spending billions of dollars, sometimes money
they don't have. Sometimes it's all on credit cards to
(13:43):
buy gifts, to go on trips, etcetera, etcetera. But it's
also really stressful because for a lot of businesses, this
was their one shot at getting back into the black
if the rest of the year hadn't gone so well.
And businesses in the US assure you, retail businesses continually
think about this period at some point every single day
(14:06):
of the year, and they should because their future may
depend on it. They are economically dependent on that period
of time. That's a great example, Ben, And it's not
It's not just department stores and you know, online sellers
and everything like that. It's everything. If you think just
about the advertising industry, the thing that supports most most
(14:29):
podcasts out there, unless they use Patreon or some other
donation system, ads pay for things, and in the ad business,
it's that same exact period they call it Q four.
That's where you that's where you make or break your
calendar year. Oh man. And just a peep behind the curtain,
that's where if you're if you're someone like us, that's
(14:50):
that's where you'll get a lot of weird stuff. At
the very end of the year. People say like, hey, um,
do any of you have personally perience with Dr Pepper
zero sugar or cave cave diving? Dang, that's good. Looks good, Matt.
I guess see the droplets glistening on the outside of
(15:11):
the bottle. Uh. I kind of wish you could see
that on the podcast land. But either way, she'd go,
get yourself refreshing Dr Pepper. Um. But you know, it's
like It's like it's not only make it a break
of time, it's use it or lose it time for
a you know, for brands, because they literally have this
money remaining they have to use or like rolls over
into the next fiscal year or whatever. So a lot
of mad money feeding frenzy spending going on in Q four. Yeah,
(15:35):
that reminds me, Matt, I forgot to send you the email.
Would you be willing to cave dive into um a
cavern system that was filled with Dr Pepper zero as
like an extended mid roll. Yeah, yeah, we'll get you. Well,
we'll probably be able to get you out of there. Okay, great, So,
(15:56):
uh no, I gotta show you out that that is enormous.
The President, you were killing it today because uh you're
you're right. The ad industry does have that cycle. People
might be surprised to learn. I think we mentioned on
air in the past. The defense industry has that cycle too.
It's the well we're cursing on today's show. So it's
(16:17):
the weirdest day in the Defense department. Because they have
a cut off for times that funds can be allocated,
they have to spend all that money, so their budget
doesn't get cut the next year, you know, whatever their
little uh, whatever their fiefdom may be. And so you'll
see these increasingly desperate calls going by time zones. And
(16:40):
the very last one, of course is like the furthest West.
That's those are the final approvals, and everybody is trying
to spend money because if they don't, like you said'll
they'll use it or they'll lose it. And this economic
example in retail holds true to a degree for others
swaths of the economy. This is, if you are uh
(17:05):
high mucky muck at a department store, or if you're
a high mighty might get a big online business, then
you know very well that profit projections around this period
of time are baked into your yearly estimates of profit
and loss. Your supply chain is oriented toward working at
its peak during this time. And then there's an army,
(17:28):
an army size amount of temporary workers that are hired
just to be warm bodies on the job. Is also
applies this shippy and production, etcetera, etcetera. But over the years,
over the decades, especially after the horrors of World War Two,
that are still very much with us today, scholars began
to ask, have the US, the former USSR, and other
(17:51):
nations haught themselves in a trap like that Elvis song,
suspicious eye, suspicious line, us, suspicious minds, minds. We can go, yeah,
like that one. All right, thank you you guys safe
on that one. But have have we become not a
country that is capable of waging war, but a country
(18:14):
that relies upon the act of war as a means
of financial stability? And is it just us? And does
it just us? We'll pause for a word from our
sponsor uh AS as our pal Robert Evans likes to
say goods and services, you know, maybe Raytheon or Illumination
Global and limited O pop by, and then we'll be
(18:36):
back to dive in to some disturbing things. Here's where
it gets crazy, Matt Noel, let's just cut the podcast short.
What's the answer. Is the US addicted to war? Hi?
It's complicated. I mean they're addicted to war in the
(19:01):
same way that Robert Palmer is addicted to love. Right,
it might also be an economic necessity for him. We're
we're on a just referenced roller coaster here, guys. I'm
loving it. Um. It's been a weird day for us. Uh. Yeah,
you're right, it dives into the realm of conspiracy and Matt,
(19:24):
you're absolutely I agree with you. Absolutely. The answer does
feel complicated, but maybe not complicated in some of the
ways we might assume. During World War Two, which was
the last hot global conflict, ouch as we record this,
has anybody checked the news? Guys global, it's posible. Quick,
somebody google, So Vietnam's out, viet is out? Yeah, war
(19:48):
and terror and does that count? It never ended. It's
like lobster Fest. It's not global. I guess. Yeah, I
guess the whole isist thing too. Yeah, I guess that's
the last global conflict and now we are in and
endless wars like promotions at Red Lobster I don't know.
I'm so obsessed with lobster Fest. But anyway, Yeah, during
World War Two, multiple nations became what we call war economies.
