About 20 percent of all the biggest companies uh not only in America but also the world Schwab has said again and again that ESG will come become the standard thanks to Blackrock uh and similar companies leviathans we need to be asking ourselves right now some important questions what do we believe in
What do we want our future to look like are we a collective or does the individual still have are they still sovereign how did such a small group of investors Elites CEOs gain control of our society why do they actively push division how and why have they used politics to
Achieve this goal today’s guest has ruffled a lot of feathers and inspired a lot of people by giving us some answers to these questions you want to talk about David and Goliath he is going face to face with the three largest financial asset firms in the world which handle
Tens of trillions of dollars he is by all accounts an elite he has degrees from Yale and Harvard high level experience in big Tech biotechnology big Pharma and on his resume three little letters appear over and over again CEO and all before the age of 37. now unlike
Most Elites he doesn’t make an annual trip to certain Gathering of Elites in a certain town in Switzerland he doesn’t post videos of himself kneeling or performing instead he exposes his first book woke Inc inside America’s corporate inside a corporate America’s social justice scam is an attack on the woke
Industrial complex and you will understand what’s happening if you read that book just a month ago he took things a little step further by opening his own asset Financial firm it’s strive I want you to know in full disclosure I invited him this is not because strive
Is a sponsor of the blaze I truly like him and have been inspired by him and I thought his voice was needed to be heard but I just wanted to disclose that strive is put together to complete to compete with BlackRock and Vanguard and State Street which he refers to as an
Ideological cartel he wants you to know what’s really happening in the corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street today on the Glenn Beck podcast the vake ramaswamy Americans are super tired of being frustrated by a stalling economy inflation disintegration of trusted institutions the countries going in the wrong direction and millions of people
Feel helpless to make a difference today’s podcast is all about that you are not small or inconsequential and you can make a difference there are companies in a in a new sort of almost parallel economy that still believe in America and our Constitution and our future and when we stick together
Greatness follows Patriot mobile America’s only Christian conservative cell phone company is on the front lines fighting for the sanctity of Life religious freedom freedom of speech freedom to think and speak also the Second Amendment they also have broad Nationwide coverage through multiple major networks that give you crystal
Clear coverage minus the woke propaganda supported by the major carriers I want you to switch today support the people who are supporting you and giving you great service and saving you money patriotmobile.com back call 972 Patriot they have plans for any budget and their us-based customer service team is ready
To help veterans and First Responders are going to save even more so make the switch today use the offer code backing it free activation it’s patriotmobile.com BEC patriotmobile.com back 972 Patriot Thank you welcome good to be here yeah good to have you um I want to start with I’ve got so many things we could probably run three hours on this podcast um but I want to start with ESG and I’ve written a book on about it you’ve written a book about it
Um so we obviously have it but I meet people all the time I was just with a bunch of uh politicians uh the Senate and the house of one of the states um I met with them just yesterday spent the day and it’s weird people either get it and know it and
They get it deeply they’re kind of go down a rabbit hole uh the second response is uh uh they’ve not heard it and they’re a little horrified by it the third is the most amazing the one where they roll your their eyes and they’re like this is such a
Ridiculous thing that’s not what this is let’s take it from the beginning yeah if you’ve just heard ESG but you don’t know what it is what is it and you know that that response I get that third response sometimes too Glennon so one of the things I’d like to do is actually let’s
Just start with the well-intentioned version of it all right let’s just talk about it in in the best intentioned version as a proponent of ESG let’s talk about what it is and then we can see some of the other things sure so the ESG movement stakeholder capitalism that
Whole genre was based on the idea that we have shared Global challenges like Global inequity like global climate change that governments aren’t sufficiently addressing and so it’s going to require actors in the public sector and the private sector to work together to address these challenges that politicians have failed to address
And if we don’t address them we have existential challenges for the planet we have existential challenges for inequity and if nobody steps up then ultimately we all fail in the end this isn’t my view but I’m just stating the view of proportions of stakeholder capitalism the world economic Forum the Klaus
Schwab view the Larry Fink view that’s what the heart of it is and I and I think this is something I’ve talked about for a long time I don’t believe in basic you know basic minimum income however I mean try saying this and conservative radio I’ve said for 10
Years you don’t understand what’s coming just because of tech okay we are going to have possibly 30 percent unemployment at some point right as it all transitions what are we gonna do if you don’t like that what are you gonna do but no one’s having a an open discussion exactly
Let’s open up the channel so I say you know what even if I don’t agree with you let’s give the best statement of the other view let’s get on the table and then let’s talk about what’s wrong with you all right so Milton Friedman you
Know our guys you know like 50 years ago said that okay we don’t want private companies being co-opted into doing the governmental work of solving these societal challenges because it’s going to make companies less effective it’s going to make companies less effective at making widgets that means they’re
Going to be less profitable that means they’re going to make less money if companies make less money then Society becomes poorer as a whole because the economic pie shrinks yep so that was Milton Friedman’s critique I agree with much of that I agree with most of that actually
My issue with this whole Trend I think it’s more similar to your issue is the inverse of that it’s not that I worry that this just sucks the lifeblood out of capitalism when you tell capitalists that they have to take care of these environmental or social or cultural concerns
It’s that you actually suck the lifeblood out of a democracy because these are questions that whether you’re on the left or right these are important questions to talk about in the open how do we address historical inequities how do we address if shared global climate change is a challenge that deserves a
Dressing if it’s true then it actually is so fundamental that we ought to be talking about it in the open as Citizens and when we delegate that work to a small group of Elites who just make the answers to those questions behind closed doors we actually suck the air out of a
Democracy where you’re supposed to settle those questions but through free speech and open debate in the public schools that’s my problem with it you’re also not only not sucking the air out of it you are also um creating the people okay that will lose the ability to ask logical questions oh yeah
You know what I mean you won’t be able to reason anymore you won’t be able to to stand back because you will have no models of someone saying no wait a minute wait a minute that doesn’t make sense to me and can can logically think things through you have to model that
And the reason you lose it you’re absolutely right about that the reason you lose it is that when you use economic Force to settle these questions say the everyday workers at these companies if they don’t adhere to the social Orthodoxy to the ESG agenda that’s been pushed down their throats
You’re at risk of losing your job you’re at risk of getting fired you’re at risk of being denied a promotion and I think that when you force people to actually have faced the economic sword for speaking their mind openly then you’re left with a country where people have to
Choose between the First Amendment and between the American dream and that’s what perpetuates this new Culture of Fear in the private sector where we lose our ability to debate questions of let’s just say take one issue racial Injustice or another issue global climate change I mean those are two of the big issues
Pushed by the ESG movement the E is all about the climate change agenda the S is all about the Dei and racial Equity agenda but if that’s being pushed through economic Force effectively the kind of thing the government used to be concerned about but now it’s private companies pushing those same agendas
Using Capital to do it if you’re an everyday citizen you might be at risk of losing your job or putting food on the dinner table if you don’t bend the knee to that new Orthodoxy and so that’s where you get to this place where we can’t even talk about these issues in
The open because you have an economic sword that’s ultimately hanging over your head if you defect from the main Orthodox I think that’s the main problem is it is it fair to say that um ESG is just the codification of cancel culture yeah it really is it’s it’s applying
Economic Force to the culture that we call cancel culture okay cancel culture is basically a question is is as culture the way I Define it is a culture that settles political and social disagreements not through free speech and open debate correct but through Force I personally think a Democratic
Society a Democratic Republic is a society that settles its disagreements through free speech and open debate cancel culture calls for the opposite Viewpoint that says that these questions should not be settled in the open through free speech and open debate we should use Force including economic Force to settle that question ESG what
That does is it directs the flow of capital to abide by one end of the political spectrum’s views that’s one form of force capital is a form of force as you say money doesn’t talk it screams well at the end of the day they’re screaming with money on behalf of one
End of the political spectrum’s views that’s what the ESG movement represents today so I want to just I want to stay first at the building blocks of what it is so people understand um so let’s talk about uh for instance why gas prices truly are so high they’re
Blamed on uh the war in Russia on Putin uh on on just average inflation and the President says he’s doing everything he can and I don’t make this about politics I want to make this about what the system is that is being built that’s right so it turns out the American
