April 12, 2021 • 56 mins
Investigations reveal a recently deceased, wealthy businessman had a double life as a drug dealer with an interest in submarines. What exactly is the national debt? Over in the Arctic, Russia alarms international observers with its growing military presence — and a terrifying, mysterious new nuclear torpedo.
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Episode Transcript
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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 I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Matt, my name is They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super
producer Alexi's code name, Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. It's the top of
the week, which means it is time for some strange news. Uh.
(00:45):
You know, every time we're preparing for this, we sift
through dozens or in some cases, hundreds of weird stories
that you may not have heard, uh, and they take
us to some strange places. We're going to talk talk about, uh,
possible flashpoint for World War three. We're going to talk
about the crushing issue of debt. We're also going to
(01:10):
get down with cocaine and submarines. Uh. These are all
three true things. I'm wondering where we would like to
start today. Do you guys, do you guys feel like
a crime story? I love a good crime story. You know,
my mom calls those she calls him crimm ease because
we lived in Germany for a while. She said, like,
(01:31):
I gotta, I gotta watch my crimm e's. Well we will,
we will not disappoint with this creamy crimmy in the mornings.
Here we go. So, uh, let's begin by introducing you
to a character named Marty Timbots. Marty Tibbots, he is
there was the CEO of a thing called Clementine Live
(01:54):
Answering Service. Now, what in the heck is that you
might ask? And answering service? I haven't used one of
those in years? What is that? Well, it is it's
a company that specializes in assisting other companies in taking
in phone calls, making sure those phone calls go to
the right people, responding to some with a staff of
(02:17):
of people, or just you know, kind of just organizing
those messages and like I said, sending them to the
right place. It seems to be a fairly functional business
and makes quite a bit of money. Because Mr Marty Tibbots,
who was the CEO of Clementine Live Answering Service, lived
in a home that was worth six point four million dollars.
(02:43):
Uh okay, right, who knows what Mr Tibbots did in
the rest of his life to get enough money to
afford a home like that. But my goodness, that is lovely.
And can you imagine just the costs of the staff
that you would need to run a home that's worth
six point four million dollars? Good God. Well, the reason
why we're talking about him today, it's because he is
(03:05):
also known as Dale Johnson. He's got an A KA
to his name. Now, why would a CEO of a
tech company have an A K A like that? I
love a ceo with an K A. Matt cool to
have him. I think everybody should have some a k A.
S as alys ces. Yeah, I mean why stick with
(03:25):
why stick with one name? Science says you're only here
one time, which you can he always know that today
was a good day because you didn't even have to
use your A k A. Well, I guess that's true. Yeah.
Having an alternate persona is very common to us now.
Many of us have them for online purposes, right, for
existing on the internet, for existing on social media. Uh,
(03:46):
that's cool, that's a thing. But to have to have
a what is described by The Daily Beast as a
generic code name, it's a little different, right, It's a
little different. So why would he have this. Well, according
to prosecutors who are dealing with several issues in the
(04:07):
world of drug trafficking, say that this person, Marty Tibbots,
was also a drug trafficker. He was providing money and
funding operations for a global drug trafficking ring. That's that's
according to prosecutors. Um And Oh another thing you know
(04:30):
about Marty Tibbots, He was a very big aviation buff.
He started a museum called the World Heritage Aviation Museum
in Detroit, Michigan, and it has now been shuttered. But
he started this thing that had all kinds of vintage
fighter jets, vintage planes, other vintage flying machines that were there.
(04:51):
He was very fascinated by it. And he was also
a pilot. He was able to fly several of these things.
And on occasion he would fly vintage jets like actual
old jets. And on one occasion in he was flying
a fighter jet and older fighter jet and this plane,
(05:13):
for for one reason or another, went down it knows,
dived into a barn somewhere in Wisconsin and he was killed.
The cows. Leave the cows out of it. There was
definitely collateral. Sorry, sorry, guys um. So that that's you know, tragic.
(05:38):
A man dies doing what he loves, flying one of
these fighter jets um. And not a lot was known
about Mr Tibbots and his actions are his alleged actions
until until the public was made aware of another person
he really did, Donnie, who was identified as physically running
(06:00):
operations of this drug trafficking ring. So someone who was
a little more hands on than perhaps Marty was, because
you see, it appears that Marty was very much, very
much a a money cleaner, somebody who would transfer money
safely for this group of people, somebody who was able
(06:22):
to provide funds when necessary. This is a very strange story,
especially because everyone who knew Marty Tibbots, at least according
to people who have been interviewed, according to official statements
that have been put out publicly, had no idea that
Marty had anything to do with this organization or with
(06:42):
this kind of organized crime people the next mansion over,
or like. He was such a nice tycoon, you know
what I mean, he did. He had all the cool
tycoon hobbies he was. He was a neat guy kind
of guy you could sort of set your watch to,
you know what I mean, and you know, and he
wasn't too ostentatious. His yacht was just right, just the
(07:05):
right size, which is is interesting because you know, that's
how you get away with this stuff for a while.
You don't you you are not flashy and as weird
as it sounds to say, this guy recreationally flies planes.
This guy owns an opulent, an opulent mansion that's still
not particularly flashy in his income bracket. Very true. He's
(07:31):
a CEO. He makes some good bucks, gets those big bonuses,
and he's doing what he's doing what he can to
keep I'm sure keep that money making money, right, that's
what that's what the wealthy do. By the way, this
is this is in Michigan. I'm trying to pull up
my Google earth link, but it's so mad that we're
doing a zoom call right now. You guys, I was
(07:53):
gonna tell you about the area. It's called Gross Point, Michigan.
It's a lovely area. There is not a house on
the shoreline here in the area where where Mr Tibbotts
lived that doesn't look like it's upwards of five million dollars,
if not twelve. Uh, it's ridiculous. Check it out. Gross
Point Park, Michigan. There's gross Point Michigan. Gross Point Park, Michigan.
(08:16):
I believe he was in the park area. Yeah, this is,
like to think of it, kind of like a wealthy
suburb of Detroit. It borders Detroit. It's kind of its
own thing. But a lot of the movers and shakers
in Detroit particularly will live in gross Point Party. It's
(08:37):
the buckhead of the area. I don't know where it
could be. The John's Creek is how where the movie
gross point blank takes place where Uh Timothy what's his name?
Not Timothy Dalton. He was in Beautiful Girls anyway. He
was kind of an America sweetheart actor and he plays
like in a No, it's John Cusack gross point blank.
He's like an assassin and he's going back to his
(08:59):
high school reunion and gross Point, Michigan. I believe. Wow,
that's cool. I did not know that. Uh, I'm it's
gonna make me want to rewatch that just to look
at the area. So let's let's talk about a couple
of the things that are alleged here that Marty was doing,
because one of them is really weird. You heard been
mentioned submarines at the top of this episode. Well, let's
(09:20):
we'll get you there, but first let's talk about, uh,
the the investigation that details really activities that start in
so In Marty has said to have issued a check
for eight hundred and sixty four thousand dollars. This went allegedly,
according to them, directly to the cartel, which UM authorities
(09:44):
think was it ended up getting cash at some kind
of cash exchange business like a pawn shop gold you know,
we buy gold kind of exchange. UM. Then he apparently
was in Washington, d C. And personally gave a three
hundred fifty dollars two di Donni. This other person you'll
(10:06):
need to Donny, he just like flew in, gave him
three k and then got out. And according to them,
he provided the cartel over one point eight million in
in cash and I guess assets of some sort, but
probably dealing with easily movable money like cash. UM. The
other thing that Timbots was doing for Didnni or as
(10:28):
almost an R and D project that they had going on.
They were devising a submarine or they wanted to come
up with a submarine, small remote controlled submersible that would
be able to be filled with cash and or cocaine,
probably both, and then make its way underneath the water
(10:49):
and have magnets on it where it could attach itself
to another ship, probably a shipping vessel, and then travel
with that shipping vessel under ten acted across the world
and land in another country in a customs area, probably
right before they get into a customs area, detached itself,
(11:10):
and then a fishing vessel or some other you know,
private vessel could come out and pick the thing up. Uh.
They were. They were developing this with a third party company.
Allegedly they paid twelve thousand dollars to just get it
up and running. But then unfortunately Marty Tibbots died in
that plane crash and they scrapped that concept. And also
(11:33):
allegedly with Marty gone, you'll need to Donnie had serious
issues keeping his h the organization together, you know, making
these transactions occur, getting funding that was needed to make
the transactions occur, and everything started falling apart, and that's
when authorities were able to come in and start working
on to Donni and eventually they arrested him this year.
(11:55):
And just to be clear, there's nothing fishy about the
plane crash at this time at least yes, at this time,
there's nothing fishy about it. It doesn't help that it
was an older aircraft that you know isn't isn't flown
by a lot of people these days, and you know
you are talking about a very experienced pilot, so you'd think,
(12:19):
I don't know. It's one of those regions where I'm
never not going to think something fishy happens when crashy curs,
but is literally more fishy we can agree just by
virtue of it. Okay, Yeah, for sure, man, When you
say older plane, are we talking about like some sort
of like classic plane like that isn't even around anymore,
(12:39):
because if his collection or just maybe you know, something
from like the eighties or nineties, an older model of
Unfortunately I do not have all of the information picturing
and being like a biplane or something, but that's just
let my imagination run wild with that one. If you
know it's not a biplane, is a fighter jet? Got it? WHOA? Okay?
Can you can online allegedly, at least if you believe
(13:02):
tech Gate in some of the other places here, you
can see footage of the the jet itself going or
making its way down into the barn itself. Is that
legal though? Do you have to have a special license
to fly something like that? I'm sure and I'm sure
he also had it. He ran the whole museum he
I mean, you can see pictures of him in the
(13:23):
cockpit of a fighter jet wearing all the correct gear. Um,
it's he seems to be a fascinating dude. I did
want to bring up something interesting that came to my
mind as I was researching Marty Tibbots. Have you guys
seen that show Ozark? Yes, okay, Uh, The main character
(13:44):
on there, played by the director and creator. His name
is Marty Bird. Now he plays a financial uh what
a fi that has been working for a cartel for
a long time and then ends up moving to the
(14:04):
you know, the Ozarks in this case, but in the
middle of nowhere, by the shore, specifically to be by
the shore with all that shoreline. Um, his name's Marty.