(20:15):
This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is
very much a move. Yeah. This is when an economy
prioritizes creating weapons of war, things that are necessary for war,
everything from uniforms to food supplies to the ammunition to
the actual machines of war. Anything you may need to
(20:38):
actually wage war. Even even things like concrete manufacturing concrete
and other things will be needed to build while in
some other country or you know, while engaged in a
battle in some other area, so all those support systems too.
And this usually happens again, like we talked about, when
(20:59):
there's open conflict, when it's a hot war, when uh,
when governments are fighting against each other, essentially, even if
it's through proxies, and the governments of the each individual
actor that's involved there, dude, they just they they open
up that bank vault, they get all their wallets out collectively.
Everybody's like, all right, well, let's see, I see what
(21:20):
we can do here. How can we contribute? Oh? I
know for sure that factory over there was making Volkswagens
for a while. We're gonna need to then make tanks there. Okay, great,
And they just start allocating new even like existing infrastructure
to war. Make it rain, make it rain, picture picture
(21:42):
picture governments, like picture of the US government during World
War two, kind of like Tom Cruise his character and
Tropic Thunder when he's doing the dance and he's like,
oh yeah, it's time, right, Like you can have as
much funding as you want. There is no limit in
terms of finance. There is a harsh limit in terms
(22:02):
of timeline. So like just a made up example and say,
all right, we want you to you have a clothing factory.
Now we want you to shift from making dresses and trousers.
You're only making uniforms. Now you're like, all right, that's fine,
we need X millions of dollars to to retrofit and
(22:22):
to get up to speed. And they're like, okay, well,
how about we give you twice that and you get
it done. Now, that's that's how it happens. And well,
there's the other thing here that simultaneously while that's occurring,
because really what you're doing is, if you're a government
and you're making all of these things, well, at least
in the case of the United States, you're shipping all
(22:43):
of that stuff somewhere else. You're loading it onto ships
and onto planes and things, so all of that money
is essentially going away from the country the interior of
the country. What's happening simultaneously is that there's a tightening
of the belt of a lot of other spending that's
occurring inside the country, and there's a rationing of food,
which which we saw here and many other countries where foods,
(23:06):
food supplies had to be rationed for a regular old citizens.
And again, since manufacturing is shifted, kind of the the
perceived prosperity of each individual citizen kind of goes down
a little bit because you're not getting new goods. You're
not getting you know, you maybe not have the funds
even to make those new goods, but they're definitely not
being manufactured, right. Yeah, And and there are pretty robust
(23:29):
studies that show on an individual level there there can
be a profound negative impact right because of the things
that you're naming as the government becomes more like a
purpose built machine, an engine with one task than things
that do not help the task of that engine quickly
(23:50):
fall to the wayside. They become backburner ideas. Will work
on education later, you know what I mean. Uh, we
need to make sure our country will still exist before
we throw money at school building projects. So you can
see the logic there, but you getting surreal situations. I
love that you mentioned the car industry. It's fascinating. Uh.
(24:10):
The car industry went through plot twists that would make
m Night Shamlan like lose his mind. He even couldn't
handle it because like just for a perspective of how profound,
like how serious war economies are, how much money has involved,
how much power and influence. One the year right before
the war began, the US automotive industry and that year
(24:33):
alone made more than three million cars, and then two
war happens during the course of the war. Like you said, Matt,
the US auto industry, Corporate America would call it a pivot.
Throughout the entirety of World War Two. The US auto industry,
(24:56):
the whole thing, the whole kit and caboodle, the whole shebang.
May get this a grand total of one hundred and
thirty nine cars. For years it went from three million
to one hundred and thirty nine total instead, yeah right,
it's that low. Um. So instead they were building tanks, airplanes, jeeps, torpedoes,
(25:20):
you name it, right for one customer, Uncle Sam, that's
all they were doing. And uh, people were paying more
in taxes as well. You if you made over uh
two hundred thousand dollars for a time, your income was
taxed like over. Yeah, but you know that's that's for
(25:43):
the people outside of the real system. I would argue,
what right, I mean, it's like we're in that different
of a situation now. I just feel like, you know,
I hear I go again on my soapbox about taxes,
but I feel like so much of my tax money
goes towards these types of programs and things that I
don't directly see, uh in my day to day, But
this was a time when it was obviously crucial, uh.
(26:04):
And I get it, I definitely do. I'm not saying
we don't need to contribute tax to defense, but tax dollars,
I think, over the years have become overwhelmingly more and
more allocated towards defense. UM. And if the country is
borrowing all that money, then the cash overwhelmingly as well
goes toward national security and growing the military. And again
(26:26):
something we're seeing today, things like education and infrastructure improvements
UM tend to fall by the wayside in favor of
building a bigger, better, more intimidating military. Right yeah, yeah, exactly,
And then it becomes enormously difficult for the public and
politicians to justify those non sexy needed expenses, like hey,
(26:50):
let's let's fix that bridge before it collapses. Let's make
sure to take care of the non war expenses that
we all know we can't sorry, it's we can do that.
I mean, yeah, right, we could blow up a bridge.
Check this out. The Interstate Highway System, which was created
(27:11):
to the Highway Act of n was definitely informed by
difficulties that the US faced in World War Two because
they didn't have a very efficient way other than rail
to get soldiers, you know, from the interior of America
to a coast where they would be shipped off to war.