People have a pretty good system of constitutional governance that determines how we hold political leaders accountable okay so if we don’t like the policies passed by the bad Administration we can vote him out if we don’t like the policies passed by Congress we can vote them out that’s the
Way our democratic system works well what the bite Administration has managed to do though is and and not just the body Administration many administrations this is global this is global right this is this is trans International this is transpartisan even right in many ways build back better was the slogan for the
Election for the Japanese prime minister for Boris Johnson in England all over the world totally so this is this is I think this is a U.S issue but what they’ve realized is that you know what the political process is inconvenient democracy is inconvenient because the people may not let us get done the
Things we need to get done so what we’re going to do is to delegate that work to the private sector instead you know the green New Deal we could never get that passed through Congress ah here’s a different idea let’s instead have people sign the climate pledge instead so
That’s what John Kerry has done he’s the self-appointed climate changes are in the U.S government he’s gone to many of the major Banks across the country and have them sign the climate pledge which says that okay it’s legal to drill for more oil in places like the Arctic
Circle Arctic drilling is legal and we couldn’t pass a law that banned it because there’s this inconvenient thing called political accountability they vote us out of office we did that but here’s what you can do you can sign a pledge as a bank just to say that you
Won’t lend to any of those projects and then you get every major Bank to sign that and you get to an entire Alaskan drilling crisis where people actually have great natural resources that companies can’t drill into because they can’t be financed because every major financial institution has signed that
Climate pledge and the obvious point to make is these are not charitable institutions right banks are self-interested institutions so what are they getting in return for the question of signing that climate pledge they didn’t do it voluntarily it’s a new form of crony capitalism where instead of crony capitalism 1.0 before the 08
Financial crisis I got my first job in finance in New York City before the 08 crisis I mean I’ve seen how this game is played that’s private sector actors effectively bribing government officials to gain competitive favors this is the reverse it’s government actors effectively bribing private actors correct to do
Through the back door what they couldn’t get done through the front door through a constitutional Democratic process so I know the answer to this but I want you to make it very clear here because what people will say to me is this the private sector those Banks can do
Whatever they want to do we’re for a free market they’re making the choices individual Banks yes so this is this is the so in order to really understand this we’re talking about the building blocks here I think we’ve got to go back to the 2008 financial crisis okay I
Think that’s when a lot of this began where they’ve duped both liberals and conservatives in submission with their own slogans so what happened after the 08 financial crisis was that Occupy Wall Street was on wall Street’s doorstep okay and if you’re Wall Street you don’t like Occupy Wall Street very much you
Know take money money from those wealthy corporate fat cats and redistribute it to poor people to help poor people agree or not that’s what the old left had to say okay but right around that time was the birth of this new ESG movement the new three-letter acronym movement broadly Dei CSR Corporate social
Responsibility ESG environmental social governance and right around that time what Wall Street said was okay you know what we can get on board with that that’s a little easier we get appoint some token minorities to our boards we can Muse about the racially disparate impact of climate change we’ll
Talk about systemic racism all you want don’t talk about systemic Financial Risk effectively to the new left we expect you look the other way as long as you leave us alone with the old Occupy Wall Street left getting defanged so the way they defend the old left was to say that
You know what we will use our corporate power to advance your agendas even more effectively than governments advancing your agendas but we don’t do it for free we effectively expect that you look the other way when it comes to leaving our corporate power intact which is the
Thing you wanted to attack now that’s how they dupe the left the way they do the right though is they said that you know what you guys have always been in favor of big business you’ve always been in favor of the free market these are just private companies making decisions that
You all have supported all along so that’s how both sides got duped into submission liberals forgot their skepticism of corporate power because they loved the causes that these corporations and including Wall Street and financial institutions were pushing but conservatives were duped into submission because they were told well
You know the free market can do it wrong we memorized that back in 1980 and so so that was the new rise of this new I would say hybrid monster of government power and state power that was far more powerful than you so that happened with Occupy Wall Street and the corporations but
Um here’s an answer I don’t have uh how where did the government come in because it all of this money remember they were too big to fail which leads you to say okay so they’re going to punish the big Banks break them up into smaller entities but they didn’t they
Made those corporations larger and gave them bigger teeth to eat us with but with strings attached and the strings attached are okay this does not come for free you’re effectively going to get done what government could not get done because the people would have never allowed the government to do it with the
Backstop of their vote you guys in the private sector are not backstopped by a vote so you can get done what we never could have gotten done politically so that’s the birth of this story well it has been a remarkable summer a time to celebrate Roe versus Wade being overturned
Um and it has been a long schlog but it’s not over in fact the fight is getting nastier Roe versus Wade was responsible for the slaughter of over 63 million babies but now decision to abort the child will be left in the hands of states and abortion is going to continue
In probably half the states at least liberal states over the past 16 years preborn has positioned their clinics in the top abortion cities where 50 percent of abortions take place well those cities are usually in uh those those big blue States and uh those states are now
Trying to put them out of business and they are being targeted not only by the state but also by radical groups preborn’s work of saving babies is a sacred uh a sacred Journey for these people their fight to plan a fight Planned Parenthood and and then to defend their own centers from the
Radical hate groups this is something they feel called on to do and they are not afraid and they are in business but we really need your help pro-lifers would you consider a gift to this remarkable group an organization that is on the actual front lines ten dollars fifty a hundred a thousand
Whatever you have could be a dollar all gifts are tax deductible and will go towards saving babies lives and helping keep pre-born centers safe so they can continue their life-saving work to donate just dial pound 250 pound 250 say the key word baby Pound 250 keyword baby or go to preborn.com Glenn
I know somebody who is in the basement of the FED uh with Paulson uh the week before it was a it was a Sunday night uh when they first laid tarp out and he was with a bank that didn’t need the bailout and he said we’re not going to take it
He was the CFO we don’t need it and uh Paulson said to him you don’t understand you’re all taking this this is an offer you can’t refuse it’s a Godfather’s stuff no one he said it was it was like the mob no one is leaving this room
Until every signature in this room is on this document and I personally believe we are still paying for the sins by the way under Republican Administration we’re paying for those sins today because that began this new merger of effectively government power and quote was breaking the free what did George
Bush say we have to violate the free market to save the free market yeah that’s right that’s right well in the Avatar it says what that’s created is a new situation where actually we have to save capitalism from this new corporatist monster that’s actually a the true capitalism is long forgotten
And this idea that what we see today is the free market is an illusion and as soon as I often say the free market cannot fix what it is not free to fix it’s not free to fix it if government is effectively granting competitive favors now to firms like BlackRock right look
At how many BlackRock alumni staff the Biden Administration look at who gets to administer the covid-19 stimulus packages and get charged a fee for doing it so the two places we’re seeing this most are both on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley and in both places the
Name of the game is that government is using private parties to do its dirty work to do through the back door what government could not get done through the front door under the constitution in Silicon Valley it’s censorship of content yeah censoring content First Amendment we just saw that this week
Right what happened to Alex Berenson you’re effectively seeing government directing private actors to take down constitutionally protected speech that government could not take down on its own yes because the founding fathers never imagined a fourth branch of government outside the system of checks and balances that’s Silicon Valley and
Then with large asset managers and with large financial institutions what you’re seeing is using the power of capital Flows In The Name Of ESG to be able to implement through economic Force policies on everyday Americans that as voters most of those everyday Americans would have never accepted but they’re
Told that it’s just the free market delivering that when it’s not the Invisible Hand of the market it is the invisible fist of government effectively guiding those outcomes and and so it’s the charade that I think bothers me the most where if everyday Americans can see what’s going on with Clear Eyes they
Would never tolerate it but each side is duped into submission by the slogans they themselves have memorized liberals have totally been lulled into submission forgetting about citizens united in 2010 they were skeptical about the aggregation of Corporations influencing our politics right whatever happened to that well you know if they’re really
Advancing diversity Equity inclusion and fighting shared challenges like global climate change maybe I am okay with them having that much power but but conservatives are even more frustrating to me reciting these slogans we memorized in 1980 it’s like Dorothy might have said a Toto it’s not 1980
