Podcasts about Bretton Woods

In Episode 497 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Marieke Flament and Nicolas Colin, co-authors of the Currency of Power newsletter, about why the global financial system may be on the cusp of a structural transformation comparable to the Nixon Shock and the collapse of Bretton Woods, the central role of dollar-backed stablecoins and programmable money in that shift, what China's construction of parallel financial rails means for the future of dollar dominance, and how machine-to-machine commerce and the commodification of compute could reshape the monetary order in ways most policymakers and investors have yet to appreciate. The first hour covers why Flament and Colin believe we are living through the initial phase of a "Great Financial Reset" and the parallels they draw between the present era and the 1970s and early 1980s, when a convergence of geopolitical shocks, financial innovations, and technological revolutions transformed the global economy and capital markets in ways that would have been otherwise unimaginable. They discuss how the maturation of the digital economy is creating conditions for new waves of financial innovation and why dollar-backed stablecoins and programmable money sit at the center of that transformation. The second hour turns to what has made Flament and Colin more cautious about the pace of dollar-denominated stablecoin adoption, including China's decade-long effort to build insulated financial rails and the diminishment of American soft power under the Trump administration. They discuss the dynamics of capital repatriation in Japan and Europe, the prospects for financial repression and capital controls, and the potential for the US military to be used as leverage in negotiations between Tokyo and Washington. The episode closes with a discussion of machine-to-machine commerce and the emerging agentic economy—why existing financial infrastructure is poorly suited for AI agents, how stablecoins could become the default payment layer for autonomous systems, and what that means for dollar dominance in a world where compute replaces oil as the most important economic commodity. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Join our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 09/09/2026

Welcome to the Storm's short-form, news-focused podcast. Don't worry, I will still write newsletters too. To browse a podcast transcript, click the “transcript” button above - click on any block of text and the audio will jump to that point in the conversation. Paid subscribers can leave a comment below - I'll respond to some in the next episode. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism./:The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, which will zoom to any point in the video when you click on the associated text block; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:02.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the Storm! It is September 8th, 2026, and if you are a Storm regular, you are probably wondering what in the heck is going on here.00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:09.000Stuart Winchester: Today, we are launching an all-new format for the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:22.000Stuart Winchester: It is shorter, it is news-focused, it will be more frequent, and it will publish the same day that I record it in just about every instance.00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:23.000Stuart Winchester: So.00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:28.000Stuart Winchester: It's gonna have a lot of different elements. Uh, takes just…00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:31.000Stuart Winchester: on whatever's happening in the news.00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, let's scrap that and let's start again.00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, starting from the top.00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:42.000Stuart Winchester: 3.00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:44.000Stuart Winchester: Q.00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:45.000Stuart Winchester: One.00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:59.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to the Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. It is September 8th, 2026, and I would like to welcome you all to a brand new version of the Storm Skiing Podcast.00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.000Stuart Winchester: So, the long-form podcast…00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:09.000Stuart Winchester: has been the default of the Storm Skiing Podcast since I launched in 2019.00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000Stuart Winchester: Very proud of the Storm Skiing podcast.00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.000Stuart Winchester: We're at episode 227.00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:26.000Stuart Winchester: I have interviewed the leaders of nearly every large ski area in America, and the leaders of most of the large ski companies in America.00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:29.000Stuart Winchester: But something started to feel a little bit off.00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:35.000Stuart Winchester: And, you know, I started to think about the kind of podcasts that I consume.00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:44.000Stuart Winchester: And those are mostly, frankly, around Michigan football, uh, which is my other obsession besides ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-ski-s.00:03:44.000 --> 00:04:02.000Stuart Winchester: tend to be much more news-focused. They tend to be much shorter than the Storm Skiing Podcast. They tend to publish the same day that they record them, and they tend to break down current events. For example, I just went to a Michigan football game.00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:21.000Stuart Winchester: on Saturday in Ann Arbor. If you're even remotely a sports fan, you probably saw the controversial ending to that game when Michigan got an extra second added on, and Bryce Underwood, the quarterback, tossed a Hail Mary to win the