(27:32):
So that's how they were able to justify it. The look,
the unethical life hack that we are implying here is
probably best to set aloud and bluntly. If you want
to get support for anything from a from a large
amount of the U. S. Public, just somehow make it
(27:53):
about national security or national defense. It can be like, um,
it can be having if you're if your rhetoric is
sharp enough, I bet you could pull off something like
there needs to be an ice cream store in every
town with a population of more than a thousand for
(28:14):
national security. Somehow pull that off. Then people would be like, yeah,
I'm patriotic, Yeah it's not. It's bigger than me liking
ice cream. You guys, that's what you would say, and
that's that's how the system works. You can think of. So,
I think we've outlined the drawbacks and the benefits of
(28:34):
a war economy. You can picture it like um in
a in a fighting game, like in Street Fighter or something.
You choose characters based on their attributes. Right, So a
war economy has a lot of offensive powers, right, and
it has. It has tremendous agility in some ways. But
(28:57):
then it also has some really clear weak spots, you know,
especially on the microcosmic level, for the life of the
average person living in that country. But you can think
of it as a necessary evil. I mean, no matter
how you feel about war, if you consider yourself a hawk,
if you consider yourself like a conscientious subjector the truth
(29:21):
is this, the US war economy saved Europe during World
War Two set a lot of other things in motion.
We're not saying that we're all good, but that is true.
The war economy and World War two worked for a time.
Oh yeah, well, I guess I guess it comes to
(29:43):
that other question. You know, if it did work so
well and it was profitable for many sectors, how do
you then stop doing that? How do you go back
to what it used to be to a peacetime economy, Like,
how did those car manufacturers then shift back to just
(30:03):
you know, making f one fifties again? It seems it
seems like it would be difficult. Well, yeah, I mean,
to quote Dave Chappelle, war is a hell of a drug,
you know. I mean, once you once you got that
taste for it, um, and you are dependent on it,
and you really it's really hard to wean yourself off
of it as a as a whole, like in terms
of rhetoric, because it gets people elected, right in terms
(30:26):
of the actual infrastructure and the actual you know, um economy,
the economic drivers that are giant corporations like Lockheed, etcetera, um,
that are such a huge part of the economy, and
of course they do create jobs, um and and these
are all tied into political rhetoric where people like, well,
we can't ease off of this because then everyone's gonna
lose their jobs, everyone's gonna be homeless and destitute and
(30:49):
starving in the streets. We need this. This is who
we are, you know. And it's just true. It has
become almost as part of like our identity is We've
got to go bigger and harder, faster, and stronger with
all this, like you know, war manufacturing. Yeah, what we're
talking about has gone to such an extreme degree. Again,
we're not making value judgments. This is simply the situation. Uh.
(31:11):
The effects of the war economy in the US and
abroad reached a threshold where now it might be better
to ask whether it is even possible to h to
wean ourselves off of this strategy or this policy. And
that's a huge subject of debate in the modern day,
(31:31):
you know. And Uh, to be fair, I think we
should look at the argument for war after you hear
these facts. It might be surprising to learn this, but
there is absolutely no shortage of scholars who argue that
war is, on a grand scale, a good thing overall
(31:51):
for humanity. It's great article, uh from Forbes, which actually
book review of a pretty interesting book that I don't
completely agree with by a guy named Ian Morris. The
title he nailed the title though, it's war. What is
it good for? Conflict in the progress of civilization from
primates to robots? WHOA Okay, yeah, let's see there's a
(32:14):
lots unpacked. Well, let's let's look get some excerpts here.
Hard as it maybe to believe in general, imperialism has
advanced humanity by making it safer and wealthier, and by
aspiring to a universalism beyond tribe and ethnicity. Okay, all right, okay,
we'll play these reindeer games. Uh really quickly. You know
(32:38):
what makes me think of I mean it's it's uh
sort of pop culture reference, I guess. But uh, there
is a very well known um in certain circles, I guess.
Quote from the Fallout video games as war. War never changes,
and in each game there's a different follow up, and
they all are serving the same thesis. The first one
is the Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth.
(32:58):
Spain built an empire for from its lust for golden territory.
Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower. But
war never changes. It's true, It's true. And when we
look at when when we look objectively at strategies like this,
even if they can be horrific, you know, the reason
(33:21):
that they keep being used is because they work. They
accomplish what the people who push for them want to accomplish. This, Uh,
this Forbes article really stood out to me. The writer
Robert D. Kaplan agrees with the author Ian Morris, and
he goes on to say the following this is this
(33:42):
quotes a little bit longer, So I'm hoping maybe we
can both troy and up on it, guys. He says,
imperialism has led ultimately to what Morris calls a global
cop a role that the US has played, however imperfectly
since the collapse of the Soviet Empire. America may get
into Middle Eastern quagmires, but it's navy and air force,
(34:03):
not to mention, the reputation of its land forces and
intelligence apparatus project power sufficiently throughout the world so as
to reduce the level of conflict and so far eliminate
major interstate war. And that reviewer there also goes on
to say, or at least he expresses that he believes
the national unity that occurs when you know there's a
(34:25):
time of of hot conflicts like that, it can lead
a country, such as it did for the United States,
towards a quote mass college education, which is really interesting,
and the explosion of suburban life and civil rights for minorities.