Anymore right but we don’t actually have a free market don’t you think that that is changing with the younger um conservatives if you will um they understand the world has changed I meet older conservatives especially Republicans and they’ll be the first to recite that crap to you and I think
People who are thinking or young so they haven’t been you know cemented into that mindset um I know I I’m I’m a completely different conservative than I was 25 years ago because I used to be yeah you know what I don’t want to be the world’s
Policeman but send them in now I’m like not even don’t ever do that it’s the worst thing we learn you learn right yeah and I used to look at things like Blade Runner and go oh the corporations after him and I used to think that could never happen
You know the corporation is just you know the government well we are that now that’s where we are and and it’s so frustrating to me that our side doesn’t get it my side doesn’t get it and then the the left you cared about Freedom exactly you used
To you you used to do this and and so that’s that’s the way I think that it’s this new cynical force that actually is just about the aggregation of power it’s in my my last book what I call the woke industrial complex doesn’t matter what
You call it it’s a New Leviathan that is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbs envisioned for years ago it is far more powerful than what our founding fathers envisioned but its main goal isn’t even to advance a particular agenda it is the aggregation of power to ultimately make
Decisions for how to settle societal questions as a whole right and we fought a revolution in this country in 1776. this is what’s at stake today I think is we fought a revolution in 1776 not between Republicans and Democrats but between a system of citizens engaging in self-governance For Better or For Worse
Sometimes we might together make the wrong decisions yeah sometimes we might better make the right decisions but at least we know we live in a society where we make those decisions together where everyone’s voice and vote counts equally in settling those political questions period that was Evolution we found 1776
And as long as you’re not trying to force anybody else you’re able to live the opposite decision oops exactly I don’t want to be part of that yeah it’s part of what it meant to live in a free country which was different than all the World Europe which said that you know
For a better or worse that we will get to the right answers with a small group of enlightened Elites deciding behind closed doors what the best model is for the rest of society at Large labor leaders Business Leaders church leaders and and governmental leaders get together behind closed doors and they
Decide what’s right for everybody else at large neighbor also accepts that I’m not for I mean you and I believe red white and blue okay so we’re on the American side of this so be it but as I’m describing it here I’m not saying one of those
Systems is better or worse than the other system but in 1776 we fought a revolution here on this side of the ocean right saying that we reject that old world European model and we accept the model of self-governance of citizens counting equally in their voice in determining how our society is shaped
Right that is what is at issue today in the year 2022 it is not Republican versus Democrat it is not a black versus white issue it is a fundamental question of the self-governance of citizens where everyone’s voice and vote counts equally is that the society we want and you know
What maybe we will get to the right answer and maybe we won’t get to the right answer of what that means for carbon emissions but you know what we live in a society where everyone’s voice and vote counts equally and that we’re free to live in the way that we want
Because that’s the society we chose it’s society that I want to live in a society that our founding fathers created for us 250 years later or do we go back to the monarchical society where a small group of self-appointed enlightened I use enlightened in air quotes here enlightened Elites decide and settle the
Answers to those questions at large and use the flow of capital to enforce that Orthodoxy on the rest of society that’s the issue that was at stake in 1776 I think is the is the very issue that’s reared its head again today in the 20 teens all the way into 2022 and that’s
What I think Republicans and Democrats both would do well to wake up to so um I just I I don’t know if you know this about me but I collect American history and I am trying to preserve it and protect it from just being erased I just recently announced kind of the American
Story really um I just uh bought an Enigma machine and that’s from obviously Nazi Germany and that was that gave us artificial Intel the idea of artificial intelligence and computers uh and we move forward and then we got the the time bomb and Eisenhower gave his farewell speech and he said he warned
Against the the industrial the military industrial complex but he also warned against the educational industrial uh oh yeah yeah that’s actually good memory yeah yeah and so that I think is the model of where we start to where this problem comes from is at that point he said this is such a
Big problem and it can happen in 18 minutes to have a missile fly to the other side we have to fundamentally change but people have to pay attention or it will get out of control well we didn’t pay attention and now I think the nuclear weapon that they’re trying to protect us
From in air quotes is not climate change it is AI it is digitization they know the world is going to change so much they know that everything it will happen so rapidly that they believe that this old system of a republican democracy is too slow to address it and
Fix it and we’re not capable of making decisions for ourselves you know what I mean exactly I think you’re right about that you’re doing a good job of airing what I think is the authentic concern on the other side pushing this agenda and my side too I’m concerned about those
Things exactly so we ought to be we’re going to be talking about it I think I think the the funny thing is if you look through the Arc of History every time this debate has presented itself the dangers of self-governance in a Republican or Democratic form of governance right seemed every bit as
Clear and present in Old World Europe as they do today every time people think they’re reliving a moment because it’s where this is the first time which is probably is actually different today that this time is different right it turns out people have felt that way
Every time along the way every time you know what I say For Better or Worse are are citizens in a Democratic Society going to get it wrong sometimes if they’re free to make their own decisions if they each get the vote to be able to absolutely that’s true you know what you
Learn exactly yeah you learn from those mistakes and you get better and you encounter hardships but guess what hardship isn’t the same thing as victimhood especially if you were the person who gave yourself that hardship you can learn from it and strengthen yourself from it individuals and as a
Society that’s where I come out but that’s not unique to today today it’s AI before it was the telephone another day before it was it was transatlantic travel whatever all the way from to Elvis you know was going to rot our culture I mean it’s it’s it’s over and
Over Oregon and that’s where principles come into play Do You Believe In the individual and if the individual is Paramount and sacred and Sovereign then you cannot make decisions for the collective that’s right you have to have the individual and we’re not we are not addressing any of the core issues that
Are real true concerns and I don’t think that technology or digitization or AI changes that fundamental question the question about human nature it makes it more of a more human history it accentuate makes it more important in this moment but we shouldn’t take exception to the view that we would have
Taken 100 years ago or that we would have taken a thousand years ago but the nature of of human agency that’s the question right now listening to this podcast as the sun climbs High into the morning Sky there’s a guy in Texas checking his fourth or fifth oil rig of the day
Making sure the Machinery is in proper working order you know just in case they start him up again and feeling that sun be down on his neck thousand miles away in Iowa there’s a farmer his wife is out digging in the garden she’s planted behind the house she’s pulling bright red tomatoes right
Off the vine and over in Florida there’s a guy walking the uncrowded morning beaches waving a metal detector in search of treasures unknown what do all of these people have in common they’re Americans well beyond that they’re also walking around in really comfortable American-made socks you know
It’s really amazing when you know how the um industry starts to work when you look at socks you think that’s easy it’s not easy to make them in America Lost Art lost machinery these socks are made here in America grip six and if you want socks it’ll
Keep your feet cool in the summer warm in the winter socks made with the latest in Wool technology and made right here in the U.S you don’t have to look any further than grip six I wear them I enjoy them I think you will too put your
Trust in hard-earned money in a company that does it here in America grip6.com that’s grip6.com Beck the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are called old outdated Dusty documents that related to a different era no because they are principles exactly they’re Universal Eternal principles now maybe the document the Constitution
Um needs to be updated because we live in a new world where no one saw the government the branches seeding all of their power to one branch nobody saw corporate never in history did we ever think a corporation could be more powerful than the most powerful country on Earth
So we didn’t see that that document is not made for a group of people who are nefarious that’s right who and an uninformed or detached uh electorate that um that will stand for a government making end runs because all of this stuff is just an Enderman your privacy
Fourth Amendment can’t do it but Facebook can that’s right I like I like your your uh approach to looking at history to sort of remove ourselves from the current moment to remind ourselves of some of these principles so there was actually I’ll give you a couple cases that have
Nothing to do with the moment we’re in but that just ring all the way true to Echo into the moment we’re in today but sometimes when people remove themselves from the present they can see things more clearly so let’s take it you brought up the Fourth Amendment so there
Was actually a case um I’m gonna remember the name I think might have been called Hansen but it was it was case involving the the drug searches okay so they were on drugs the government wanted to at random search people and to be able to see people if
They had drugs on them or not then after all we had a War on Drugs that we had to fight unfortunately there’s this pesky thing called the fourth amendment that stopped him from doing it so what they did was they they passed a law for the railroads of this country that said that