It's based on you know, nothing, It's just a character
that they created out of whole cloth. And then all
of a sudden we hear or we learn about this
guy named Marty who was doing kind of the same thing. Um,
(14:27):
I just wanna, you know, I want to know the
story that some retired official or some FBI agent told
to Jason Bateman is some late night at a bar
or something, so like big Fish, White Whale that got away.
Also the submarine, the submarine technology is legitimately impressive. A
(14:49):
lot of drug Cartel's submarines are definitely clandestine d I
Y affairs, nonetheless impressive, but they're built to go much
shorter distance, is right, and they're they're super dangerous as well.
It's a it's a heck of a gamble, so that's
probably why they wanted to make it unmanned vehicle. Well,
(15:11):
and it's very tiny. The thing at scale is very tiny,
but it is plenty space to put you know, a
ton of keel, like a bunch of kilos in there
and then run the thing a very short distance to
that ship. And we're going to talk more about evil
submarines later in today's episode. That's right. That's right. So
you know, if you if you've heard anything about this situation,
(15:32):
or you know, any interesting characters that live in a
mansion try to develop submarines or helicopters or whatever. We
love to hear about it, so would my dog. And
for now we're going to take a break and we'll
be right back with more strange news. And we're back
(15:56):
with more strange news. I'm doing something a little different today.
UM for my strange news, it's a story. Well, it
maybe isn't like a specific news item. It was a
specific coverage of a longstanding U strange and too many
disturbing item um covered by a favorite I think of
all of ours, Mr John Oliver. On last week tonight,
(16:18):
on the most recent episode, he did his long segment
that does at the end of the show on the
national debt. And you know, on the surface, this could
seem like a super dry concept, but it turns out
it's really not. And and he does such a great
job of kind of demystifying what the national debt is. UM.
(16:38):
I believe we're in the neighborhood of twenty eight trillion
dollars in the national debt UM, which is divided up
in some pretty interesting ways. You know, there's a lot
made out of like, oh, China owns US. You know,
China has so much steak in um, you know, the
United States, and you know what if that debt comes due,
(17:01):
all of our points out beautifully and snarkily, that's not
really how that works. It's not like these things come
due or all of a sudden we owe China one
point oh seven trillion dollars that we have to pay
all up at once um. And Oliver makes a really
great point about how essentially you know, in the same
way that having a bit of debt as an individual
(17:22):
kind of is a way to invest in, say a
business or you know, in a home, like having debt
that is ultimately represents equity is a positive thing. Like
you're you're in debt, you know, for your mortgage, but
you're also building equity. And so the idea is not
about how I'm just saying, like, you know, the idea
(17:44):
is debt can be good for you because it ultimately
a method to build equity and to do things that
you need. And all that applies to us as a
country to like we you know, all of this debt
this you know, twenty whatever trillion dollars in debt um.
It's all how you use it, right, So it's it's
not like, oh god, we're in debt. We're just digging
ourselves deeper and deeper. And different presidents handle it differently,
(18:07):
whether it's through tax cuts or raising taxes to kind
of even things out, and Oliver points out, how, you know,
Ronald Reagan was kind of the granddaddy of fiscal conservatism,
or you know, the idea of well we gotta you know,
count our pennies and balance the debt or balance the
budget and all that. Sorry, reduced the debt and balancing
the budgets two different things. We're not gonna get to
(18:28):
two in the weeds with that. But Oliver also points
out that subsequent presidents and their handling of it, and
the way that the different parties have kind of looked
upon this idea of debt bad um or debt good
has really fluctuated depending on who the president is. And
you know, for example, George W. Bush really ballooned the
(18:52):
national debt by cutting taxes for their wealthy primarily UM
people above a certain income bracket, which typically ends up
being the wealthy, same thing that our last president did UM.
And we have historically seen that these types of tax
cuts for the you know, super wealthy don't really trickle
down to uh, normal people, as some would hope or
(19:14):
have you know, made the case for actually, I would
say a million exactly. I'm trying to be diplomatic you're
absolutely right. Then what ends up what ends up happening? Then?
Ben if if they're not investing back in jobs and
infrastruct or whatever, what do they do with those uh
for those earnings? Well? Uh, in some cases a certain
(19:37):
segment of the ultra wealthy here in the US would
buy debt, would would take the money they had saved
right and buy more because you can, you know, debt
is a thing that you can buy. You can hold
someone's debts. So there's that also fun fact. Uh, this
this gets I love bringing this up. Whatever we talk
about this. Uh. Trickle down economics had an their name
(20:01):
that got changed to sound a little bit more you know,
approachable and correct. It used to be called I believe
it was. The original concept was something like horse and
sparrow economics, and the idea was that you don't have
to feed the sparrows. You just feed the horse as
many oats as it once, and then when it defecates,
(20:22):
there will be just enough left in their sparrows to
survive by eating the poop. Oh. So trickled down always
has made me think of being piste on by the rich.
Just for for the record, that's just d M is
there so I wouldn't say that's that much better, because
horse and sparrow is so vague that you'd have to
kind of like go into it like you just did.
Been I would not have immediately thought of that being
(20:44):
a poop metaphor um. But each each year and and
and and trickle down, though, I instantly think of pe
rolling downhill onto the less uh wealthy of us amongst us.
So that's all a thing. And then um oh, and
then of course, then when you know, Barack Obama became
the president, he was blamed for a lot of these
(21:06):
things that kind of he inherited. And that's always how
it goes. You know, you you get blamed for what
happens before your watch because then it becomes your watch,
and then it's yours, and it's an easy thing to
spend it. To be fair, you get credit if your president,
since the president only sort of afford to eight your term.
You get credit for good things that a previous administration
may have done don't really come into effect, for seeds
(21:29):
that are planted with things like these choices, right, And
that's the point that that ali our makes, and you know,
it's worth watching the whole segment and the whole episode.
It's just a great show. But I do think I
really want to chat with you guys about this briefly.
I'll quit um kind of summarizing a second, but I
didn't want to point out one thing that I really
want to get into this whole idea of you mentioned it, Ben.
(21:49):
You can buy debt, you can own debt, and it's
it's like you can treat it as a commodity. And
that's what all of these countries do. They're investing in
our country essentially and buying a piece of it, and
then like a country like China that's so heavily invested
the value of the dollar, correct me if I'm wrong,
then it actually has an impact on the value of
(22:10):
their currency because they're so invested in US that it
actually almost becomes like, you know, a symbiotic relationship between
these two currencies, right, yeah, yeah, I mean you're correct.
It's um and I love you point out this. This
kind of debt is not like the kind of debt
you might encounter as an individual, you know what I mean. Uh,
(22:33):
It's funny if you look behind the curtain, it seems
like the larger institutions get, the more lacks. They tend
to be about paying debt on time. But I think
I think where you're going here. No, if if I'm correct,
my telepathy isn't on the fritz. Are we about to
talk about bonds? Treasury bonds? Absolutely, because it turns out that, yeah,
China does own a hefty portion of our debt, but
(22:56):
it's only like five percent of the overall debt. And
the people that own most of the United States debt
are uh bing bing bing the the United States citizens
who who are invested in these treasury bonds because they're
safe places to park your money, and you know, it's
it's looked at as like patriotic. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it, Ben,
(23:17):
but I think that's pretty close to the truth. You're
absolutely I would say you're absolutely right, because it's there's
a predictability to it. It's not a buying a bond.
A treasury bond is not a it's like an IOU
that will come to fruition without a lot of fluctuation.
Um at least that's that's the understanding. And of course
(23:38):
it has that that selling value. You know, back in
the nineteen fifties, you guys probably have seen these commercials
before where it's like by wall bonds, which we're meant
to you know, you're kind of purchasing this again, not
to be repetitive, but you're purchasing sort of and I
owe you. And because that's a predictable bowl investment vehicle,
(24:02):
it makes sense that people would want to get in
the game. I mean, we've probably got some folks listening
now who have a couple of bonds locked away in
a safe somewhere or I don't know, on your coffee table.
I don't know what everybody's houses look like. I don't
know how you handle bonds, and they don't they don't
accrue insane interest, but they're super safe. And if you
(24:23):
were given one, like you know, or someone was holding
one they bought like in the twenties and they pass
on to you, it's probably super valuable now you know,
over time, and it's it's never gonna like lose lose value. Um.
But back to that China thing, like so so again,
this idea of China would being beholden to China. That's
sort of a myth and that's sort of perpetuated by
(24:43):
a lot of folks that want to fear monger and
kind of make people scared of our potential Chinese overlords.
And it turns out that China isn't even the top
foreign investor in the US debt. It's actually been surpassed
by Japan, who holds one point to six trillion in
uh US debt and China is down to one point
(25:04):
oh seven um. And it may well be that that
was triggered by the trade war that Trump um sort
of instituted against China. Um. You know that kind of
messed with their exports because they need their economy to
be thriving for them to invest in like other economies.
I agree with you, but I think it's been bolstered.
But I remember hearing rhetoric about debt to China and
(25:29):
essentially economic competition with China. But like that's been going
around for quite a while circles, Yes, since the days
of Nixon when he um quote unquote opened a new
phase of relationship with US and China. But this idea
that they could trigger some sort of economic catastrophe on
(25:49):
command if they so chose, that's not a thing, right,
not yeah, not really like you could. It's like saying
I'm in traffic and it's like you're driving traffic and
you're saying, you know, anybody behind or in front of
me could do something that would totally wreck my car.
The problem is it gets very close to like mutually
(26:12):
assured financial destruction because these things are all interconnected. So
in the analogy of the car accident, if you saw
someone you didn't like them, and you you were having
a bad day and you thought like this injustice will
not stand. Yeah, you could totally drive your car into
their car. It would also destroy your car. You know
what I mean, It's not it's not logical yet for
(26:35):
that to happen. It doesn't mean it always be that
way in the future, but these um you know a
lot of what countries, especially superpowers want, whether they're regional
or world superpowers, they want a measure of predictability and sustainability.
So even when you hear crazy rhetoric sold to the
domestic Chinese public or sold to the domestic Western public,
(26:58):
I guarantee you there's there's always another meeting where the
you know, the government officials sit down in a room together,
often especially after presidents or prime ministers change, and they go, look,
I know you and the guy before me had some issues,
But I'm the kind of person you can work with, Okay,
so maybe we can both figure out and then they
(27:20):
lay out their lists of compromise. After that, it's just
like negotiating a contract, really. Um. But but I think
no one. One thing that makes this a little bit
different is now China is rapidly expanding. UM is moving
from a regional to a world's superpower. And I think
that's where a lot of that um rhetoric that we
(27:42):
all hear is coming from. You raise a really good
point about how it's mischaracterized in the public sphere, you
know what I mean, Like when people used to try
to ramp up racist fears about which country supplies US
oil right when it turned out those per scentages were
also whacky doo. Um. I think it's something that definitely
(28:04):
bears them thinking about. And obviously we're all big fans
of John Oliver. I don't know about you guys, but
it makes my day whenever they do a segment on
something that we had covered. Oh always and and and
I just I love how high production value that show is.