You can kind of think about this if you look
to the boomer generation, right, the greatest generation, the baby
(34:49):
boomers and all that good stuff. Um, that's really where
you can see what happens when there's a large expansion
for for military and military use like this, and then
it kind of comes back to an inward facing economy. Um,
you can kind of see the the positives there. Yeah,
but those positive I the idea there is that that unification,
(35:14):
maybe also through something like serving alongside people in the
military that you wouldn't normally meet, that engendered this these
ideas of equality, and it made pushes for a more
equitable society more plausible, more viable. But I it still
feels a little rose colored. Just honestly, it feels like
(35:37):
they might have a horse in the race influencing their opinions.
But there is no question that war, well, conflict in
general is enormously profitable for private entities, depending on which
side they're odd. Like we said, Uncle Sam's got his
wallet out. He's he's a little drunk on global conflict.
(35:59):
The sky's the limit, you know what I mean. He'll
he'll reassess how much you spent when he when he
sobers up after after the war. Uh, defense contractors already
make billions in a normal year and a conflict, especially
an ongoing one, is you can see why it would
(36:21):
be handled the way that pharmaceutical companies look at a
treatment regiment. It's not a pill to cure you, but
there is a pill that will treat the symptoms so
long as you take it every day. Wow. And you
can see why flags were raised when the war on
a concept, the War on terror was announced back in
(36:42):
the day, because it felt like perhaps this was just
something that would be unending and would is a lever
that essentially got pulled somewhere that caused the United States
to have a consistent need for new weapons, new manufacturing,
and knew a new semi war economy. Basically. Yeah, yeah,
that's I think that's especially a student, because a conflict,
(37:06):
especially an ongoing one, gives you things that businesses love.
Guaranteed income delivered on a predictable cycle. Right, there's you
know what will be happening and allows you to plan, uh,
plan in advance. And there's a lot of patriotism too,
because you can also say, well, look, we have to
do this research so that we remain the pre eminent military. Right.
(37:30):
I have a distinct memory. It's a pretty naive, childlike
thing that I thought when I guess I must have
been in like early high school or maybe even late
middle school. But when we quote unquote went to war
with Iraq, right, I remember this distinct feeling of, oh
that we're at war and we hadn't been right prior
(37:51):
to that, or there have been like desert storm and
all of that. But that was maybe like a little
before my time, or it was. It didn't feel quite
the same. But then all of a sudden, it's like
we are going going to war. Um, And in my mind,
it's like I think of war, and I think of
like war at home, like war, you know, on our
own soil, And that just doesn't happen anymore in the
United States. Not to say that it couldn't write, Uh,
(38:12):
it always could. That's the that's the naive part I think,
and and it works both ways. But it's we've been
in constant conflict ever since, ever since, and I just
I think there's no other reason than for the economic stuff.
You guys. It's not like we're benevolent, not like we're
trying to help people out. We have a dog in
(38:33):
the race every time we put our troops on the
line like that, And I think it's a lot of
times a little bit obscured um by rhetoric and all
of that. But I truly believe that it is because
of this addiction to all of the things that we're
talking about, and then the idea of like somehow being
a new imperialist kind of era. You know, Yeah, I
(38:55):
don't want it to rail is too much. But this
this brings up a question that's been on my and
for a very long time post World War two, or
even be generous and say post Vietnam. Does it ultimately
matter if the US wins these conflicts like to the
to the corporations, doesn't matter. No, I don't mean unless
(39:19):
losing means like I was saying, war at home, you know,
war that keeps US from producing. I don't think they
care at all. I don't think they care who the
weapons go to. We we know all the time we
sell weapons to folks that are not quote unquote good
you know, or have the moral high ground, um, like
what's going on in uh in Israel right now and
(39:40):
Gaza rather right now. It's like we I think there's
a big effort in Congress from the legislature to not
sell weapons that are going to be used for inhumane purposes,
but it happens all the time. Well that also, that
also is a regardless of political opinions. There that that
also that funding cycle is a subsidization of the U. S.
(40:06):
Defense industry. It's it's a weird it's a weird loophole system.
But you're you know, you're writing cynical as it is
to say. I to also wonder, uh whether or not
I wonder how these corporations define victory, right is victory?