game when JJ Buchanan, our transfer receiver, came down with the ball.00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:36.000Stuart Winchester: That's never happened in the history of Michigan football, to have a Hail Mary ending that Michigan wins. So, on the way home, it's a 10-hour drive back to New York, my wife and I listened to all the different Michigan podcasts that were breaking down that moment. And I realized that…00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:54.000Stuart Winchester: as much as I like the Storm Skiing Podcast, and as much as a lot of other people like it, I was not really making the kind of podcast that I actually listen to. And that's a problem, because in our current media environment, people have a lot of choice.00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.000Stuart Winchester: They have a lot of of.00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:13.000Stuart Winchester: different things they can give their attention to, and it's hard to get and keep their attention. So, I want to say right off, I am not killing the long-form storm skiing podcast. It will not end with episode 227. In fact, I have about 5 or 6 in the can that I've been sitting on.00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:30.000Stuart Winchester: for this news, and I will release those soon, and my thanks to the folks who participated in those podcasts for their everlasting patience as I got this together. So, I'm still gonna make the Storm Skiing Podcast. The frequency will go from about 45 a year at its peak.00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:47.000Stuart Winchester: It's probably about a dozen a year or so, and sometimes there will just be a time when the long form is the more appropriate form for telling the story of a mountain. If I have someone new on, for example, so for example, I've never had.00:05:47.000 --> 00:06:02.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the GM or owner of Sierra at Tahoe in California, an important mountain on the podcast. Never had Wolf Creek on the podcast, never had Mount Baker. If I were to get one of those folks, I would want to do a long form, tell the story of the ski area. But it's not always necessary to.00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:18.000Stuart Winchester: Tell the entire story of the ski area and its history and its culture when you just want to talk about a new lift or you just want to talk about the fact that it joined a new pass. So this shorter podcast will be more frequent.00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: It will have different segments, segments with takes when I just talk about what's going on. It will still have interviews, much shorter interviews. Today we have an interview with an awesome guest, Snow Partner CEO Joe Heschen, one of the smartest guys in skiing.00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:45.000Stuart Winchester: But before, Joe and I went on for two hours. This time, we'll be able to condense it down. And then at the end of each episode, my intent.00:06:45.000 --> 00:07:02.000Stuart Winchester: and hope is to have reader interaction, and this will be a feature available only to paid supporters of the Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, and you can upgrade to a paid subscription at stormskiing.com anytime. The podcast will be for everyone, as it's always been.00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:18.000Stuart Winchester: But only paid subscribers will be able to interact with the podcast. And the way that they will be able to do that is that they will be able to write a comment on the article that accompanies the newsletter on stormskiing.com.00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:32.000Stuart Winchester: And the next day, I will read some of those comments and react to them as appropriate. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later and why I'm doing it that way. But for now, I want to assure you.00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: This podcast is going to come to you the same way your podcasts always have. Now, there is a video version. You can watch that on YouTube, will be our primary channel, as well as Substack, which is where the newsletter is published. There will always, always, always be an audio version.00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:58.000Stuart Winchester: And it will always come to the same places that you have always gotten the podcast. If that's Apple, if that's Spotify, there's some that I don't even know.00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: how the podcast got on there, or why it's on there. There's an RSS feed that spits this out from Substack. That will not change. The storm will be… when you go looking for it, you're going to find the storm.00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:13.000Stuart Winchester: So.00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:24.000Stuart Winchester: This is something I'm super excited about because I think it will allow me to have a lot more guests a lot more often.00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:35.000Stuart Winchester: there are so many great minds in skiing right now, and I feel like there's a lot of negative sentiment around skiing and the way it's evolving. There's a lot of talk of a duopoly.00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:39.000Stuart Winchester: But from my point of view.00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: there's not a duopoly in a way that is dominating all consumer choice. And the reason I have that point of view is I'm having conversations every single day with smart people.00:08:54.000 --> 00:09:10.000Stuart Winchester: thinking far ahead and doing great things to change skiing in ways that make skiing better, that make skiing access better. People like Joe Hesham, my guest today, people like Eric Mogenson, who runs the Indy Pass, people like John Schaefer, who runs a handful of mountains.00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:28.000Stuart Winchester: in the East, people like Rick Schmitz, who runs three ski areas in the Midwest. Small ski area operators like Tim Meyer at Caber Fay in Michigan, who we'll talk about a little bit later. So, I'm talking to these people all the time, and I'm seeing the independent ski areas are really, for the most part, doing fine. I'm seeing.00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:33.000Stuart Winchester: Huge investment. I'm seeing huge innovation and.00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: Because of the frequency of the podcast, and because of the laborious nature of turning interviews into written content.00:09:43.