But they save it all for the last segment, like
all that money and in this episode, uh, you know,
there's a lot of the rhetoric and the clips they
(28:25):
play are people historically saying, oh, you know, we're robbing
Peter to pay Paul and we're putting our children at risk,
and it's all about the future of our our children.
But the point he makes is like, well, okay, but
if we invested this money, then this debt into like
better roads and infrastructure and things like New Deal type
programs and things that created jobs and you know, education,
(28:50):
things that have historically been kind of stripped by Republicans.
I'm not trying to make this a part as any discussion.
It's just these are this is true the story really,
it's it's you know, I mean he even there was
an interview with Axios did with um Ted Cruz where
he basically cops to being a member of a party
that is historically kind of not done in the best
(29:12):
steward of this kind of debt. Uh. And you know,
I gets spent on things like military resources instead of
like roads, the roads in Atlanta garbage. I'm constantly angry
about where my tax money goes because I'm always like
falling into potholes and stuff, and I'm like, what am
I getting for this? I don't have health care that's
worth a damn. My roads suck. I can't get my
(29:33):
my kid into a good, worthwhile school without it being
private or charter and really inconvenient. Um so what am
I getting? And I don't know. I just feel like
if I thought that that was being I would pay
more tax if I thought that it was going somewhere
a value to me in my life. You know, now,
you guys feel But that's my hot take. I I mean,
(29:54):
I think that I think that's a perfectly logical way
to look at it, you know. There So the idea
of taxation is heavily politicized in this country because the
system is broken, right, That's what happened. People don't agree
on how it's broken, and they certainly don't agree on
how to fix it. But we know that it has
(30:15):
codified loopholes that aid and a bet uh the people
who are involved in writing those laws that is, or
their masters. That is just a fact. But if you
think about it in a non political way, then the
best way to say it is like this, picture your
country wherever you live as a club, like a like
(30:37):
a country club. Why not? That's not super creative, but
we're going with it. Your dues, right, So taxes when
the systems work, are the dues you pay to keep
the country club looking nice, to keep the lights and
the water on, to maybe have you know, the get
togethers for special occasions, birthday parties, member parties, kin Sierra's,
(31:03):
to pay all the employees salaries and healthcare to pay
the employees. Yeah, like these are. And the idea is
that you, if you're the average person, could not on
your own start a country club like I would never
you know, I'm not super into the idea of myself,
but like, why would I start the ben Bull and
(31:26):
Country Club and be the only member. That's just me
having a house with a silly sign on it. But
I would feel really sad if I wasn't invited to
join the ben Bull and Country Club, And I would
pay dues for that. Um. But no, I think it's
an absolutely appropriate uh um representation of how this stuff works. Okay,
(31:47):
And let me add this if I don't if you
don't mind, And if you were paying those dudes, and
you were going to this country club and every time
you went out to play golf you fell into a sinkhole,
you probably wouldn't want to be a member of that
club anymore. You'd probably be asking some very serious questions
about where those dudes went. And if the answer was, oh,
you know, we just like pocket them or like, you know,
launder them elsewhere whatever. I'm not trying to accuse the
(32:09):
government of that, but you see what I'm saying, Well,
we're paying our private security force to go to a
neighboring country club and that they can established amenities for
that country club that we don't have here right more.
Or you know, wow, we're supposed to get a free
(32:33):
like we're supposed to have a free cafe, right because
we paid dues. We don't have a free cafe. But
the accountant is pushing a new maserati. I feel like
I paid for that maserati and I don't think that's cool.
Why do I still have to go here? The differences
that we're talking about a country instead of a country club.
Countries are much more difficult to leave. You could just
(32:56):
walk out of the club. You could just put your
membership ridden seen your citizenship over taxation is much more extreme.
Move well, And that's my point. It almost feels like
these dudes we pay is literally just for the privilege
of being allowed to hang around. Um. You know, it's
like our gym is supposed to be this full service gym,
but it's actually just like a bunch of spoons taped
(33:17):
together in the middle and like a single kettle bell
chain to a radiator. You know, it's like, you know,
this is what this is what you get. I'm obviously
overstaying the case here a little bit. I love the
United States, I love living in this country, but when
you look at it and what you get for this
this tax, it starts to feel a little out of
whack with other countries that have socialized health care and
(33:39):
you know, better roads and amenities, and it's just it
starts to get a little old after a while, especially
when you look at this ballooning national debt. But it
does feel like we're kind of moving in the right
direction with some of these uh, you know, New Deal
esque programs. I think even the most vehement fiscal conservative
or people you know, Republican would probably say that the
New Deal stuff was pretty a pretty good idea. It
(34:02):
gave it left us with some very lasting, you know
infrastructure foundationally um that now we need to service or
build some new stuff. And also everyone pretty much agrees
that it created a lot of jobs, which gave a
shot in the arm to the economy, and you know,
during a recession anyway, I would just say two things.
The opinion is gonna very it's gonna vary widely on
(34:25):
on that topic, just I know. So. Um. The other
thing is I want to stick up for the accountant
because I think the accountant was actually driving an old
company car that he even handed down to his son.
So like, I don't think the accountant was the one
pocketing all the money. Just just putting that out there,
all right, it's a hypothetical accountant, Matt. It's not it's
(34:49):
not the account that I might be thinking of. But
it's not the accounting from Matt story or the Mardy
Bird or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is an important thing,
you know. And one big piece that I think would
be readily apparent to a foreign observer who is not
in the US is that it's incredibly confusing how many
(35:13):
mixed messages you get about the debt over the years,
you know what I mean, Like, like to your point, well,
it does depend a lot on administration, but also these
investments can be a tough sell because we can make
good guesses about how they how much they will benefit
(35:34):
the average person in the US. But those are guesses
over time, and unfortunately, the human species does not have
the best track record of saying I'll sacrifice even a
little bit of my today to get some to massively
improve things for people fifteen years from now that I
may never meet. I'll just say I I don't know, man,
(35:56):
two dollars fifteen cents like a cheeseburger money totally. When
I add one final thing, this notion of China calling
in its debt or like you know, say okay, that's it,
pay up. There's a really great article that that summarizes
a lot of this stuff in a really straightforward way
on the balance dot com um and there's a whole
segment section on this article. If China called in its
debt holdings, and it's exactly like you say, Ben with
(36:19):
your traffic aunt with your traffic analogy. If China called
in its debt, demand for the dollar would plummet. The
dollar collapse would then cause chaos and international markets um
way worse than what we saw in two thousand eight.
And guess who else would suffer along with US? China.
So it is that mutually assured finance, maybe not destruction,
(36:41):
and it certainly is like a flex and a finger
on that detonator that they could, you know, wield politically
if they wanted to, and I'm sure they do in
some ways, but it just it doesn't make sense, and
they certainly wouldn't do it all at once. It's article
points out they would probably do it slowly, sell off
its treasury holding slowly, um and even at that slow
pay the demand would still drop, which would still hurt
(37:03):
China's competitiveness. And and to your point, been with the
expansion they're going for, that's not something they want to do.
So I think the takeaway from the Oliver pieces like
you'll just slow your role. It's not that bad, and
and it's you know, if we're how are we spending this?
What are we getting out of it? That's those are
the questions you should be asking and stop, you know,
using children as a scapegoat politically, or like what about
(37:25):
the children? You only care about the children when it's
like a soapbox moment. But yeah, I would agree. I
just I can't help you, guys. I hear all the
facts you're saying I hear are all the points that
John Oliver made. It still bothers me fully that as
a country we're so deeply in debt. Yeah, that's how
(37:46):
the systems designed. Yeah, and it it's like really quickly,
like I mean, it's we're in debt to Brazil, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Ireland,
the UK, China and Japan just happened to be the
two biggest pieces of the pie. Also Switzerland, and then
again like to to to what we talked about earlier,
the largest holders of that US are our own citizens.
Was to me, feels like you're investing in your own
(38:08):
country and that doesn't seem so bad. Yeah. One of
the I mean one of the secrets about about the
necessity of debt here, without going into you know, balance
and trade and so on, one of the secrets, at
least for the US, is that having other countries hold
US debt strengthens the hegemonic nature of the dollar as
(38:33):
a global reserve currency. You know what I mean. We
talked about the petro dollar. But again, concept of a
dollar is a pretty intangible thing. It's literally an article
of faith. So the more people you have treating it
like a real thing, the more places and people you're
gonna have accepting it as currency, you know what I mean.
A dollar is a very useful thing to have around
(38:55):
the world, and part of it is because so many
other countries needed to be real. I mean, what if
it crashed like beanie babies or powks, Japan and China
would rightly belived because they you know, I guess they're
like maybe three people in the audience today who are going, oh, yeah,
I lost the farm on beanie babies. But that's kind
(39:17):
of what would happen if everybody like agreed that the
dollar was worthless, which goes back to your point all
about connected chaos can be power. The problem is it
won't matter if inflation hits hard, right, and we've seen
that before, and inflation is one of the things that
can happen. Even John Oliver talked about as long as
inflation doesn't increase, all of this is fine. Uh. I
(39:40):
would just say I think that is I don't know,
I don't mean. I just think inflation is way more
of a specter than a scary specter than we want
to believe. And I'm sorry, we understand what you're saying.
Inflation happens kind of, I guess, not naturally. I mean,
but it happens a year over year. Inflation is the
phenomenon of like dollar being able to buy you more
(40:02):
in nineteen thirty two than it does because over time,
inflation just happens. Are you saying there's some event or
series of events that would trigger massive inflation overnight that
is out of proportion with that gradual inflation over time. No,
not really. There isn't much that happens in the financial
world that happens overnight. Besides, you know, stuff in the
(40:22):
stock market, which is very possible. Um. But yeah, the
inflation is the one thing you know that took down Germany, right,
we talked about that inflation took it down, Um, the
Weimar Republic. We just have to be careful. I don't know,
it's still it still worries me. I think. I think
(40:43):
my problem, guys is that when I watched that John
Oliver's segment, he gives me a sense of calm or
an ease, even though we're talking about hard topics a
lot of times, and I think every once in a
while I feel as though I can't trust the the get.