Is victory a better life for the bystandards and the
(40:29):
innocence who live in these countries abroad? Or is victory
a great Q four? I was literally about to say
the same thing. I mean, so we know that that's
what it is. I don't think people in positions of
power within a company and an organization like that have
the luxury of being able to be humanitarians. We see
it all the time. You know. It's at the end
(40:50):
of the day, you can put up a good talk
about how, oh all we care about is protecting our
our citizens in this town and the other. But I
think we also know from history that at the end
the day, most people who are beholden to shareholders and
and all of that are just looking to please them
and to continue to make more money because companies like
this require year over year growth like forever, you know
(41:15):
what I mean, you can't ever stagnate or your shareholders
are gonna be like what wtf? You know, like everyone
that invests is expecting constant growth all the time. And
the only way you can do that for the global
economy and the U. S economy, you know, wide and
all of that. Um. Yeah, I want to I want
to make one comment. Sorry, I kind of I just
(41:35):
kind of held it for a minute, but I just
want to backtrack for two seconds. We're discussing this concept
of all of a sudden, we were at war in
two thousand three, I think it was two thousand three
when we invaded I Rock Um under false pretenses. By
the way, well you just got to remember the United
States has been involved with so many conflicts that would
(41:56):
perhaps not be considered war, would be more like a
national emergency like when Bill Clinton declared one while you know,
just before that when you were a little bit younger,
for an intervention yea or or yeah, or for an
intervention like in the coast of a war or in
a lot of these other conflicts where the U. S.
Military ends up taking part in some smaller, large way. Um,
(42:20):
it's just you're correct about being at Capital W War,
but it's just weird to think that it's it. We
have been the global police, Globo cops. Oh god, that's good,
but that was the other guy. Okay, well it's excellent. Um,
but no, it's just true. You're you're you're both absolutely right,
(42:42):
and I was. I was only pointing out that memory
because of its naivety, and also because we really have
always kind of been at war, but they're sort of
above board war and there's like belowboard war, and it's
like we always have to have something to service this addiction.
And once we went to a Capital W war, it
was kind of like payday, you know, it was kind
(43:04):
of like all bets are off, So why would we
ever want to change? Why would we ever want to
not be in this situation. I'm giving the perspective of
the CEO of you know, Globo bomb, right right, Yeah,
I mean, it's it's true, and there are millions of
people who have laid down their lives in pursuit of
of doing what we believe and what we were taught
(43:27):
is the right things to do. You know, like the
access powers of World War two, we're an existential threat.
There would have been a war regardless of what the
US did. The question is how are the waters muddied
now in the modern day. And you have to wonder,
(43:48):
you know, it's exercise empathy. You have to wonder whether
it feels awkward in those boardrooms you're sitting there, and
you can you can easily predict now after your last meeting,
just how much money you will make, but you are
unable to predict just how many people will die as
a result. People who are your fellow citizens, and people
(44:10):
who live oceans away that you will never meet. This
is not meant to paint with too broad or to
brutal a brush. There are a lot of defense contractors
who will, in good faith, sincerely argue, you know, hey, look,
I'm working toward a greater good. Sure, business is business,
but I'm not out here trying to kill people. I'm
out here trying to build better ways to protect lives
(44:34):
of citizens of people who are from my country who
are in the arms services. And this defense contractors in
other countries will argue this as well. This is not
just us rationale. But there's no way around it. Though,
I mean, like that can be true, you can believe it,
but there's no way around it. You are also making
a ton of money in the process. The defense budget
(44:55):
is the capital s spice, and just like in doom,
the spy ice has to flow the shadow of orwell
in eternal war looms for good reason. Let's take a
moment for a word from our sponsor, and then let's
look at the math. Like, just for a second, we're
gonna look at the math just for a sex trap in.
(45:17):
We're going mathematics, all right, and we're back. Here are
the maths. It was that you're not that was your idea.
So so the next part might not make all of
us so happy. Military spending right now, as we record
(45:41):
from October one to the end of September this year
is going to ring in at around nine hundred and
thirty four billion dollars that we know of, so that
doesn't count black bag stuff, which is inevitable. This means
that military spending is the second largest expense in the
(46:02):
entirety of the federal budget. The only thing that beats
it the Social security. With that much money involved, that
many people involved. It's really difficult to articulate the full
extent of the ripple effects here, especially when you consider
that the d O d that the Department of Defense
is the single largest employer inside the United States, and
(46:25):
it makes sense depending if you think about its size.
There over one point four million human beings on active duty,
and that's around seven hundred and eighteen thousand civilian personnel,
so that that's two separate groups. Just so we're understanding this,
there's another one point one million people who are in
(46:45):
the National Guard, which is another separate thing, National Garden
Reserve are being grouped together there. And that's not even
counting the other millions of people who are employed in
those other related industries that we've been describing here, your Raytheon's,
your Lockyeds, your other giant manufacturers. It's it's crazy to
think that there are so many people working for this
(47:07):
single industry. Really yeah, because it's kind of like a
a meta industry and uber industry. It's an industry of industries.
There's a very complicated Venn diagram there that I don't
I don't want us to have to draw it, but
if you want to, please do draw the ven diagram.
What you see is this meta industry and send it
(47:29):
to us uh conspiracy I Heart radio dot com. The
thing is, Matt, you're you're absolutely right, just for a small,
small snapshot aerospace and defense, that industry alone. That that
doesn't count as the military budget. That's a separate three
(47:50):
and ninety six billion dollars. It's an event diagram, you know,
because there they work hand in hand. But that figure
there are nice six billion. It's about one the GDP
of the US, which doesn't sound like a lot until
you realize we're talking about the g d P of
the U S, which is one of the biggest numbers.