You know what we’re not gonna as the government come on to your rail cars and search people randomly as to whether or not they’re carrying drugs what we’ll do is we’ll just pass a really simple law that gives you immunity from any liability you can’t be sued in state
Courts or anything else if you the railroad operators search your passengers and search your workers all we’re saying is you can’t be sued we’re passing a federal law that says you can’t be sued but but you guys do it that’s the private sector doing it and
You don’t have to do it and you don’t have to do it yeah but but by the way we’re also going to give you some threats through the back door and say yeah we might regulate you a little bit more heavily if you don’t currently take on this shared challenge of Fighting the
War on Drugs the Supreme Court stepped in and said not so fast you can’t use inducements as the government to get private parties to do through the back door what they couldn’t get done through the front door under the Constitution so in a certain sense yeah you’re right that our framers didn’t necessarily
Expect it but they set up a three-part system of government including a supreme court that was interpreting and applying the Constitution that correctly found that you could not use this railroad immunity statute to get railroad companies to do what the government couldn’t do directly I’m sure you see
The ties but section 230 is exactly doing the same thing for technology companies today give me another case this is uh this one was called Bantam Books Okay if I’m remembering the case right it’s Pennsylvania case where there’s a bookstore owner that was selling a book that the local prosecutor
Didn’t like very much so he said I’d like for you to stop selling the book the bookstore owner says no this is my private shop thank you very much I will continue selling the book because I’m a private citizen running my own business so see you later show your clothes door
On your way out prosecutor comes back and says you know what I discovered you did a little something else over here and I’m gonna bring a case against you in fact I’m going to prosecute you unless you take down that book bookstore says okay now you got me takes down the book
Somebody wants to buy the book they said hey bookstore owner you got to sell me the book the bookstore owner says no no I I can’t sell you the book and normally you would say hey that’s the decision of a private party right that’s just the free market well that
That guy took the case all the way to the Supreme Court store buyer or the buyer the buyer yeah yeah so it takes the case and the Supreme Court says actually we’re going to find state action in the bookstore owner’s decision even though the bookstore owner decided not
To sell the book correct actually that wasn’t the bookstore owner deciding it that was the government making that decision because they used a threat to get the private party to do with the private party otherwise wouldn’t have done sorry and sometimes these days we have to make a rhyme to make people
Remember things so my the rhyme I’ve kind of coined on this is if it is State action and disguise then the Constitution still applies it’s pretty simple actually the government can’t use a private party to do through the back door what it can’t do through the front
Door so the good news about those cases when you’re talking about a bookstore owner from the 70s in Pennsylvania or railroad cars were in the War on Drugs this is something that we can take off our partisan jerseys and Republicans Democrats oh yeah no I agree that was definitely the right decision the
Supreme Court made in the railroad case that was definitely the right decision the Supreme Court made in the bookstore owner case well guess what wake up to what’s happening now okay if the government’s making those same threats to a financial institution for not being able to lend to a driller or a fossil
Fuel producer maybe you have the same problem if they’re making threats to a social media company to take down misinformation or hate speech as the government defines it when the private company is ultimately enacting they’re the ones clicking the button correct but if there’s a different Force lurking
Behind the scene maybe wake up and say that it was railroad companies back then it was bookstore companies back then today it’s tech companies and finance companies but the same principles have to apply and so I I just love going through our history where every moment we think we are the first generation
Encountering right a unique challenge presented itself turns out most of our history week we’ve got 2 or 50 years and we got this far we’re still the greatest nation on Earth I think we figured some things out along the way we just have to apply them yeah
We have to apply them we have to have to apply them so um let’s let’s go back to the the basics because we’ve talked a lot about it uh about how the government is uh colluding with industry and they think they’re smart enough to make the decision so we see with global climate
Change they have said fossil fuels and they’ve included nuclear energy for some reason natural gas natural gas um they’ve said we this is not the future and so the governments have all decided that and then because they decided that this is the friendly version of it because they decided that
The uh the banks know well if the governments of the world are saying this then I can’t really give loans to these big energy companies or the car companies unless they’re going in another Direction because I know the laws are going going to be there yeah so
I’m going to give you I’m going to give you an example here Glenn that um you I’m going to excuse you I ask you to excuse me for the complexity of it it’s not actually that complicated but it reveals the charade at the heart of that claim okay because what you’re just
You’re right you nailed it climate risk is investment risk so when BlackRock will say for example is that the reason we’re not investing behind companies that aren’t participating in the green energy transition isn’t because we want to effectuate a social agenda it’s because we’re capitalists and any any
Capitalist worth the salt would know this is the way the world is going that the laws are going to get passed that if companies don’t adapt that way and we don’t use our corporate voting power as a shareholder to make companies behave that way if we don’t cause Exxon and
Chevron to cut oil production then they’re going to go the way of the dodo that’s exactly Larry Fink’s language well there’s a couple problems with that first of all you have to then look at actually blackrock’s own role in driving that government policy yeah look at how
Many of their alumni are in this Administration driving that policy that’s the most obvious critique but but I think I think you dig a layer deeper and you see the farce at the heart of it okay so in order to believe that climate risk is investment risk which by the way
If you if you uh disagree with that in capital markets today you’re a pariah someone was fired from HSBC for giving a presentation that said that climate risk is not a serious investment risk he’s not even denying climate change or anything else he’s just saying climate
Risk is not as big of an investment risk as you said as he was fired okay but wow oh yeah so I talked to him uh you know shortly after that you know I had a conversation see you know to see if he was a good fit for strive but and
Whatever they say he was a guy in the UK so they put him on administrative leave for saying something so Preposterous as making a claim that climate risk may not be a bit as big of an investment risk as people claim it is so that’s the scope
Of where we’ve gotten not not even talking about the climate change issue itself but even denying that it’s an investment risk is the new form of denialism anyway back to the point I was making is that okay that’s what they say is that climate risk is investment risk
Because the laws are going to change and investors need to take that into account and according to Al Gore and Larry Fink you might be violating your fiduciary duty if you don’t take those climate risks into account okay hold that thought those same institutions let’s take BlackRock for example
Are advocating for investments into Chinese companies Larry Fink says China is the possibly greatest growth area for investment over the next decade here’s a fun fact that a lot of people don’t know okay when people buy a share of Alibaba or if tencent these are some of the biggest
Technology companies in the world or Chinese companies and an American buys those shares they think they own Alibaba or 10 cent I’m going to share some facts with you they don’t what they actually own is a Cayman shell company that has the name Alibaba and tencent attached to it that has a
Contractual arrangement with the real Alibaba and tencent to get a share of the profits why is that because there’s a law in China that says that you can’t be a non-chinese person who owns a Chinese technology company or Chinese companies in many other sectors so it’s
Illegal per Chinese law to own that so so what they’ve created is these Cayman shell companies that have an entitlement to a Profit Stream and then they sell them to us investors saying that hey you’re actually buying Alibaba and 10 cent basically and they Market the heck
Out of it why do I bring that why do I bring that question up wow I mean this is this is going to be like I think people could lose a lot of money in the next four years if China invades China One China’s done they’re going to say
That you know we don’t recognize those contracts anymore because they were always illegal under our law which I just done in the meantime is they’re not enforcing that occasionally courts have enforced it actually so when Yahoo tried to get some Acclaim on on an ownership
At of an asset that it had that sat under Alibaba Chinese courts actually said actually your piece of paper is worthless because under Chinese law we don’t recognize foreign owners of these Chinese companies so they do selectively enforce it but most of the time China’s look the other way because they said
Okay let’s keep the party going but two trillion dollars worth of market capitalization in the United States of these Chinese listed stocks could be wiped out now why do I bring that up in the context of the climate discussion we had it shows the hypocrisy where you know what I say
China risk actually is investment risk yeah it’s not that there’s some law that’s going to be passed in the future that these companies might not be aligned with under present law under Chinese law today it is literally illegal for an American to own a Chinese Tech stock and so we’ve created these
Cockamami Phantom Cayman Island vehicles that are what trade on the New York Stock Exchange and yet BlackRock won’t say a word about that which is a clear and present investment risk today China investment risk but make up this myth that climate risk is investment risk even though they don’t say a word about
The China risk today that the laws will change 20 years from now and we’re so sure about that while we ignore the laws that exist today that create those you follow him saying no I absolutely do can I can I kind of shift gears a little bit