Maybe that's fair. I don't think there's plenty of other
things to be anxious about. It's nice to be able
(41:05):
to at least sort of check one off the list.
But it's not like it's, you know, hard and fast.
But I think we've we've we've we've spent enough podcasts,
uh inc on this one for for now. But something
to keep an eye on. But let's take a quick
break to hear from our sponsor um and then we'll
be back with one more strange news. And we have returned.
(41:31):
Our final or final story in this week's segment, takes
us to the far North, literally as far north as
you can go and still be on planet Earth folks.
As we record today, the race for the Arctic continues.
We did a previous episode on this who will Control
(41:52):
the Arctic? Long story short. For a number of decades now,
the ice caps in the North Pole have been melting.
I'm sure you have seen many, many think pieces, many studies,
many news stories on the various terrible consequences of the
(42:12):
ice caps melting. But there is one group of huge
benefits and it may even in some way, depending on
where you live, benefit you when those ice caps melts,
When when the water unfreezes and becomes navigable for ships.
There is an entire an entirely new, unique trade route available.
(42:38):
So it goes back to what we're talking about previously
with the the strange shell game of international trade. Essentially
all the like if you if you imagine in your
mind a map of the North Pole, all the countries
that are around the Arctic Circle, and even countries that
don't really have a geo physical claim to it, they're
(43:01):
all trying to slice out the pie and be the
person or be the entity that controls the trade routes
right and be the entity that also controls the mining
rights for minerals, for fossil fuels and what have you.
Right now, a lot of people are incredibly nervous because
(43:24):
the Russian military, which I think we may have talked
about this before, they are they've been going hard on
the paint to have this access for a long time.
And you know they have a they have a decent
claim because if you look at the map, a ton
of Russia butts right into the North Pole or the
Arctic Circle, we should say. And right now a lot
(43:46):
of international observers are incredibly nervous because it turns out
that Russia has doubled down on their military build up
in the Arctic, and they've done they've done some things
that they haven't done before. First off, because of the
nature of the climate and Russian in the Arctic circle,
(44:07):
they already had a lot of infrastructure that was set
to function pretty well in the Arctic North. However, the
issue is that they had a lot of just like
with the U S infrastructure, they had a lot of
infrastructure problems. They weren't maintaining things the way they needed
to be maintained. But for the record, if you're filling
(44:27):
a venturous you can take a ride on a a
Russian icebreaker nuclear power. It's called the fifty let Pomity,
which means fifty years of victory. Anyway, that aside, they're
building this massive, massive agglomeration of military might, which is
an intimidation move, but also it's kind of trying to
(44:49):
be the first to the gate in a world where
possession is very much nine tenths of the law. This
has happened before. Russia has been planning this for a
long time. These kinds of explorations have occurred. You may,
you may, in fact, fellow conspiracy realists recall a moment,
uh several years ago when Russia planted an underwater flag
(45:12):
as like the old school colonialism, right, I got a flag,
I put it here. This is my DIBs on on
this entire continent or this entire mass um. But what's
different now is that they have a new toy, very
dangerous toy. It's called the Poseidon to M thirty nine torpedo,
(45:34):
but torpedo wild torpedo, it may be. It's it's a
little misleading. It's a lot more like that unmanned submarine
that your guy was designing, Matt before he killed all
those cows. I'd like to talk a little bit about
what the Poseidon is. It's autonomous, I'm manned, it's nuclear powered.
(45:56):
It's called a super weapon. And honestly, although I usually
think that kind of stuff is hyperbole, guys, this this
is very much not It's about the size of a
small submarine and the ideas that will be used against
hostile bases or naval stations. But it has so the
(46:18):
problem with the Poseidon is that it is quite potentially
capable of rendering an entire area unlivable. I'm gonna send you, guys,
it's it's really it's like a it's like using a
chainsaw when a steak knife would do. I'm gonna send
you guys a picture here in our group chat where
(46:42):
you can see something called a nuke map. The Poseidon
is capable of creating a one hundred mega ton explosion.
And if you look at this map, nuke BAP, by
the way, is really cool tool. Then you can model
out the detonation of what would happen, like how how
(47:04):
this thing, this bomb with this yield, how it would
affect the world. So if you look at the map now,
you'll see, just from that screen cap that we wanted
to see, what happened if the Poseidon somehow was deployed
in New York, the fallout goes clear to the Gulf Coast.
(47:29):
Holy from Wow that rain, Yeah, oh I see, So
it's yeah, because of all the water, it's probably like
I see, yeah, radioactive rain and fallout essentially, Yeah, that's
that's pretty messed up. It also irradiates the water. So
we're talking if this thing was ever used, it would,
(47:50):
according to multiple breathless headlines, create radioactive tsunami. This isn't
technically true unless the payload is far more just destructive
than imagined. Ben. That's from the star bomba the largest bomb. Yeah, yeah,
and that's that's I apologize I had to walk away
(48:10):
for one second for my family, but it was that's
that's the yield of these poseidon like um torpedoes. Yeah,
it's uh, they're they're believed to we don't know everything
about them. They're one of six super weapons that were
proposed by the Russian administration in Uh. This Poseidon is
(48:32):
what's called a cobalt bomb, and you know, it's there's
a tragic story here. There's always a tragic story when
you talked about nuclear weaponry and physicists. But the physicists
who first proposed the idea of a cobalt bomb was
not to have it built. Leo Sziszlard, I believe, literally said, look,
(48:53):
I'm not showing you all that this is possible because
anyone should build one. I'm showing you that we're getting
to the point where nuclear technology can quite literally end
human life on Earth. This should be considered a doomsday device.
And then, you know, shout out to that great Mitchell
and Web sketch about the inventor who keeps trying to
(49:16):
make peaceful weapons of war. The problem here is that
these sorts of weapons, they don't respect international boundaries, you
know what I mean, They don't go through customs. If
you if you fire this at a naval base, it's
not going to stop at the perimeter of the naval base.
(49:37):
This will have real and lasting implications. We're talking about
the nuclear equivalent of so in the earth with salt.
It will render large swaths of any shoreline nearby unlivable.
So what this means, first off, is that it's scary
to imagine the situation where the Russian government I decide
(50:01):
to deploy this weaponry. It also means I'm gonna sneak
one other thing in here before we close. It also
means that it's a perfect toy for Vladimir Putin's administration
because he just signed that law I told you guys
about a few months ago where he could be president forever.
(50:26):
I thought you refer to you. Yeah, oh sorry, any
Russian president. It's just any Russian president. We know it. Yeah,
we know what you are up to, Vladimir. So this
this means that he quite possibly if no health conditions
or assassins or accidents across his path he could become
(50:47):
the longest the ruler in office for the longest time
since Joseph Stalin. So there's not so it's a little
more difficult to imagine something that would disincentivize him. Like
if domestic Russian opinion said, hey, don't put out this bomb. Uh,
(51:07):
then he could say, well, so what are you gonna
and what are you gonna? Not elect me? It's very
dangerous for your health, very oh man. Yeah, this sounds
terrifying all around. Ben, Yeah, which is a shame because
I still really want to ride on that icebreaker. And
this is where I want to pass the past the torch,
(51:29):
to pass the question to you are fellow listeners in
the audience, what do you think the future of the
Arctic will be? What direction do you see things going
in here? The what what's the long term goal of Russia?
What should the long term goal of the rest of
the world be? And is losing the North Pole in
(51:53):
the ice there is it worth gaining this trade route
over the long long term? I would argue probably not.
But again, as our previous story showed, Uh, we're not
you know, we're not expert economists, so want to hear
your view. Also have you built, uh, cocaine submarine? Let
(52:14):
us know, have you what's your opinion on national debt?
And don't want to add to that end really quickly.
If you are interested in the minutia of that national debt,
there's a really cool active graphical site called US debt
clock dot org. Not only shows you the tick tick
ticking up of that national debt, but it shows you
(52:35):
all these other amazing stats. Uh. And you can tell
which ones are in the positive or the negative by
whether they're green or red. Um. But it gets shows
you like, you know, the medium income, medium debt, you
know of of the citizen or taxpayer, etcetera. And all
of it's active and tied to you know, um stats
that are that are constantly updating in real time. So
(52:55):
it's it's really interesting but also kind of terrifying, but
hopefully a little less terrifying after our conversation today. And
if you'd like to learn more about the ins and
outs of Russia in the Arctic, which I am telling you, folks,
it's an important story that should be more widely reported
at the moment. Uh, please do check out some works
(53:15):
by the Carnegie Endowment. Uh. Please do also check out
some of the excellent reporting over at Herrets and The
Guardian as well. Thanks as always for tuning in. We
cannot wait to hear from you. You can write to us,
you can call us, you can contact us any number
of ways, and you might just end up on our
(53:37):
weekly Listener male segment. That sounds like a deal. You say,
I want to do that before a nuclear torpedo destroys
my country. How do I get in contact with you? Well,
we try to be very easy to find online. Yeah,
the Internet, so it's a wild and wooly place. Um,
but we're on there in multiple locations. You can find
this on Facebook and Twitter where we are conspiracy stuff,
(53:59):
can bearcy stuff show on Instagram. Um, why not join
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy to get
in on the conversation in real time, just like that
National Debt Clock website. The National Debt Clock, I believe
is brought to us by the Durst family, the one
in New York City, Yeah, Manhattan, the Durst of the
how does how does Oliver put it? The murder bathroom
murder Dirstys or something like that. It's pretty funny, but yeah,
(54:22):
it's it's a thing. Um and it's you know, and
it makes a nice joke of it not being an
actual clock, because that's not how clocks work. But um, yeah.
And and the company that are the group that was
paid to make that submarine for the first episode we
talked about today, they, according to them, at least, they
had no idea it was going to be used for
those purposes. They thought it was just a special submarine
(54:43):
that latches to the bottoms of you know, ships. It's true,
I had I had no idea, you know. And a
small business owner, you just cash the check and do
the specs, all right, that's right. But yes, as you're saying, well,
you don't have to do that stuff, you can head
on over to our phone number. How do you do that? Well,
you pick up your phone, you dial this number one
eight three three S T D W y T K.
(55:06):
Wait for Ben. He'll tell you what to do. Then
you've got three minutes. Tell us the name you'd like
for us to call you, whether or not we can
use your message on air. Leave your message then if
you want to say anything at the end, just for us,
please put it there. If you need to go over
three minutes for any reason, we recommend instead of leaving
multiple messages, send all that good info to us via email.