So while people might want not want to say, hey,
(48:13):
let's keep up those foreign interventions, they definitely don't want
to stop building the weapons and the hardware that inherently
makes those interventions possible. If the budget and the need
this is a very ugly truth and a lot of
people don't like to hear it. If the budget and
the need for these things evaporated overnight, it would be
(48:34):
an unprecedented economic catastrophe. The Great Depression would have its
name changed. It would just be the first one you know,
or something like that, or it would be the old
depression now or in the new depression, because millions of
people are out of work. Everything is closing down with
(48:55):
like we can't even project the ripple effects. It's like,
if you talk about the oil industry ending overnight, does
that mean that there's a certain callousness at play here?
Like shouldn't we be able to predict or model this
type of stuff? Or like what this type of behavior
kind of creates the ripple effects? We should know and
(49:16):
we should know that we're too dependent on it. But
but I feel like there's a certain kind of like
wilful ignorance towards that by citizens, by lawmakers, and by
the CEOs of these companies, or maybe the CEOs are
the ones that know the most but just give the
least amount of maybe like I don't know, I'm sorry
if I'm breaching here. I just feel like there should
(49:38):
be a scenario where we should be able to model
this stuff out and and not be completely surprised when hey,
so look go it turns out we're all war junkies now.
But you see, the companies able to create such models
and world simulations are all in the defense industry, So
there's no incentive to create one that would prevent it. Well,
(50:03):
I mean, that's that's the thing, right, like why why
be the architect of your own demise? Which is a
pretentious way to put it, but it is something to
think about and it's very valid concerned. I mean this,
this is an argument that goes across the world, defense industries,
(50:23):
across the world, and I think it is very good point.
I see it as the no you first problem. Won't
explain what we mean in a second. But there's this
belief that the US, as a global superpower, has been
able to project force in a way that prevents larger conflicts,
(50:44):
so you're you're having smaller conflicts to prevent future disaster.
And the argument says that without the US as global
cop whereas the world's policeman, the human species would enter
a chaotic era of unrestrained power graphs. You know what
I mean, Your your Russia, you want Crimea, you want
the rest of Ukraine, He's gonna stop you. The US
(51:08):
is out of the game. So is that possible? Is
that real rationale that not having this power, not having
this friendliness towards or this openness towards global conflict, is
that on balance a good thing. Some argue yes, and
that last point often is one of the primary arguments
(51:30):
for maintaining at least some vestiges of a wartime economy. So,
in short, is the US addicted to war? Is the
US economically dependent on the conflict business? The answer is yes,
but which is kind of irritating. But it's true the
(51:51):
US yes, But yes, yes Dillard, But the uh, it
appears that this country is in a very real way
partially dependent on global conflicts continuing, or at least the
threat of that conflict occurring. But there's a matter of perspective.
(52:14):
It's cost benefit. Or is the US straight up dependent
on war because so so much of the economy profits
from it? You can call that the war monger argument.
Or is the US dependent on war because not creating
and not maintaining these capabilities leads to a greater problem,
more conflict, more disaster, more death. We could call that
(52:35):
the peacekeeper argument. Are we to quote rust Coal, the
bad man who keeps the other bad man from the door.
I haven't seen that in a long time. That's the
sound of him carving up his lone star cans takes
takes him the whole season for you to know what
he's carving such a good really is a great show.
(52:56):
The rest of him couldn't come close. Second season sucked,
Third season was good. First season was singularly great in
my opinion. But no, it's is that what this is about?
Are we who? What bad men? Are we even keeping
from the door, you know, the other ones? That's the
thing I mean, is it is it an illusion? Is
it an it? Four ask kind of manipulation of all
(53:17):
of our like our attention to say, oh, we're we're
under threat. It seems to me like the threat that
we're under stuff that that this large scale warfare stuff
has a hard time even dealing with, you know, like
suicide bombers and like things that we have a hard
time predicting, and that you can't just nuke out of
existence because the moment you do that, then another crop
(53:38):
pops up. Or the way they're organized, like it's hard
to you know, kind of nip it in the butt
in that way. Right. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean,
the the logical problem with war as a policy is
one of is really one of prejudice or maybe pre
existing perspective or framework. Is a good way to put it.
It's a little nerdy, But you guys who are saying,
(53:59):
if we to find something as a war more countries
than we are automatically dictating, certain policies were also triggering
some legal mechanisms. Those policies mean that our go toos
for resolving things are going to be coercive forces. Whether
that's sending a military force actual hot conflict, whether that's
(54:20):
helping a country militarize its police, whether it's the prison system.
The list goes on. And I heard once war called
the great simplifier, and it wasn't a compliment, to be clear.