On this I just read that China pulled Chinese stocks out of the stock market now is that only tech stocks that this law applies to well this is this is part of a broader Trend so what you probably saw recently was Petro China and cynopek yes agreed to de-list from the New York
Decided to do this from the New York Stock Exchange magically after Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan right probably the best thing she’s done in her life as an elected official if you ask me but anyway what this what this means is that so there this is a long story but
They’re voluntarily delisting now what they’re saying is the reason they’re delisting is because they’re being asked to abide by the same disclosure standards as American companies which for years they got to pass out yes right so so BlackRock this goes back to the Black Rock story BlackRock actually
Quietly lobbied for Chinese companies to have lower listing standards in the United States that was part of the mutual back scratching with the CCP for getting a license to be an asset manager in China which is a great growth opportunity for BlackRock well the US
Has woken up to that and says okay at the end of the day if there’s a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and it’s a Chinese company why should they get a special pass relative to any other company listed on the New York Stock Exchange we’re going to ask you
Over three years to phase in a disclosure regime that matches the U.S standards so what the Chinese companies did is they said that we don’t want to disclose information or have U.S Auditors have the ability to audit the financials of our companies so we’re going to de-list from the New York Stock
Exchange but they also did it at a politically convenient moment where they make the CCP the real Daddy happy because Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan the CCP is not happy about that so Petro China and cynopek you know and the knee to Daddy and say that actually we’re
Going to stick it to the US and say that we’re going to criticize the U.S for requiring these equivalent disclosures of Chinese companies and d-lists so so that’s what we’re starting to see now what I worry about for the just from an American investor perspective is that so
Many investors even in the funds they own will have exposure to these Chinese stocks and every time I say Chinese stocks they put them in air quotes because they’re not in many cases the actual stocks especially for tech companies in certain industries in China where they don’t allow foreign owners
Let’s say they delist what are those pieces of paper going to be worth nothing in China nothing is the answer now in on Good Times when China and the US have good relationships China will say we honor that they’ll look the other way it’s like the equivalent of
Government deciding to not enforce its own rules but the moment that China and the US have geopolitical tension on an issue they care about like Taiwan easy weapon for them to say is actually two trillion dollars of value that traded on the New York Stock Exchange or traded in
American markets we’re just going to wipe out and say what zero because our law all along said that there couldn’t be a foreign owner of a Chinese company and you know the best part about this get to the global aspect of this the WTO at that time mark my words when this
Happens we’ll say that actually technically China’s right the World Trade Organization because you know what we can’t enforce as the WTO a contract that was actually illegal under Chinese law so why are Americans buying up shares of Chinese companies that actually weren’t even shares of the companies but were shares of Cayman
Island corporations that Chinese law didn’t recognize as legal it’s because financial institutions like BlackRock have been pushing it the whole time not at all highlighting those risks well while picking up the figment of imagination of climate risk as investment risk because supposedly the laws are going to change 40 years from
Now that’s how ridiculous the far says so in most parts of the country everybody has gone back to school the kids are out um I’d like to ask you to help do good for kids who are facing hunger and food insecurity and that’s a lot of kids now
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I’m a self-educated guy okay you’ve gone Harvard Yale self-educated guy and you know what I respect the hell out yeah thank you um but I was called an imbecile in 2006 and seven when I was saying none of this stuff that the banks are doing makes any
Sense it will collapse you start to have higher energy prices people will not be able to afford these mortgages that they shouldn’t have had in the first place that’s right and everyone said to me all of the experts because I was living in New York City at the time Glenn you
Don’t understand we have systems for this and I got to the point before the crash of saying to them you don’t understand you over educated arrogant boob all you have to do is have something go wrong with the system that’s right so we have made so many things now you
Every God if I hear this one more time from these educated boobs um where they are saying saying to me Glenn yes the dollar is bad and we’ve got problems with debt and everything else but we’re the best currency out there and I’ve said to them you are building
Your entire life around the fact that you don’t think anyone in the world will say you know what this is going down the crap can we’re already down the crap can we need something new and they’ll do like what the brick countries are doing right now putting together a new Global Reserve currency
Eat you are either an idiot or so arrogant or there is something else going on because everything you were just talking about the China stocks could you know that yep and China we are headed towards confrontation God forbid with China that is going to adding and that is
Investment risk right that is investment risk right so how can you how can you with in good conscience tell American investors that climate risk is investment risk because 20 years from now the laws are going to have to change by the way because we’re the people pushing for those laws to change right
Well look them in the eye and say that we’re going to sell you Chinese Phantom stocks even though we know there’s a collision course coming that could make the value of those zero what’s the reason why I mean a lot of this comes down to incentives right the people at
The top do not have aligned incentives with the people who they’re marketing to at the end of the day the people who they’re in charge of leading their incentives are completely detached from one another even a lot of those Bankers that might have laughed at you in New
York City they’re not dumb okay they knew what they were doing their bonuses get paid out in cash at the end of the year correct okay you put that in a house that they own or you put that into a plane that they own that’s a hard
Asset that even if the stock market crashes afterwards that I still have hard assets that I basically right cashed out right when times were good so I think I think a lot of this starts with just raw incentive failures for the people at the top at the end of the day
BlackRock generates a fee from the assets they manage including in China they only get to generate that fee if they keep the CCP happy they only keep the CCP happy if they shut up about the kinds of risks that the CCP doesn’t want American investors to hear about so so
Half of the story I think comes down to incentives I think the other half of the story though Glenn comes from the everyday citizen over the last 10 years having blinders on and one things I love about as I’ve started more recently since you and I began talking I
Actually listened to your program a lot more now knowledge is power right and I agree with you the empowerment from having your eyes open once you see it you can’t unsee it I know but you have to see it the first time and I think I
Think we got caught up in this cultural moment some as I attribute to sort of my generation millennial generation and younger but I think it’s true of all all generations in America right now where we were so hungry for a cause and purpose and meaning and identity at a moment where
The kinds of things that used to fill that hunger for cause and purpose right pick your favorite one Faith patriotism hard work whatever happened to that family whatever might have given you purpose and meaning we lived in a moment and this is also in the aftermath of the
08 crisis right around that same period with this cultural trend of this country where we have this hunger for purpose that we used to fill with these other things that we lost and so we have this vacuum and we were so hungry for a cause and purpose and meaning and identity
That we latched on to yes whatever it is whatever it was that was presented to us so then you look at the incentives where half the story the guys on the top have an incentive to create the global climate catastrophe or whatever whatever the religious narrative okay is and then
To sell that to you but we were we I mean we as a people latched on to it because there was this vacuum at the heart of an entire generation it is the reason why it’s the reason why I pulled back from the tea party because the tea
Party was becoming not about principles you know if if our side does it then it’s okay don’t pay attention to it that’s wrong that’s right it’s it I agree with you I’ve been on the air television since 2006. I’ve never had an American flag as part
Of my set logo or anything because in 2006 I could see everybody is loving the American flag it’s no longer just a little representation of principles it’s becoming a party and a movement that is a fetish yes yeah and it can’t be about that I I agree with you and I think that
That’s that goes to this human need is one of the things about we were talking about earlier about fundamental human nature were free agents in the world and that’s that’s the beautiful side of our autonomy as individuals and human beings but we also have a Frailty as human
Beings and and one of our frailties is we need to believe in something higher and greater than ourselves it’s any any thinking person through human history recognizes that basic human need we all have and the good news is we have the kinds of things that human beings
Have created to fill that need that are time tested religion I think fits that description I think national identity fits that description but that’s why that’s why there’s Uprising all around the world because national identity yes the loss of nationality Elites say that’s not good that’s hates our
Religion too by the way right but you know exactly so who knows that that allows their new religion to fill that void correct pickerism wokism climate changes them whatever whatever is scientism which isn’t the same thing as science filling that void and so it was this two-part thing going on where they
Had the incentives to do it top down but they had a susceptible population that was vulnerable to being sold this new form of psychological snake oil teaching an entire generation this is the whole birth of what capitalism was this is half the story you teach an entire