(55:28):
You can always reach us. We are conspiracy at i
heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(55:53):
know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart 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 I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Matt, my name is They
called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super
producer Alexi's code name, Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. It's the top of
the week, which means it is time for some strange news. Uh.
(00:45):
You know, every time we're preparing for this, we sift
through dozens or in some cases, hundreds of weird stories
that you may not have heard, uh, and they take
us to some strange places. We're going to talk talk about, uh,
possible flashpoint for World War three. We're going to talk
about the crushing issue of debt. We're also going to
(01:10):
get down with cocaine and submarines. Uh. These are all
three true things. I'm wondering where we would like to
start today. Do you guys, do you guys feel like
a crime story? I love a good crime story. You know,
my mom calls those she calls him crimm ease because
we lived in Germany for a while. She said, like,
(01:31):
I gotta, I gotta watch my crimm e's. Well we will,
we will not disappoint with this creamy crimmy in the mornings.
Here we go. So, uh, let's begin by introducing you
to a character named Marty Timbots. Marty Tibbots, he is
there was the CEO of a thing called Clementine Live
(01:54):
Answering Service. Now, what in the heck is that you
might ask? And answering service? I haven't used one of
those in years? What is that? Well, it is it's
a company that specializes in assisting other companies in taking
in phone calls, making sure those phone calls go to
the right people, responding to some with a staff of
(02:17):
of people, or just you know, kind of just organizing
those messages and like I said, sending them to the
right place. It seems to be a fairly functional business
and makes quite a bit of money. Because Mr Marty Tibbots,
who was the CEO of Clementine Live Answering Service, lived
in a home that was worth six point four million dollars.
(02:43):
Uh okay, right, who knows what Mr Tibbots did in
the rest of his life to get enough money to
afford a home like that. But my goodness, that is lovely.
And can you imagine just the costs of the staff
that you would need to run a home that's worth
six point four million dollars? Good God. Well, the reason
why we're talking about him today, it's because he is
(03:05):
also known as Dale Johnson. He's got an A KA
to his name. Now, why would a CEO of a
tech company have an A K A like that? I
love a ceo with an K A. Matt cool to
have him. I think everybody should have some a k A.
S as alys ces. Yeah, I mean why stick with
(03:25):
why stick with one name? Science says you're only here
one time, which you can he always know that today
was a good day because you didn't even have to
use your A k A. Well, I guess that's true. Yeah.
Having an alternate persona is very common to us now.
Many of us have them for online purposes, right, for
existing on the internet, for existing on social media. Uh,
(03:46):
that's cool, that's a thing. But to have to have
a what is described by The Daily Beast as a
generic code name, it's a little different, right, It's a
little different. So why would he have this. Well, according
to prosecutors who are dealing with several issues in the
(04:07):
world of drug trafficking, say that this person, Marty Tibbots,
was also a drug trafficker. He was providing money and
funding operations for a global drug trafficking ring. That's that's
according to prosecutors. Um And Oh another thing you know
(04:30):
about Marty Tibbots, He was a very big aviation buff.
He started a museum called the World Heritage Aviation Museum
in Detroit, Michigan, and it has now been shuttered. But
he started this thing that had all kinds of vintage
fighter jets, vintage planes, other vintage flying machines that were there.
(04:51):
He was very fascinated by it. And he was also
a pilot. He was able to fly several of these things.
And on occasion he would fly vintage jets like actual
old jets. And on one occasion in he was flying
a fighter jet and older fighter jet and this plane,
(05:13):
for for one reason or another, went down it knows,
dived into a barn somewhere in Wisconsin and he was killed.
The cows. Leave the cows out of it. There was
definitely collateral. Sorry, sorry, guys um. So that that's you know, tragic.
(05:38):
A man dies doing what he loves, flying one of
these fighter jets um. And not a lot was known
about Mr Tibbots and his actions are his alleged actions
until until the public was made aware of another person
he really did, Donnie, who was identified as physically running
(06:00):
operations of this drug trafficking ring. So someone who was
a little more hands on than perhaps Marty was, because
you see, it appears that Marty was very much, very
much a a money cleaner, somebody who would transfer money
safely for this group of people, somebody who was able
(06:22):
to provide funds when necessary. This is a very strange story,
especially because everyone who knew Marty Tibbots, at least according
to people who have been interviewed, according to official statements
that have been put out publicly, had no idea that
Marty had anything to do with this organization or with
(06:42):
this kind of organized crime people the next mansion over,
or like. He was such a nice tycoon, you know
what I mean, he did. He had all the cool
tycoon hobbies he was. He was a neat guy kind
of guy you could sort of set your watch to,
you know what I mean, and you know, and he
wasn't too ostentatious. His yacht was just right, just the
(07:05):
right size, which is is interesting because you know, that's
how you get away with this stuff for a while.
You don't you you are not flashy and as weird
as it sounds to say, this guy recreationally flies planes.
This guy owns an opulent, an opulent mansion that's still
not particularly flashy in his income bracket. Very true. He's
(07:31):
a CEO. He makes some good bucks, gets those big bonuses,
and he's doing what he's doing what he can to
keep I'm sure keep that money making money, right, that's
what that's what the wealthy do. By the way, this
is this is in Michigan. I'm trying to pull up
my Google earth link, but it's so mad that we're
doing a zoom call right now. You guys, I was
(07:53):
gonna tell you about the area. It's called Gross Point, Michigan.
It's a lovely area. There is not a house on
the shoreline here in the area where where Mr Tibbotts
lived that doesn't look like it's upwards of five million dollars,
if not twelve. Uh, it's ridiculous. Check it out. Gross
Point Park, Michigan. There's gross Point Michigan. Gross Point Park, Michigan.
(08:16):
I believe he was in the park area. Yeah, this is,
like to think of it, kind of like a wealthy
suburb of Detroit. It borders Detroit. It's kind of its
own thing. But a lot of the movers and shakers
in Detroit particularly will live in gross Point Party. It's
(08:37):
the buckhead of the area. I don't know where it
could be. The John's Creek is how where the movie
gross point blank takes place where Uh Timothy what's his name?
Not Timothy Dalton. He was in Beautiful Girls anyway. He
was kind of an America sweetheart actor and he plays
like in a No, it's John Cusack gross point blank.
He's like an assassin and he's going back to his
(08:59):
high school reunion and gross Point, Michigan. I believe. Wow,
that's cool. I did not know that. Uh, I'm it's
gonna make me want to rewatch that just to look
at the area. So let's let's talk about a couple
of the things that are alleged here that Marty was doing,
because one of them is really weird. You heard been
mentioned submarines at the top of this episode. Well, let's
(09:20):
we'll get you there, but first let's talk about, uh,
the the investigation that details really activities that start in
so In Marty has said to have issued a check
for eight hundred and sixty four thousand dollars. This went allegedly,
according to them, directly to the cartel, which UM authorities
(09:44):
think was it ended up getting cash at some kind
of cash exchange business like a pawn shop gold you know,
we buy gold kind of exchange. UM. Then he apparently
was in Washington, d C. And personally gave a three
hundred fifty dollars two di Donni. This other person you'll
(10:06):
need to Donny, he just like flew in, gave him
three k and then got out. And according to them,
he provided the cartel over one point eight million in
in cash and I guess assets of some sort, but
probably dealing with easily movable money like cash. UM. The
other thing that Timbots was doing for Didnni or as
(10:28):
almost an R and D project that they had going on.
They were devising a submarine or they wanted to come
up with a submarine, small remote controlled submersible that would
be able to be filled with cash and or cocaine,
probably both, and then make its way underneath the water
(10:49):
and have magnets on it where it could attach itself
to another ship, probably a shipping vessel, and then travel
with that shipping vessel under ten acted across the world
and land in another country in a customs area, probably
right before they get into a customs area, detached itself,
(11:10):
and then a fishing vessel or some other you know,
private vessel could come out and pick the thing up. Uh.
They were. They were developing this with a third party company.
Allegedly they paid twelve thousand dollars to just get it
up and running. But then unfortunately Marty Tibbots died in
that plane crash and they scrapped that concept. And also
(11:33):
allegedly with Marty gone, you'll need to Donnie had serious
issues keeping his h the organization together, you know, making
these transactions occur, getting funding that was needed to make
the transactions occur, and everything started falling apart, and that's
when authorities were able to come in and start working
on to Donni and eventually they arrested him this year.
(11:55):
And just to be clear, there's nothing fishy about the
plane crash at this time at least yes, at this time,
there's nothing fishy about it. It doesn't help that it
was an older aircraft that you know isn't isn't flown
by a lot of people these days, and you know
you are talking about a very experienced pilot, so you'd think,
(12:19):
I don't know. It's one of those regions where I'm
never not going to think something fishy happens when crashy curs,
but is literally more fishy we can agree just by
virtue of it. Okay, Yeah, for sure, man, When you
say older plane, are we talking about like some sort
of like classic plane like that isn't even around anymore,
(12:39):
because if his collection or just maybe you know, something
from like the eighties or nineties, an older model of
Unfortunately I do not have all of the information picturing
and being like a biplane or something, but that's just
let my imagination run wild with that one. If you
know it's not a biplane, is a fighter jet? Got it? WHOA? Okay?
Can you can online allegedly, at least if you believe
(13:02):
tech Gate in some of the other places here, you
can see footage of the the jet itself going or
making its way down into the barn itself. Is that
legal though? Do you have to have a special license
to fly something like that? I'm sure and I'm sure
he also had it. He ran the whole museum he
I mean, you can see pictures of him in the
(13:23):
cockpit of a fighter jet wearing all the correct gear. Um,
it's he seems to be a fascinating dude. I did
want to bring up something interesting that came to my
mind as I was researching Marty Tibbots. Have you guys
seen that show Ozark? Yes, okay, Uh, The main character
(13:44):
on there, played by the director and creator. His name
is Marty Bird. Now he plays a financial uh what
a fi that has been working for a cartel for
a long time and then ends up moving to the
(14:04):
you know, the Ozarks in this case, but in the
middle of nowhere, by the shore, specifically to be by
the shore with all that shoreline. Um, his name's Marty.
It's based on you know, nothing, It's just a character
that they created out of whole cloth. And then all
of a sudden we hear or we learn about this
guy named Marty who was doing kind of the same thing. Um,
(14:27):
I just wanna, you know, I want to know the
story that some retired official or some FBI agent told
to Jason Bateman is some late night at a bar
or something, so like big Fish, White Whale that got away.