It's a simplifier because it makes your choices and your
strategies uh a lot more clear cut, even if they
(54:43):
are not the best approach. If your immediate policy is
use the hammer, then it becomes incredibly easy to treat
every disagreement as a nail, ignoring the complex facts that
led us to that situation in the first place. It
becomes even more tricky when profits get involved. Someone is saying, well,
what are we supposed to do with all these habits
We're just gonna not use The next you're gonna say
(55:05):
we have to stop making hammers. God, we're a hamm
a factory. We're gonna need more nails, guys, We're gonna
need more nails. And it's also the kind of thing
where we've been part of different sized companies, and I
think what happens when you have a large enough sized
company is nuance gets lost in the shuffle constantly. Uh,
(55:26):
And you have to have a blunt instrument approach to
all of these things. And that's what happens with war
and and and instead where maybe like we might you know,
miss a podcast episode or lose a couple of doubt, whatever,
you know, And in the government scenario version of this,
people die because of that blunt instrument approach. And because
of that lack of nuance and that lack of empathy
(55:46):
and that lack of seeing you know, the collateral damage
of of the choices that lead to these economic booms,
right yeah, And and again it's like the old proverb,
you know, when elephants wage war, the grass it's the
grass that suffers, you guys. And that scenario where the grass,
I think, Matt, no, wait wait, wait, hold on the
(56:08):
hammer factory scenario, we're one scenario past, okay, got it, Okay,
So it just lends it lends itself to another whole
uh section of conspiracy theory that we aren't even touching
on this episode. But this concept of we've got all
these hammers and we're a hammer factory. We can't stop
(56:31):
making hammers right now, and we we've got this surplus
of inventory. We gotta find nails for these hammers to
be needed for. This is the concept that then the
interests in the factory, or the factory itself or whoever
owns the factory, then has an economic interest in creating
problems for those hammers to be used for so i e. Conflicts, militants, disasters. Uh.
(57:01):
That's a scary concept and it doesn't mean it's a
happening or it's real or anyone would ever do that,
but it does mean there would be an economic incentive
to do it. Yeah. Yeah, if that if that can
If that observation is confusing or makes anybody a little
bit uncomfortable, consider that. Consider the sheer amount of time
(57:21):
and energy that prison industry lobbyists spend on writing on
having inputs on incarceration laws right like mandatory sentencing, things
like that. There there are conflicting motivations, but they add
to this the unfortunate truth that again, war regardless of
(57:45):
the ideologies it's dressed up, it regardless of whether or
not the politicians believe what they are telling you. Wars
ultimately and will always be about the control of resources.
National security has never been as simple as let's make
sure the enemy forces, you know, don't bomb Pascagoula or
(58:05):
Pittsburgh or Keepsie or whatever. I'm just thinking of p towns. Um,
that came out weird, but you know what I mean, Like,
it's not just about protecting these physical assets. It can Providence. Yeah,
actually they actually actually call Providence p Town. Really that's
a weird flex. Okay, good to know, good to know us.
(58:29):
So it's also national security is also stuff like let's
ensure that our important businesses continue to function as normal.
That's why so much attention is put on the straight
of hoar moves in the past. Uh, they you know,
they're countless war games. It's always under surveillance because people
don't want that straight to get blocked, to worry about
(58:52):
it messing with oil prices. Sure, it's also why it
was such a you know, um, I mean, obviously there
are very real reasons that this was the case, but um,
political uh divisiveness over shutting down businesses during COVID, over
when businesses would return, because it's a political stance that
like no businesses everything it must maintain. And I know
that that literally connects back to people's livelihoods and people's
(59:15):
lives and um, you know it's all that. But I
do feel like it was made to be a political stance,
and I think that's because it sort of goes into
that sort of hawkishness, that mentality of businesses. Everything all
else is secondary. We must continue making our GDP grow.
I mean, that's why national defense maybe in uh Guatemala
(59:38):
the nineteen fifties was something more like, let's make sure
agricultural policies are in our favor, you know what I mean,
and if the current government isn't cool with that, let's
let's make a new government. Or that's why you know,
at one point, well at two points in history, the
United Kingdom said, let's make sure China knows they need
to buy our opium like they have to do it,
(01:00:02):
and we'll go to war for it if we have to,
We'll do it twice. The list, the list goes on.
National security is one of those words, that has a
lot of ambiguous meanings. There's a lot of wiggle room,
and it would be nice if more politicians and pundits
were honest about that problem. But I want to go
back to something, uh real quick before we close up.