Generation that you can fill your moral hunger by going to Ben Jerry’s and ordering a cup of ice cream with a cup of morality on the side without realizing that you don’t really satisfy a moral hunger with fast food we were hungry for more substantial fare but we
Fell for it because we were living in this generational moment where we lacked that sense of cause and purpose and meaning and identity so I think part of this is dismantling a top-down but but the other half of it has to be filling that vacuum with something more
Meaningful that we missed and that’s that’s the way I look at this so is this why we have a lack of you know we as conservatives I want to preserve our history the true history bad and good but I’m not looking to return to that exactly okay I’m looking
To go forward with workable principles that can unite all of us and there is so I am uh I’m an optimistic catastrophist okay I like that description thank you and I I I’m uh I’m a wannabe futurist I look at technology I’m fascinated by it I’m
Thrilled by it but I am also terrified that nobody seems to be looking at the big ethical questions and are talking about them with human beings at this point because it’s just going to be in our face and people just go ah that yeah you know what I mean it’s not good
Um and uh there are these big things that we can look at and say because I’ve said that look your life in 2035 forget about all the ESG and everything else let’s just say that things were sane and the free market ruled okay and the Constitution we had a rule of law
Capitalism and democracy are back right okay you’re the life that is coming through technology is completely unrecognizable from today and that doesn’t have to be a scary thing it’s just the it’s just the Industrial Revolution jam-packed into the next 10 years okay you’re going to
Go from a farmer to living in a city you know that much of a change and it’s exciting I think we can we’ll solve cancer we could solve all these questions that have plagued humankind no one is talking about that in an inspirational uh place I agree with you
Glenn I think that I think that um this is separate than the topics you and I usually talk about what is really interesting to me is so I I would draw a couple rules for the road that prepare us for that future okay when we’re able
To harness the power of and I think at this point inevitable revolution of technology that unlocks both promise and medicine and other spheres of Our Lives from from the daily convenience to the way we’re able to live our daily lives and get more out of a day great but but
Where are the risks so there’s there’s a couple rules of the road that again no one’s talking about but I think we ought to be talking about more one is I think the distinction between kids and adults okay one of the things we’re missing is a generation of fully formed citizens
That are no longer vulnerable to have their their weak points preyed upon by advertisers but also by technology itself so I’m kind of I’m kind of become I could have never imagined these words coming out of my mouth 10 years ago but I’m coming around to the view that you
Know what if we say you can’t smoke a cigarette until you’re 18 years old yeah yeah you probably shouldn’t be able to use addictive social media until you’re 18 years old either now when you’re an adult you’re tuition’s education family institutions that basically create a fully formed citizen that isn’t vulnerable to be
Preyed upon but what social media companies their entire model is built upon the algorithms underlying them is to pray on Psychic insecurities yes that cause you to click on this not this more quickly and that’s what the AI works on is really the Brilliance of modern AI is
In part the ability to gain a window into your soul that I could not possibly have that is sold individual not Collective individual level that you don’t even have to that I don’t even have into my own soul that’s what these algorithms do but I think that if we have fully formed confident
Well acculturated citizens that makes it I think harder problematic it’s just less problematic right and it’ll find the weak spots but it’s an it’s a different it’s a different problem when we’re now starting with an entire generation of kids who have themselves been shaped by the algorithm I’ll tell
You what I mean so it’s not just that the algorithm is better at selling you something or getting addicted to tick tock when a kid sees a tick tock video the way the kid behaves in the real world is informed yes by Tick Tock so
Yes so The Tick Tock world we see online yes becomes the way those kids act out their reality do you remember that is AI working you remember I don’t how old are you I’m 36. okay I’m 37 37. so I remember the early days of MTV and the
The question then was is MTV because they had the little social group remember that is it reflecting the world or is it making the world correct that’s exactly it’s correct it’s a tough question of our time I think that is answered though now you don’t answer now because the algorithms do something
Fundamentally different yes because because TV is a linear medial time but but this does it and it is such an iterative micro real-time millisecond moment that they’re actually shaping those so it’s a rule over the road one anyway you said we should be talking about this I agree with let’s talk about
In the open it is you know some conservative is my chafer this I’m liberals my chief is don’t care I would have chaffed this 10 years ago yeah but I think we got to draw a hard distinction between the way we think about the interface between kids and
Technology and the way we think about the interface between adults and fully formed citizens and Technology because part of it’s living in a free world but even in a free world even when free autonomous citizens we all recognize that a 10 year old is not yet a free autonomous citizen needs to be
Acculturated into society before he’s able to live as a free autonomous Citizen and I don’t think we’re drawing that distinction right now so that’s the first one the second one I think this is really important I mean with the rise of the metaverse okay and Facebook’s rebranding
Itself to meta Etc the rise of the metaverse is we need to be in a position to draw boundaries between the physical universe and the Digital Universe I think the Digital Universe empowers us to live our lives in the physical Universe more effectively more healthfully overcoming cancer overcoming other medical conditions through the
Genomics revolution having the convenience of food delivered to our door if we want it at a time when we would have had to go 30 minutes to be able to get it that’s 30 minutes we can spend doing something else that’s great but I think that where we lose the risk
Is when the boundary between the physical world and the digital world is dissolved that is what the promise of the metaverse is all about is at the end of the day we require this space as a sanctuary from the otherwise ever expanding digital world that we’ve
Created yes so the way I think about this is is we need certain principles rules of the road for the Brave New World we’re entering and so long as we’re able to erect those boundaries the boundaries between the physical world and the digital world the boundaries between adulthood and childhood
Then we are able to at least still be the people who are in charge as the autonomous agents to leverage the power and the promise and the inspiration that comes from that technological Revolution yes we should find the inspiration in it but we can only find the inspiration if
We can ultimately protect ourselves from otherwise the ever expansive force that it would have on our lives and it’s not that hard but we’ve got to be able to talk about it can we go can we go a step further on this but I didn’t plan on talking about any of this
Um can I go could I ask you to consider a step farther on this I am you know they can already just by the way they rank results they can change the way you vote absolutely 80 or 90 change the way you can already do yeah they already do yeah um
Um I I’m one of the only people that I think believes that the third amendment you know about quartering soldiers is like oh that’s old-timey that’s a I think that’s happening right now I think with the government involvement with these big tech companies these tech companies are holding our papers you
Know they’re interesting they’re collecting all of the information much more than a soldier would if they had to be standing there in the house because you would have your guard up yep okay so they’re Gathering all of this information they know what we think they
Know what buttons to push I mean this is really kind of a nefarious thing but it’s already happening at some level it’s interesting I mean I think I’ve thought about this in the context of the first and fourth amendments uh deeply and also in terms of the even article
One and article two in terms of law making and the enforcement has a checks and balances system that you can’t evade by effectively passing those laws I have not yet thought about it in the form of the third amendment in real time just reacting to you I think I find that especially compelling
When you smoke out the lurking State action yes behind the scene of that tech company because then actually it’s not some new problem correct it’s just the old problem correct disguise in modern clothing correct so so in a certain sense what you just described is really
Um it was it was actually an original take but actually you don’t have to be that imaginative no to get there it’s really just hiding in the veneers virtual Soldier if they are in bed it is a state actor it’s not even a virtual it is a soldier right disguised in Virtual
Clothes correct right so so to take that a step further what I’m concerned about I mean we all you know who Edward Bernays was the I don’t okay he was the guy who uh they called it at the time uh in the 1920s or 1910s he was the really
The birth uh he was the father of modern advertising okay when he started it he named it propaganda okay after the second World War they just clearly said all of it is advertising but he went in and how do we deliver subtle messages how do we do
This how do we Bend people here in his words how do we take uh America a country that is is totally centered on needs and make them Center on wants okay now his transition very interesting stuff yeah his his cousin was Freud is that right oh yeah oh wow it runs the
Family oh yeah it’s phenomenal the impact so I gotta I gotta learn about this so I I frequently um yeah I frequently signaled that capitalism would be the perfect system for organizing any society’s Affairs I I describe it as the least imperfect system but I would describe it as the
Perfect system for organizing society’s affairs so long as our wants match our needs yes and to the extent that you’re going to find something wrong with contemporary capitalism it can be explained I would posit 100 percent by the Delta between our wants and needs that daylight is what allows the social media companies