Also the submarine, the submarine technology is legitimately impressive. A
(14:49):
lot of drug Cartel's submarines are definitely clandestine d I
Y affairs, nonetheless impressive, but they're built to go much
shorter distance, is right, and they're they're super dangerous as well.
It's a it's a heck of a gamble, so that's
probably why they wanted to make it unmanned vehicle. Well,
(15:11):
and it's very tiny. The thing at scale is very tiny,
but it is plenty space to put you know, a
ton of keel, like a bunch of kilos in there
and then run the thing a very short distance to
that ship. And we're going to talk more about evil
submarines later in today's episode. That's right. That's right. So
you know, if you if you've heard anything about this situation,
(15:32):
or you know, any interesting characters that live in a
mansion try to develop submarines or helicopters or whatever. We
love to hear about it, so would my dog. And
for now we're going to take a break and we'll
be right back with more strange news. And we're back
(15:56):
with more strange news. I'm doing something a little different today.
UM for my strange news, it's a story. Well, it
maybe isn't like a specific news item. It was a
specific coverage of a longstanding U strange and too many
disturbing item um covered by a favorite I think of
all of ours, Mr John Oliver. On last week tonight,
(16:18):
on the most recent episode, he did his long segment
that does at the end of the show on the
national debt. And you know, on the surface, this could
seem like a super dry concept, but it turns out
it's really not. And and he does such a great
job of kind of demystifying what the national debt is. UM.
(16:38):
I believe we're in the neighborhood of twenty eight trillion
dollars in the national debt UM, which is divided up
in some pretty interesting ways. You know, there's a lot
made out of like, oh, China owns US. You know,
China has so much steak in um, you know, the
United States, and you know what if that debt comes due,
(17:01):
all of our points out beautifully and snarkily, that's not
really how that works. It's not like these things come
due or all of a sudden we owe China one
point oh seven trillion dollars that we have to pay
all up at once um. And Oliver makes a really
great point about how essentially you know, in the same
way that having a bit of debt as an individual
(17:22):
kind of is a way to invest in, say a
business or you know, in a home, like having debt
that is ultimately represents equity is a positive thing. Like
you're you're in debt, you know, for your mortgage, but
you're also building equity. And so the idea is not
about how I'm just saying, like, you know, the idea
(17:44):
is debt can be good for you because it ultimately
a method to build equity and to do things that
you need. And all that applies to us as a
country to like we you know, all of this debt
this you know, twenty whatever trillion dollars in debt um.
It's all how you use it, right, So it's it's
not like, oh god, we're in debt. We're just digging
ourselves deeper and deeper. And different presidents handle it differently,
(18:07):
whether it's through tax cuts or raising taxes to kind
of even things out, and Oliver points out, how, you know,
Ronald Reagan was kind of the granddaddy of fiscal conservatism,
or you know, the idea of well we gotta you know,
count our pennies and balance the debt or balance the
budget and all that. Sorry, reduced the debt and balancing
the budgets two different things. We're not gonna get to
(18:28):
two in the weeds with that. But Oliver also points
out that subsequent presidents and their handling of it, and
the way that the different parties have kind of looked
upon this idea of debt bad um or debt good
has really fluctuated depending on who the president is. And
you know, for example, George W. Bush really ballooned the
(18:52):
national debt by cutting taxes for their wealthy primarily UM
people above a certain income bracket, which typically ends up
being the wealthy, same thing that our last president did UM.
And we have historically seen that these types of tax
cuts for the you know, super wealthy don't really trickle
down to uh, normal people, as some would hope or
(19:14):
have you know, made the case for actually, I would
say a million exactly. I'm trying to be diplomatic you're
absolutely right. Then what ends up what ends up happening? Then?
Ben if if they're not investing back in jobs and
infrastruct or whatever, what do they do with those uh
for those earnings? Well? Uh, in some cases a certain
(19:37):
segment of the ultra wealthy here in the US would
buy debt, would would take the money they had saved
right and buy more because you can, you know, debt
is a thing that you can buy. You can hold
someone's debts. So there's that also fun fact. Uh, this
this gets I love bringing this up. Whatever we talk
about this. Uh. Trickle down economics had an their name
(20:01):
that got changed to sound a little bit more you know,
approachable and correct. It used to be called I believe
it was. The original concept was something like horse and
sparrow economics, and the idea was that you don't have
to feed the sparrows. You just feed the horse as
many oats as it once, and then when it defecates,
(20:22):
there will be just enough left in their sparrows to
survive by eating the poop. Oh. So trickled down always
has made me think of being piste on by the rich.
Just for for the record, that's just d M is
there so I wouldn't say that's that much better, because
horse and sparrow is so vague that you'd have to
kind of like go into it like you just did.
Been I would not have immediately thought of that being
(20:44):
a poop metaphor um. But each each year and and
and and trickle down, though, I instantly think of pe
rolling downhill onto the less uh wealthy of us amongst us.
So that's all a thing. And then um oh, and
then of course, then when you know, Barack Obama became
the president, he was blamed for a lot of these
(21:06):
things that kind of he inherited. And that's always how
it goes. You know, you you get blamed for what
happens before your watch because then it becomes your watch,
and then it's yours, and it's an easy thing to
spend it. To be fair, you get credit if your president,
since the president only sort of afford to eight your term.
You get credit for good things that a previous administration
may have done don't really come into effect, for seeds
(21:29):
that are planted with things like these choices, right, And
that's the point that that ali our makes, and you know,
it's worth watching the whole segment and the whole episode.
It's just a great show. But I do think I
really want to chat with you guys about this briefly.
I'll quit um kind of summarizing a second, but I
didn't want to point out one thing that I really
want to get into this whole idea of you mentioned it, Ben.
(21:49):
You can buy debt, you can own debt, and it's
it's like you can treat it as a commodity. And
that's what all of these countries do. They're investing in
our country essentially and buying a piece of it, and
then like a country like China that's so heavily invested
the value of the dollar, correct me if I'm wrong,
then it actually has an impact on the value of
(22:10):
their currency because they're so invested in US that it
actually almost becomes like, you know, a symbiotic relationship between
these two currencies, right, yeah, yeah, I mean you're correct.
It's um and I love you point out this. This
kind of debt is not like the kind of debt
you might encounter as an individual, you know what I mean. Uh,
(22:33):
It's funny if you look behind the curtain, it seems
like the larger institutions get, the more lacks. They tend
to be about paying debt on time. But I think
I think where you're going here. No, if if I'm correct,
my telepathy isn't on the fritz. Are we about to
talk about bonds? Treasury bonds? Absolutely, because it turns out that, yeah,
China does own a hefty portion of our debt, but
(22:56):
it's only like five percent of the overall debt. And
the people that own most of the United States debt
are uh bing bing bing the the United States citizens
who who are invested in these treasury bonds because they're
safe places to park your money, and you know, it's
it's looked at as like patriotic. Maybe I'm oversimplifying it, Ben,
(23:17):
but I think that's pretty close to the truth. You're
absolutely I would say you're absolutely right, because it's there's
a predictability to it. It's not a buying a bond.
A treasury bond is not a it's like an IOU
that will come to fruition without a lot of fluctuation.
Um at least that's that's the understanding. And of course
(23:38):
it has that that selling value. You know, back in
the nineteen fifties, you guys probably have seen these commercials
before where it's like by wall bonds, which we're meant
to you know, you're kind of purchasing this again, not
to be repetitive, but you're purchasing sort of and I
owe you. And because that's a predictable bowl investment vehicle,
(24:02):
it makes sense that people would want to get in
the game. I mean, we've probably got some folks listening
now who have a couple of bonds locked away in
a safe somewhere or I don't know, on your coffee table.
I don't know what everybody's houses look like. I don't
know how you handle bonds, and they don't they don't
accrue insane interest, but they're super safe. And if you
(24:23):
were given one, like you know, or someone was holding
one they bought like in the twenties and they pass
on to you, it's probably super valuable now you know,
over time, and it's it's never gonna like lose lose value. Um.
But back to that China thing, like so so again,
this idea of China would being beholden to China. That's
sort of a myth and that's sort of perpetuated by
(24:43):
a lot of folks that want to fear monger and
kind of make people scared of our potential Chinese overlords.
And it turns out that China isn't even the top
foreign investor in the US debt. It's actually been surpassed
by Japan, who holds one point to six trillion in
uh US debt and China is down to one point
(25:04):
oh seven um. And it may well be that that
was triggered by the trade war that Trump um sort
of instituted against China. Um. You know that kind of
messed with their exports because they need their economy to
be thriving for them to invest in like other economies.
I agree with you, but I think it's been bolstered.
But I remember hearing rhetoric about debt to China and
(25:29):
essentially economic competition with China. But like that's been going
around for quite a while circles, Yes, since the days
of Nixon when he um quote unquote opened a new
phase of relationship with US and China. But this idea
that they could trigger some sort of economic catastrophe on
(25:49):
command if they so chose, that's not a thing, right,
not yeah, not really like you could. It's like saying
I'm in traffic and it's like you're driving traffic and
you're saying, you know, anybody behind or in front of
me could do something that would totally wreck my car.
The problem is it gets very close to like mutually
(26:12):
assured financial destruction because these things are all interconnected. So
in the analogy of the car accident, if you saw
someone you didn't like them, and you you were having
a bad day and you thought like this injustice will
not stand. Yeah, you could totally drive your car into
their car. It would also destroy your car. You know
what I mean, It's not it's not logical yet for
(26:35):
that to happen. It doesn't mean it always be that
way in the future, but these um you know a
lot of what countries, especially superpowers want, whether they're regional
or world superpowers, they want a measure of predictability and sustainability.
So even when you hear crazy rhetoric sold to the
domestic Chinese public or sold to the domestic Western public,
(26:58):
I guarantee you there's there's always another meeting where the
you know, the government officials sit down in a room together,
often especially after presidents or prime ministers change, and they go, look,
I know you and the guy before me had some issues,
But I'm the kind of person you can work with, Okay,
so maybe we can both figure out and then they
(27:20):
lay out their lists of compromise. After that, it's just
like negotiating a contract, really. Um. But but I think
no one. One thing that makes this a little bit
different is now China is rapidly expanding. UM is moving
from a regional to a world's superpower. And I think
that's where a lot of that um rhetoric that we
(27:42):
all hear is coming from. You raise a really good
point about how it's mischaracterized in the public sphere, you
know what I mean, Like when people used to try
to ramp up racist fears about which country supplies US
oil right when it turned out those per scentages were
also whacky doo. Um. I think it's something that definitely
(28:04):
bears them thinking about. And obviously we're all big fans
of John Oliver. I don't know about you guys, but
it makes my day whenever they do a segment on
something that we had covered. Oh always and and and
I just I love how high production value that show is.