(01:00:25):
Two things, really, the the idea of unwinnable wars and
the question of what what next? You know, how to
address this dependency or this addiction, whatever you wanna call it. First,
absolutely right, one of us said earlier, there was a
big shift when the US began fighting wars against ideas,
(01:00:48):
a war on drugs, a war on terrorism. Oddly enough,
I think for a second declared war on poverty, but
that that went to the wayside very quickly. These are
unwinnable wars. And when we say winnable, we're not saying
that they are automatically waged in bad faith. And we're
absolutely not alleging that independent that individual people involved in
(01:01:12):
these conflicts or people who join the armed forces are
somehow inherently bad, absolutely not. Instead, a problem with these
wars on ideas, the thing that makes them unwinnable is
that they have no definitive, discernible end point. You can
never you know, go on an aircraft carrier with a
(01:01:34):
giant banner and declare victory over something like Terry. I mean,
you could do it, but it would be a symbolic
gesture at best. You know, um, And it's like, what
what is I mean? I know this is sort of
different than we're talking about, but the war on drugs
is one that's always stuck in my cross, like what
does that look like? What does winning the war on
drug look like? Does that mean eradicating all drugs forever
(01:01:55):
and all time? Does that mean? I mean, do you
not acknowledge that by waging this war, people are gonna
find more creative ways of doing the thing that you
look at prohibition? I mean it literally created a whole
sector of crime because you're trying to force people to
do a thing. It does doesn't work. It doesn't And
I think to your point, then it points to the
idea that they knew that it wouldn't work. It is
(01:02:17):
not about working, it's not about winning. It's about creating
the need that you can then fill by selling stuff,
whether it's new ideas or whether it's products. It's a
nail factory, it's a nail factor. Oh well, and these
these unwinnable wars go on and on and on, and
the defense spending that so much of our economy relies
(01:02:40):
upon that spice, Oh it flows, and we have always
been at war with East Asia, etcetera, etcetera. But like
with just this brief, you know, we're going long here, Sorry, Paul,
But with just this brief exploration of the many, many,
many factors that intertwined the US economy will conflict on
(01:03:01):
one level or another, it is sadly, tragically clear that
there is no answer right now. There's no answer that
is simultaneously realistic, simple and achievable. Because this is this
is what it meant when I said no you first,
This is the problem. The world's great powers are in
(01:03:21):
a standoff corporate as well as state level. The first
ones to fold, the first ones to get you know,
clean from war, are going to suffer enormous consequences. Like
you're like like Matt, Let's say you're your defense contractor
a get a name? Is it like Mad Industries, Metallic Mattheon? Alright, No,
(01:03:45):
your defense, your your defense corporation? Be you got a
cool name? Oh how about Brown, Tron Brown and these
these Matthiod and Brown Tron are neck and neck right. Uh,
they're kind of like a Boeing air bus thing. Come
(01:04:06):
on out right there the two two giants that can
build stuff. Well, let's say Mattheon says, we're gonna stop
associating ourselves with military contracts. We want to do sort
of a swords the plowshares thing police robots from now on, right, Yeah,
(01:04:27):
something harmless domestic. Yes, so so uh Mattheon pivots. And
this makes Brown Tron's uh day because Mattheon stocks plummet.
Brown Tron snatches up all these contracts, all this newly
available funding, their stocks explode. It's amazing. Uh. And there
(01:04:49):
you know, the Wall Street is publishing articles like is
there anything Brown Tron can't do? And the answer appears
to be no. Actually they are nailing it. That's what
I would be at least saying in my beach to
my shareholders. I would mean it, you know, from the
heart when I said it. But the joke's on you
because in in fifteen years, law enforcement robots are going
(01:05:13):
to be all the rage, and nobody's gonna need weapons
of ore anymore because of the nano, the nanites and
all that. So yeah, whatever, Uh, we're gonna be fine
over here. Whatever my company was called, Wait Wait, Wait
to play the long game. I love it. This happens
with countries too. I mean a country. We talked about
(01:05:36):
this with nuclear disarmament. A country that dismantles its military
capabilities may well see itself become a vassal state of
another nation that wasn't so quick to give up the
bloody game. And it's it's a problem. It's the nuclear
problem writ large. It's the movie moment. It's the standoff.
(01:05:56):
Someone always says, put down your gun, and someone else
always says you first. That is where this species is at.
And oftentimes when the other person actually does put down
their gun, the other party just picks it up and
shoots them in the face with it. And you know,
it's it's a it's a lesson from fiction, but it
has its basis in the real world. And that should
(01:06:20):
that should disturb people, quite honestly. And that's where we
leave it today. Folks. What do you think is war
and economic necessity for the US? What about other countries?
And if we are indeed in a war economy or
like a hybrid war economy, should we try as a
nation to move towards a different system. What what would
(01:06:44):
that be? You know what I mean? I I don't,
I don't know. Uh, there's there was one example. I
was looking at examples of unorthodox kind of economic prioritization
and systems, and probably one of the most interesting is
but TN, which rates itself not on g d P
(01:07:04):
but on g d H gross domestic happiness something like that. Uh,
and they still have that sounds nice, right, yeah it does,
and they still have their problems with you know, persecution
of ethnic minorities and so on. But how what what
is the answer? Conspiracies and conspiracy theories abound here. We've
(01:07:25):
I think clearly proven that to yes, to some degree, Uh,
conflict does function as an economic necessity for different sectors
of the US. What's the alternative? How do you get there?
Do we want to get there in the first place?
I mean, the inner flower child in me says, yes, please,
(01:07:46):
let's let's get past war. But it doesn't doesn't seem possible.
But we'd love to hear your ideas for sure, So
go ahead and uh pick up the gun and reach
out to us on Twitter, Facebook, where we're conspiracy stuff
or conspiracy stuff show over there on Instagram. We also
have a phone number. That's right. You can pick up
(01:08:06):
the horn, which is, in my opinion, uh, superior to
the gun uh. And you can give us a call
at one eight three three S T d W y
t K. Leave your message at the sound of Ben's
dulcet tones. Three minutes is the time. That is your
time to do with what you will. If you need
more than three minutes, we have some other means of
communication that might be a little better suited to your needs.
That's right. You can send us a good old fashioned
(01:08:29):
email where we are conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com.
(01:08:52):
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