Correct to pick at the fact that if you wanted what you needed there was no Gap space to pick correct but it’s it’s the extent to which our as human beings are once diverged from our needs correct that that you’re able to see the failures of capitalism by creating
Opportunity for someone to pick at the difference and the difference between the two I have a word for that it’s a so it’s a crude or it’s a rough it’s a rough word we call that virtue the difference between our wants and needs and so virtue to me is a precondition for
Capitalism to work it’s not a product of capitalism yes it is a precondition for capitalism to work which just relates to earlier discussion that idea of Faith or patriotism or whatever that was those that’s right out of Adam Smith he really get inside of Adam Smith actually people
Forget the side of Adam Smith and the beauty of it I’ve never read moral sentiments his history delivers us these coincidences in 1776 was the year of both The Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence it wasn’t just one of them both of them are America’s parents and I think that I
Think that you know virtue capitalism without virtue is something that doesn’t become a self-fulfilling Beast that eats itself from within exactly but virtue has a precondition for capitalism that’s what we’re that that’s that’s the missing element it’s the missing shade of is in my next book what it’s called
Kind of the missing shade of red you know David Hume talked about the missing shade of blue it was this experiment for how he would talk about induction and how we were able to learn things from from prior knowledge we have and so he had different shades of colors and his
Experiment was the missing shade of blue I I kind of call it the missing shade of red talking about today’s conservative movement missing this affirmative alternative Vision yes a virtue that’s a shade of red we’re really good at taking a hammer to the poison less good at actually filling that void with
Something more meaningful I just had we’ve gotten to the question on the other we are a week ago days um but I just had a conversation with somebody about that and I I it is the idea that Martin Luther King had you have got to be a disciplined virtuous
Spiritual Being Human yes you have to do that and I talked to these Christians and they’re like yeah but we got to go in and fight we’re like yeah you stand up for his right what’s right but you don’t violate your principles they know what you’re fighting for and not become
An agent there’s no way around that you become deputized as a mercenary for someone else’s battle without even knowing that you got deputies right and so that’s I think and I think this is where this is where I think the conservative movement needs to get to go
From here is it about owning the libs or is it about standing for some sort of thing affirmative Future Vision okay we did the own the libs thing okay and you know I’m in 2024 it says around the courtroom is there a leader who’s going
To step I don’t know I mean it’s not even in politics though it’s just even for our culture and it’s even Beyond conservatism it’s the Revival of an American movement are we going to have are we going to have leaders in different spheres of Our Lives educational cultural political in the
Market who are able to fill that void in that vacuum with something more rich and meaningful that dilutes the poison to irrelevance or are we going to remain obsessed with our addiction to just taking the hammer to the poison one at a time because that’s a game no one’s
Going to win because there’s gonna be a new poison that fills it as soon as we take a whack-a-mole to the old poison instead and that’s what we I say we and myself included yourself included we need to do a better job of that we have forgotten that just because we can
Doesn’t mean we should yeah you know what I mean yeah exactly restraint is part of virtue at times as well yes yes standing up and yet being restrained you know and I think that is actually but but I actually think that is the best way to fight it is you if you’re fighting
Against a bottle if you’re fighting against a bottle of poison you take a jackhammer to it the Poison’s still spilled on the table you might have felt like you defeated it you dilute it to irrelevance with with gallon’s worth of actual what I call virtue but Helen’s worth of actual
Substance of what you affirmatively care about and stand for you dilute the poison but you’re also irrelevance you’re also doing if you hit it with a hammer you will continue to do what the left is doing now that’s right and that’s that’s only making people stronger and smaller you know they’ll
They’ll shut up I want to know who the klansman is on my in my neighborhood you know what I mean I want to know who they are but they’ll they’ll climb up they’ll clam up you were you were so right about that I said so this is my when I Spike
When I speak to left-leaning audiences one of the things I I’ve um tried to be as careful as I can there’s so few people today who are able to speak to audiences outside of their cultures I traveled the country after I wrote woke ink and and you know went to
College campuses went to universities with with left-leaning audiences I don’t care about the politics of it but one of the things that one of the things that I point out is let’s just take a psychological analogy okay any psychologist worth his salt and let’s say there’s a patient who comes in
Who suffers from latent anxiety but but he’s long over it it’s like mostly gone and he’s just coming in for a checkup visit you know a decade later the last thing you want to do as a psychologist is scold him and yell at him don’t be anxious don’t be anxious don’t be
Anxious because you’re going to ultimately take that last burning Ember and throw kerosene on it yep and I think that’s what the left has done in this country to the it’s what you call the superego and Freudian terms yeah throwing kerosene on the last burning embers of say pick your favorite r word
Racism pick your favoritism okay it was quietly just burning at the last time burning embers are just burning itself out you yell at somebody don’t be racist don’t be racist don’t be racist and if you are we’re coming for you you’re just throwing kerosene yes
And creating a new wave of not just the anti-white racism from anti from the anti-racist movement but creating now a new wave of anti-black racism that wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for the Gestapo approach that we took to smoke it out so so what does this mean
For us we can’t fall prey to the same problem in reverse because you inflame the very thing you thought you would extinguishing right you have to fill it with some other more rich and meaningful you have to fill that vote in some some other sense of more rich and meaningful
Purpose and substance that’s what that’s what I’m saying that’s what there’s the lack of leadership who is uh who is going to step up and Elon Musk is the is one of the only people that I know that is doing this that will step up like
John Kennedy and say that’s who we are that’s where we’re going to go and and not through Force but have such yes such an aspirational Vision that we can all go that’s that’s why we won our independence is not because of anything other than we hold these truths to be
Self-evident that’s right that was such and still is such an aspirational goal that had never been uttered before now we just think that’s the way it is when it’s not yeah exactly you know what I’m saying retrospective inspirational who how do we get people to understand we’ve gotta
Start looking forward and that’s why I’m not particularly optimistic about our politics as the mechanism for delivering that leadership I mean we’re so ossified and the system is built such that right now that’s not going to come out of our politics I’m more optimistic in the
Other free spheres of our lives like the Markham you brought it brought Elon Musk you know he he I loved what he was on the cusp of doing and we’ll see how the story ends with respect to Twitter yes now now comes the pragmatist in me okay
You say that yes that’s the way to do this let’s do it by picking places where we can actually deliver victories and then use those victories to deliver more victories something more meaningful that’s galvanizing that gets people to understand we’re doing fulfilling a fundamental human need together and
That’s why I started with the energy sector for example right because elon’s challenge at Twitter is that I don’t really care about the two I mean I do but the Twitter thing he is you’re talking about you know I’m talking about going to Mars
Exactly so where do we need to go and I think the same thing with respect to Innovation and American Energy absolutely nuclear power whatever the case may be now that smokes out so so one of the reasons I like that discussion is it smokes out some of the
Poison that you might not otherwise see because you take the opposition to nuclear energy right now right so so supposedly there’s a climate crisis which needs to have energy sources that we need to sort rely on that don’t emit carbon dioxide in the atmosphere okay we
Can we can debate that until our faces are blue but let’s let’s if we take that as a premise for now okay well great nuclear energy is actually one of the most promising ways to have a sustainable form of energy that’s carbon neutral and yet the very opponents of fossil fuels are many
Of them at least are opponents of nuclear energy so what’s going on there well the problem with nuclear energy and I think it’s worth seeing this because it’s a representative of other discussions we would have too on other subjects but the problem with nuclear energy is that it’s too effective at solving
The energy crisis which means that you can’t load in a bunch of other poisonous agendas in the veneer of solving the energy crisis the energy crisis then you can’t pack in all of those other agencies it’s almost what uh Tesla was told by I think Astor at the time
Wait a minute wait wait wait wait free energy no if I can’t invest unless I can put a meter on it yeah you know what I mean and it’s the same kind of thing if I can’t get my agenda through that’s right that’s right and so that’s that’s but
That’s another side benefit of the model you just laid out which is Let’s Be aspirational and and go together yeah to a share to a shared future that we can all get behind as free citizens if we want to correct but then the people who may not there’s many reasons why people
May not want to go in a given Direction but it smokes out you know those reasons that otherwise we’re hiding by the surface because nuclear energy Oh supposedly we opposed it because it was not effective at solving energy crisis now actually if you look at the facts it
Is the reason to oppose it is that it might be too good at actually failing us from doing the thing that we were going to do by capping fossil fuels which is delivering Equity between the developed world and the developing World which was actually the real agenda which is to say
That actually if we make western Nations stop burning fossil fuels maybe their growth rates will actually taper out and we can even things out so nuclear energy you know still portrays that myth let me ask because I think you can prove it to be right or wrong um about