But they save it all for the last segment, like
all that money and in this episode, uh, you know,
there's a lot of the rhetoric and the clips they
(28:25):
play are people historically saying, oh, you know, we're robbing
Peter to pay Paul and we're putting our children at risk,
and it's all about the future of our our children.
But the point he makes is like, well, okay, but
if we invested this money, then this debt into like
better roads and infrastructure and things like New Deal type
programs and things that created jobs and you know, education,
(28:50):
things that have historically been kind of stripped by Republicans.
I'm not trying to make this a part as any discussion.
It's just these are this is true the story really,
it's it's you know, I mean he even there was
an interview with Axios did with um Ted Cruz where
he basically cops to being a member of a party
that is historically kind of not done in the best
(29:12):
steward of this kind of debt. Uh. And you know,
I gets spent on things like military resources instead of
like roads, the roads in Atlanta garbage. I'm constantly angry
about where my tax money goes because I'm always like
falling into potholes and stuff, and I'm like, what am
I getting for this? I don't have health care that's
worth a damn. My roads suck. I can't get my
(29:33):
my kid into a good, worthwhile school without it being
private or charter and really inconvenient. Um so what am
I getting? And I don't know. I just feel like
if I thought that that was being I would pay
more tax if I thought that it was going somewhere
a value to me in my life. You know, now,
you guys feel But that's my hot take. I I mean,
(29:54):
I think that I think that's a perfectly logical way
to look at it, you know. There So the idea
of taxation is heavily politicized in this country because the
system is broken, right, That's what happened. People don't agree
on how it's broken, and they certainly don't agree on
how to fix it. But we know that it has
(30:15):
codified loopholes that aid and a bet uh the people
who are involved in writing those laws that is, or
their masters. That is just a fact. But if you
think about it in a non political way, then the
best way to say it is like this, picture your
country wherever you live as a club, like a like
(30:37):
a country club. Why not? That's not super creative, but
we're going with it. Your dues, right, So taxes when
the systems work, are the dues you pay to keep
the country club looking nice, to keep the lights and
the water on, to maybe have you know, the get
togethers for special occasions, birthday parties, member parties, kin Sierra's,
(31:03):
to pay all the employees salaries and healthcare to pay
the employees. Yeah, like these are. And the idea is
that you, if you're the average person, could not on
your own start a country club like I would never
you know, I'm not super into the idea of myself,
but like, why would I start the ben Bull and
(31:26):
Country Club and be the only member. That's just me
having a house with a silly sign on it. But
I would feel really sad if I wasn't invited to
join the ben Bull and Country Club, And I would
pay dues for that. Um. But no, I think it's
an absolutely appropriate uh um representation of how this stuff works. Okay,
(31:47):
And let me add this if I don't if you
don't mind, And if you were paying those dudes, and
you were going to this country club and every time
you went out to play golf you fell into a sinkhole,
you probably wouldn't want to be a member of that
club anymore. You'd probably be asking some very serious questions
about where those dudes went. And if the answer was, oh,
you know, we just like pocket them or like, you know,
launder them elsewhere whatever. I'm not trying to accuse the
(32:09):
government of that, but you see what I'm saying, Well,
we're paying our private security force to go to a
neighboring country club and that they can established amenities for
that country club that we don't have here right more.
Or you know, wow, we're supposed to get a free
(32:33):
like we're supposed to have a free cafe, right because
we paid dues. We don't have a free cafe. But
the accountant is pushing a new maserati. I feel like
I paid for that maserati and I don't think that's cool.
Why do I still have to go here? The differences
that we're talking about a country instead of a country club.
Countries are much more difficult to leave. You could just
(32:56):
walk out of the club. You could just put your
membership ridden seen your citizenship over taxation is much more extreme.
Move well, And that's my point. It almost feels like
these dudes we pay is literally just for the privilege
of being allowed to hang around. Um. You know, it's
like our gym is supposed to be this full service gym,
but it's actually just like a bunch of spoons taped
(33:17):
together in the middle and like a single kettle bell
chain to a radiator. You know, it's like, you know,
this is what this is what you get. I'm obviously
overstaying the case here a little bit. I love the
United States, I love living in this country, but when
you look at it and what you get for this
this tax, it starts to feel a little out of
whack with other countries that have socialized health care and
(33:39):
you know, better roads and amenities, and it's just it
starts to get a little old after a while, especially
when you look at this ballooning national debt. But it
does feel like we're kind of moving in the right
direction with some of these uh, you know, New Deal
esque programs. I think even the most vehement fiscal conservative
or people you know, Republican would probably say that the
New Deal stuff was pretty a pretty good idea. It
(34:02):
gave it left us with some very lasting, you know
infrastructure foundationally um that now we need to service or
build some new stuff. And also everyone pretty much agrees
that it created a lot of jobs, which gave a
shot in the arm to the economy, and you know,
during a recession anyway, I would just say two things.
The opinion is gonna very it's gonna vary widely on
(34:25):
on that topic, just I know. So. Um. The other
thing is I want to stick up for the accountant
because I think the accountant was actually driving an old
company car that he even handed down to his son.
So like, I don't think the accountant was the one
pocketing all the money. Just just putting that out there,
all right, it's a hypothetical accountant, Matt. It's not it's
(34:49):
not the account that I might be thinking of. But
it's not the accounting from Matt story or the Mardy
Bird or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is an important thing,
you know. And one big piece that I think would
be readily apparent to a foreign observer who is not
in the US is that it's incredibly confusing how many
(35:13):
mixed messages you get about the debt over the years,
you know what I mean, Like, like to your point, well,
it does depend a lot on administration, but also these
investments can be a tough sell because we can make
good guesses about how they how much they will benefit
(35:34):
the average person in the US. But those are guesses
over time, and unfortunately, the human species does not have
the best track record of saying I'll sacrifice even a
little bit of my today to get some to massively
improve things for people fifteen years from now that I
may never meet. I'll just say I I don't know, man,
(35:56):
two dollars fifteen cents like a cheeseburger money totally. When
I add one final thing, this notion of China calling
in its debt or like you know, say okay, that's it,
pay up. There's a really great article that that summarizes
a lot of this stuff in a really straightforward way
on the balance dot com um and there's a whole
segment section on this article. If China called in its
debt holdings, and it's exactly like you say, Ben with
(36:19):
your traffic aunt with your traffic analogy. If China called
in its debt, demand for the dollar would plummet. The
dollar collapse would then cause chaos and international markets um
way worse than what we saw in two thousand eight.
And guess who else would suffer along with US? China.
So it is that mutually assured finance, maybe not destruction,
(36:41):
and it certainly is like a flex and a finger
on that detonator that they could, you know, wield politically
if they wanted to, and I'm sure they do in
some ways, but it just it doesn't make sense, and
they certainly wouldn't do it all at once. It's article
points out they would probably do it slowly, sell off
its treasury holding slowly, um and even at that slow
pay the demand would still drop, which would still hurt
(37:03):
China's competitiveness. And and to your point, been with the
expansion they're going for, that's not something they want to do.
So I think the takeaway from the Oliver pieces like
you'll just slow your role. It's not that bad, and
and it's you know, if we're how are we spending this?
What are we getting out of it? That's those are
the questions you should be asking and stop, you know,
using children as a scapegoat politically, or like what about
(37:25):
the children? You only care about the children when it's
like a soapbox moment. But yeah, I would agree. I
just I can't help you, guys. I hear all the
facts you're saying I hear are all the points that
John Oliver made. It still bothers me fully that as
a country we're so deeply in debt. Yeah, that's how
(37:46):
the systems designed. Yeah, and it it's like really quickly,
like I mean, it's we're in debt to Brazil, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Ireland,
the UK, China and Japan just happened to be the
two biggest pieces of the pie. Also Switzerland, and then
again like to to to what we talked about earlier,
the largest holders of that US are our own citizens.
Was to me, feels like you're investing in your own
(38:08):
country and that doesn't seem so bad. Yeah. One of
the I mean one of the secrets about about the
necessity of debt here, without going into you know, balance
and trade and so on, one of the secrets, at
least for the US, is that having other countries hold
US debt strengthens the hegemonic nature of the dollar as
(38:33):
a global reserve currency. You know what I mean. We
talked about the petro dollar. But again, concept of a
dollar is a pretty intangible thing. It's literally an article
of faith. So the more people you have treating it
like a real thing, the more places and people you're
gonna have accepting it as currency, you know what I mean.
A dollar is a very useful thing to have around
(38:55):
the world, and part of it is because so many
other countries needed to be real. I mean, what if
it crashed like beanie babies or powks, Japan and China
would rightly belived because they you know, I guess they're
like maybe three people in the audience today who are going, oh, yeah,
I lost the farm on beanie babies. But that's kind
(39:17):
of what would happen if everybody like agreed that the
dollar was worthless, which goes back to your point all
about connected chaos can be power. The problem is it
won't matter if inflation hits hard, right, and we've seen
that before, and inflation is one of the things that
can happen. Even John Oliver talked about as long as
inflation doesn't increase, all of this is fine. Uh. I
(39:40):
would just say I think that is I don't know,
I don't mean. I just think inflation is way more
of a specter than a scary specter than we want
to believe. And I'm sorry, we understand what you're saying.
Inflation happens kind of, I guess, not naturally. I mean,
but it happens a year over year. Inflation is the
phenomenon of like dollar being able to buy you more
(40:02):
in nineteen thirty two than it does because over time,
inflation just happens. Are you saying there's some event or
series of events that would trigger massive inflation overnight that
is out of proportion with that gradual inflation over time. No,
not really. There isn't much that happens in the financial
world that happens overnight. Besides, you know, stuff in the
(40:22):
stock market, which is very possible. Um. But yeah, the
inflation is the one thing you know that took down Germany, right,
we talked about that inflation took it down, Um, the
Weimar Republic. We just have to be careful. I don't know,
it's still it still worries me. I think. I think
(40:43):
my problem, guys is that when I watched that John
Oliver's segment, he gives me a sense of calm or
an ease, even though we're talking about hard topics a
lot of times, and I think every once in a
while I feel as though I can't trust the the get.