2007 I remember I was on the air and I don’t remember what we were talking about but I remember having this like light bulb went off and I went wait a minute if you really want to uh you know make sure that there’s Equity then what has
To happen is you you’ve already tried to bring the world up to American Standards and you can do that it’s just going to take a long time if you don’t want to spend all that time you just bring America down that’s right that’s where everybody and that’s what’s happening
That’s exactly this debate right so so that was that was what the goal was disguised as addressing a climate agenda by reducing emissions by disproportionately reducing those emissions by reducing production and utilization in places like the United States but then comes along a different solution like nuclear energy that says
You know what we don’t have to actually do that if we’re actually able to fill our energy needs as well and supplement them through nuclear energy but wait a minute if we do that then we lose our vehicle for advancing the global Equity agenda because that doesn’t bring the
United States or the west down it actually allows them to continue growing and prospering in the way they have that’s the source of some people’s opposition to it now for other people you would say actually you might change their minds and say that actually you know what if that does solve the problem
I will get on board with that yes so that’s that I think that’s the anyway that’s the promise of affirmative Solutions correct is that on one hand you’ll bring along people who you didn’t otherwise wouldn’t have otherwise brought along and you smoke out the hypocrisy at the heart of what was
Really the opposition to the forward-looking agenda in the first place so let me uh let me switch to a a positive solution um and that is what you’ve done with strive and drll explain and uh tell me how it’s going to make a difference yeah I mean this is where I got disillusioned
With politics I say let’s solve these problems through the actual Market itself right so so I found its Drive earlier this year to compete with BlackRock to say that you know what the world’s largest asset managers are using trillions of dollars of other people’s money your money our money the money of
The people who are watching this to invest in American companies but to mandate that those companies adopt social and political agendas that but not only those Americans don’t agree with right not only that but they are taking many people’s retirement funds and then forcing these companies to do
Something that BlackRock will say well you’re probably going to have to take a hit for 10 years but it’s the Future No wait a minute that’s my retirement exactly exactly and and so that that I think is I don’t use this word light limit I think that is the largest
Financial scam of the 21st century it is a fiduciary breach it is a large-scale multi-trillion dollar breach of trust and the problem Glenn is nobody stepped up to the table to solve it so I didn’t think I was going to actually be doing
This I thought I was done I mean I had a successful biotech business it’s a multi-billion dollar company got some drugs approved great I thought I was writing books and moving on to like a different phase of my career after business but then I went around to the asset
Management industry I sat down with CEOs of other large asset managers one of them it was a particularly shameful experience in my in my opinion where I sit down with them and he says that I agree with everything you’re saying I can’t say it publicly because CalPERS in
The state of New York might pull their money and they’re big clients and then I look at his statements and they’re the exact same statements indistinguishable from what Larry Fink would be saying on a given day so it spreads where the market isn’t fixing this for a whole
Bunch of structural reasons you know what I said is okay well if you’re beholden by your legacy clients and by the way they do a lot of business in China too this other asset manager I’m talking about so if you’re doing business in China and China wants you to
Behave in a certain way in California New York demand that you behave a certain way guess what I don’t have those Legacy commitments so let me start a new asset manager and by the way I’m going to call it strive and I’m not going to do business in China because I
Want to actually Serve American clients in their own best interest and I can’t be a fiduciary to you if I have the CC ccp’s boot on my neck and what strive is going to do is going to invest money in those same markets that BlackRock station Vanguard are in the same format
Of funds index funds that just track the market or track a given sector passively managed funds but with a key difference we deliver a mandate as a shareholder this isn’t an ask this isn’t a suggestion this is a mandate as a shareholder that you the companies behave exclusively according to what
Allows you to deliver excellent products and services to your customers over any other agenda social agenda political agenda I don’t care that’s it and you maximize shareholder value that way No Agenda not a right-wing agenda not a left-wing agenda a product focused customer-centric agenda do you believe we have to
Actually demand that from companies now because because of the ESG movements I know choke hold on the economy the irony is what would have been obvious became a contrarian opportunity so so you use um you actually have talked to CEOs of these large energy companies correct
Absolutely and what do they say so so this is why so we started with subscribe as an asset management company with black women we our first fund that we launched on the New York Stock Exchange was a U.S energy fund and I specifically knew this was the right place to start
Because this was the sector most damaged by the demands of the ESG movement so when BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard voted in favor of scope three emissions caps at Chevron which requires Chevron to take responsibility for the fuel emitted by an Amazon Prime truck delivering food to your house chef
Everyone’s board recommended against it when they put the climate activist directors onto exxon’s board exxon’s board had first said no no we don’t want these climate activists on our board but they voted them in favor anyway so what I saw with the with the oil and gas
Sector with the energy sector is these aren’t the employees of Twitter they actually want this new shareholder mandate so it’s not like we’re going to have to bring a shareholder mandate and change the behavior of employees they’re waiting for a white knight to show up and deliver them the post ESG mandate I
Gave a speech to the intercom conference in Denver earlier this month I got a standing ovation at the end of the speech from a room full of oil and gas Executives because they’re hungry for a new shareholder to mandate to behave this way and that was the power
Of what we saw with the launch of drill I mean it was so so do you know drill was the first such fund we listed on the New York Stock Exchange we made it over 100 million dollars in the first week we’re well on track to
Making it past 200 million dollars as of the second week you told me at one point if you could get up to a billion dollars by the I think you said the end of the year it would send some Shock it would send it would turn heads in capital
Markets it would it would send shock waves to the boardrooms of the U.S energy industry because blackrock’s U.S energy Index Fund is actually not as big as you’d expect it’s only about 2.1 billion dollars so if this new first-time asset manager is able to harness the voice of the everyday
Citizen to deliver this new mandate the executives in the energy industry are saying you know what that’s where the puck is going guys that’s how we’re going to behave thank you very much ESG we’ll put that in the rear view mirror and then the beauty of it going one of
The things I loved about our first couple weeks was the average trade size so when when you know the drll trades in New York Stock Exchange the average trade for us was in the first week it was something like less than five thousand dollars compared to the other
ETFs that got to over 100 million dollars in the first week so those are the big ones you know we had over 100 million the first week as well there were like millions of dollars on average by comparison and to me that’s the power of what we can do through the market is
Really this this positive Uprising I mean I mean in the positive sense The Awakening of everyday citizens who are able to say you know what I don’t have to just vote every November I vote every day with my dollars and I can use my own dollars to not only make Industries more
Valuable which hopefully allows all of us to make more money in the long run as an economy but also to deliver the voice that matches my values to Corporate America and my values for many Americans is to tell energy companies to be great energy companies to say that if you’re
An American Oil Company you should drill if you’re an American Gas Company you should Frack you should do whatever allows you to be most successful over the long run without regard to Klaus Schwabs or Larry Fink’s environmentalist agenda or cultural agenda or social agenda and it’s a free country if you
Want to deliver that message with your Capital great you can go to Blackrock you can go somewhere else it’s a free country I’m not saying people shouldn’t be free to do that without own money but for everybody else there wasn’t even an option and I think that’s what we wanted
To bring to the table and I’m optimistic that if we can change the US Energy sector that way we can do it to every sector of the economy and hopefully go beyond partisanship to reawaken the true promise of both American capitalism and American democracy one more thing I just
Want to get a comment from you on this yesterday Saudi Arabia uh uh kind of not good on the es or G just invested about four what was it 450 million dollars uh into BlackRock yeah I saw this I saw this announcement we’re doing black Rockets out here but it’s
Really it’s really interesting to me how it’s sort of ESG for thee and the rest of the world for me right that’s kind of black box man if I’m Saudi Arabia at this point I don’t mind crippling America oh yeah it’s your market share because you need
To supply the market right so so the more of an energy shortage there is if American energy companies aren’t filling the void at Saudi Arabia China and Russia yeah but the good news is Glenn at least as of now I don’t think it’s too late everyday citizens are empowered
To be able to do it and you know is it great for my business or whatever if our ETFs get a lot of money sure but I I there’s better ways to make money and I wasn’t even in the phase of my life where this was a priority for me this is
About actually empowering the voice of the everyday citizen through the market which is going to make I believe a much bigger difference for our culture than our politics and drll is just the first step of that Journey so you are inspiring you really are back at you
Brother I mean thank you for having me today