Maybe that's fair. I don't think there's plenty of other
things to be anxious about. It's nice to be able
(41:05):
to at least sort of check one off the list.
But it's not like it's, you know, hard and fast.
But I think we've we've we've we've spent enough podcasts,
uh inc on this one for for now. But something
to keep an eye on. But let's take a quick
break to hear from our sponsor um and then we'll
be back with one more strange news. And we have returned.
(41:31):
Our final or final story in this week's segment, takes
us to the far North, literally as far north as
you can go and still be on planet Earth folks.
As we record today, the race for the Arctic continues.
We did a previous episode on this who will Control
(41:52):
the Arctic? Long story short. For a number of decades now,
the ice caps in the North Pole have been melting.
I'm sure you have seen many, many think pieces, many studies,
many news stories on the various terrible consequences of the
(42:12):
ice caps melting. But there is one group of huge
benefits and it may even in some way, depending on
where you live, benefit you when those ice caps melts,
When when the water unfreezes and becomes navigable for ships.
There is an entire an entirely new, unique trade route available.
(42:38):
So it goes back to what we're talking about previously
with the the strange shell game of international trade. Essentially
all the like if you if you imagine in your
mind a map of the North Pole, all the countries
that are around the Arctic Circle, and even countries that
don't really have a geo physical claim to it, they're
(43:01):
all trying to slice out the pie and be the
person or be the entity that controls the trade routes
right and be the entity that also controls the mining
rights for minerals, for fossil fuels and what have you.
Right now, a lot of people are incredibly nervous because
(43:24):
the Russian military, which I think we may have talked
about this before, they are they've been going hard on
the paint to have this access for a long time.
And you know they have a they have a decent
claim because if you look at the map, a ton
of Russia butts right into the North Pole or the
Arctic Circle, we should say. And right now a lot
(43:46):
of international observers are incredibly nervous because it turns out
that Russia has doubled down on their military build up
in the Arctic, and they've done they've done some things
that they haven't done before. First off, because of the
nature of the climate and Russian in the Arctic circle,
(44:07):
they already had a lot of infrastructure that was set
to function pretty well in the Arctic North. However, the
issue is that they had a lot of just like
with the U S infrastructure, they had a lot of
infrastructure problems. They weren't maintaining things the way they needed
to be maintained. But for the record, if you're filling
(44:27):
a venturous you can take a ride on a a
Russian icebreaker nuclear power. It's called the fifty let Pomity,
which means fifty years of victory. Anyway, that aside, they're
building this massive, massive agglomeration of military might, which is
an intimidation move, but also it's kind of trying to
(44:49):
be the first to the gate in a world where
possession is very much nine tenths of the law. This
has happened before. Russia has been planning this for a
long time. These kinds of explorations have occurred. You may,
you may, in fact, fellow conspiracy realists recall a moment,
uh several years ago when Russia planted an underwater flag
(45:12):
as like the old school colonialism, right, I got a flag,
I put it here. This is my DIBs on on
this entire continent or this entire mass um. But what's
different now is that they have a new toy, very
dangerous toy. It's called the Poseidon to M thirty nine torpedo,
(45:34):
but torpedo wild torpedo, it may be. It's it's a
little misleading. It's a lot more like that unmanned submarine
that your guy was designing, Matt before he killed all
those cows. I'd like to talk a little bit about
what the Poseidon is. It's autonomous, I'm manned, it's nuclear powered.
(45:56):
It's called a super weapon. And honestly, although I usually
think that kind of stuff is hyperbole, guys, this this
is very much not It's about the size of a
small submarine and the ideas that will be used against
hostile bases or naval stations. But it has so the
(46:18):
problem with the Poseidon is that it is quite potentially
capable of rendering an entire area unlivable. I'm gonna send you, guys,
it's it's really it's like a it's like using a
chainsaw when a steak knife would do. I'm gonna send
you guys a picture here in our group chat where
(46:42):
you can see something called a nuke map. The Poseidon
is capable of creating a one hundred mega ton explosion.
And if you look at this map, nuke BAP, by
the way, is really cool tool. Then you can model
out the detonation of what would happen, like how how
(47:04):
this thing, this bomb with this yield, how it would
affect the world. So if you look at the map now,
you'll see, just from that screen cap that we wanted
to see, what happened if the Poseidon somehow was deployed
in New York, the fallout goes clear to the Gulf Coast.
(47:29):
Holy from Wow that rain, Yeah, oh I see, So
it's yeah, because of all the water, it's probably like
I see, yeah, radioactive rain and fallout essentially, Yeah, that's
that's pretty messed up. It also irradiates the water. So
we're talking if this thing was ever used, it would,
(47:50):
according to multiple breathless headlines, create radioactive tsunami. This isn't
technically true unless the payload is far more just destructive
than imagined. Ben. That's from the star bomba the largest bomb. Yeah, yeah,
and that's that's I apologize I had to walk away
(48:10):
for one second for my family, but it was that's
that's the yield of these poseidon like um torpedoes. Yeah,
it's uh, they're they're believed to we don't know everything
about them. They're one of six super weapons that were
proposed by the Russian administration in Uh. This Poseidon is
(48:32):
what's called a cobalt bomb, and you know, it's there's
a tragic story here. There's always a tragic story when
you talked about nuclear weaponry and physicists. But the physicists
who first proposed the idea of a cobalt bomb was
not to have it built. Leo Sziszlard, I believe, literally said, look,
(48:53):
I'm not showing you all that this is possible because
anyone should build one. I'm showing you that we're getting
to the point where nuclear technology can quite literally end
human life on Earth. This should be considered a doomsday device.
And then, you know, shout out to that great Mitchell
and Web sketch about the inventor who keeps trying to
(49:16):
make peaceful weapons of war. The problem here is that
these sorts of weapons, they don't respect international boundaries, you
know what I mean, They don't go through customs. If
you if you fire this at a naval base, it's
not going to stop at the perimeter of the naval base.
(49:37):
This will have real and lasting implications. We're talking about
the nuclear equivalent of so in the earth with salt.
It will render large swaths of any shoreline nearby unlivable.
So what this means, first off, is that it's scary
to imagine the situation where the Russian government I decide
(50:01):
to deploy this weaponry. It also means I'm gonna sneak
one other thing in here before we close. It also
means that it's a perfect toy for Vladimir Putin's administration
because he just signed that law I told you guys
about a few months ago where he could be president forever.
(50:26):
I thought you refer to you. Yeah, oh sorry, any
Russian president. It's just any Russian president. We know it. Yeah,
we know what you are up to, Vladimir. So this
this means that he quite possibly if no health conditions
or assassins or accidents across his path he could become
(50:47):
the longest the ruler in office for the longest time
since Joseph Stalin. So there's not so it's a little
more difficult to imagine something that would disincentivize him. Like
if domestic Russian opinion said, hey, don't put out this bomb. Uh,
(51:07):
then he could say, well, so what are you gonna
and what are you gonna? Not elect me? It's very
dangerous for your health, very oh man. Yeah, this sounds
terrifying all around. Ben, Yeah, which is a shame because
I still really want to ride on that icebreaker. And
this is where I want to pass the past the torch,
(51:29):
to pass the question to you are fellow listeners in
the audience, what do you think the future of the
Arctic will be? What direction do you see things going
in here? The what what's the long term goal of Russia?
What should the long term goal of the rest of
the world be? And is losing the North Pole in
(51:53):
the ice there is it worth gaining this trade route
over the long long term? I would argue probably not.
But again, as our previous story showed, Uh, we're not
you know, we're not expert economists, so want to hear
your view. Also have you built, uh, cocaine submarine? Let
(52:14):
us know, have you what's your opinion on national debt?
And don't want to add to that end really quickly.
If you are interested in the minutia of that national debt,
there's a really cool active graphical site called US debt
clock dot org. Not only shows you the tick tick
ticking up of that national debt, but it shows you
(52:35):
all these other amazing stats. Uh. And you can tell
which ones are in the positive or the negative by
whether they're green or red. Um. But it gets shows
you like, you know, the medium income, medium debt, you
know of of the citizen or taxpayer, etcetera. And all
of it's active and tied to you know, um stats
that are that are constantly updating in real time. So
(52:55):
it's it's really interesting but also kind of terrifying, but
hopefully a little less terrifying after our conversation today. And
if you'd like to learn more about the ins and
outs of Russia in the Arctic, which I am telling you, folks,
it's an important story that should be more widely reported
at the moment. Uh, please do check out some works
(53:15):
by the Carnegie Endowment. Uh. Please do also check out
some of the excellent reporting over at Herrets and The
Guardian as well. Thanks as always for tuning in. We
cannot wait to hear from you. You can write to us,
you can call us, you can contact us any number
of ways, and you might just end up on our
(53:37):
weekly Listener male segment. That sounds like a deal. You say,
I want to do that before a nuclear torpedo destroys
my country. How do I get in contact with you? Well,
we try to be very easy to find online. Yeah,
the Internet, so it's a wild and wooly place. Um,
but we're on there in multiple locations. You can find
this on Facebook and Twitter where we are conspiracy stuff,
(53:59):
can bearcy stuff show on Instagram. Um, why not join
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy to get
in on the conversation in real time, just like that
National Debt Clock website. The National Debt Clock, I believe
is brought to us by the Durst family, the one
in New York City, Yeah, Manhattan, the Durst of the
how does how does Oliver put it? The murder bathroom
murder Dirstys or something like that. It's pretty funny, but yeah,
(54:22):
it's it's a thing. Um and it's you know, and
it makes a nice joke of it not being an
actual clock, because that's not how clocks work. But um, yeah.
And and the company that are the group that was
paid to make that submarine for the first episode we
talked about today, they, according to them, at least, they
had no idea it was going to be used for
those purposes. They thought it was just a special submarine
(54:43):
that latches to the bottoms of you know, ships. It's true,
I had I had no idea, you know. And a
small business owner, you just cash the check and do
the specs, all right, that's right. But yes, as you're saying, well,
you don't have to do that stuff, you can head
on over to our phone number. How do you do that? Well,
you pick up your phone, you dial this number one
eight three three S T D W y T K.
(55:06):
Wait for Ben. He'll tell you what to do. Then
you've got three minutes. Tell us the name you'd like
for us to call you, whether or not we can
use your message on air. Leave your message then if
you want to say anything at the end, just for us,
please put it there. If you need to go over
three minutes for any reason, we recommend instead of leaving
multiple messages, send all that good info to us via email.
(55:28):
You can always reach us. We are conspiracy at i
heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to
(55:53):
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