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: I don't think that I'm getting that to you in the way that I would like, in, in, in the way that you deserve. I want you to be part of this conversation. I want you to see why I'm so optimistic about skiing right now. I want you to know why I feel that skiing is in its best.00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.000Stuart Winchester: place, historically, that it has ever been, at least in America.00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:10.000Stuart Winchester: Now, it certainly has problems, and we will get into those as well.00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:21.000Stuart Winchester: I don't answer to anyone. I don't answer to the operators. I don't have a boss. I answer to my subscribers, and that's it. The only thing I care about is the truth.00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:28.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and my optimism does not come from any desire to have access or anything else. My… my…00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.000Stuart Winchester: My content and my commitment to the truth.00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:50.000Stuart Winchester: comes from wanting to deliver a great journalistic product. Uh, and there's gonna be opinion and analysis. You're not always going to agree with what I say, and that's good! I wanna remind people that. That's good. If you agree with everything I say, I have no value. I can tell you that all of my guests.00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.000Stuart Winchester: disagree with things I say, but the reason they keep coming back.00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:03.000Stuart Winchester: And the reason that I hope they will keep coming back is because I'm trying to be fair, I'm trying to work within the bounds of the truth, and I'm not…00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: Jumping to these huge accusatory.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:25.000Stuart Winchester: narratives that we see so often with the Mega Passes and with the big consolidators, Vale and Altera. So, I want to give a different perspective, I want to give it more frequently. The newsletter, one more point, the newsletter will stay the same. There will always be written content.00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:34.000Stuart Winchester: I am still a writer with a podcast, not a podcaster with a newsletter, though I kind of have to admit at this point that I am.00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:42.000Stuart Winchester: a podcaster, even though that sounds… I don't know, it sounds a little… pretentious, or juvenile, or uh… like I'm…00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:58.000Stuart Winchester: you know, doing this as a side hustle while I drive for Uber, but… but no, this is my full-time job. The Storm is and has been my full-time job for a couple of years. Now, the reason I want to switch to a news-based podcast is for days like today, because today we have.00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000Stuart Winchester: Huge news.00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.000Stuart Winchester: One of my favorite ski areas.00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:09.000Stuart Winchester: One of the best ski areas in the eastern United States.00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:14.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, depending on your point of view, maybe one of the best ski areas in the United States.00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.000Stuart Winchester: is joining a Malta Mountain Pass for the first time.00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:27.000Stuart Winchester: That is Smuggler's Notch, Vermont. Smuggs is an incredible place.00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:40.000Stuart Winchester: For a lot of reasons. Number one, if you don't live in the East, and you're under the impression that the East is an ice ball, and the vertical drops are short, and the mountains are small.00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:56.000Stuart Winchester: You're wrong. You're just wrong. And there is a snow. There's plenty of big mountains in the east. First of all, there's plenty of good snow pockets in the east. One of the best snow pockets is in northern Vermont, and you have a line of resorts.00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:12.000Stuart Winchester: We call it the spine of the Green Mountains. Starts at Killington Pico, goes up to Sugarbush, which is in Alterra Mountain. Right next door is Mad River Glen, the famous Indy with the single chair. North of that is Bolton Valley, which is on Indy Pass. North of that is Stowe, which is owned by V.00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:23.000Stuart Winchester: On the backside of Stowe is Smuggler's Notch, and then north of that is Jay Peak. Smuggler's Notch joins IndyPass today, and here are the stats.00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:39.000Stuart Winchester: It is a 2610 foot vertical drop that is the fourth tallest in the east. It has one smug says 1060 skiable acres that they claim there's actually more in the woods. If you count the back bowls and some of the secret stashes.00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:54.000Stuart Winchester: Off of the Sterling lift. So that makes it the fourth largest ski area in the east. It is the second snowiest ski area in the east after Jay Peak, which is also an IndyPass partner with 322in of snowfall.00:13:54.000 --> 00:14:10.000Stuart Winchester: On average per winter. Yes, that's a lot. That's those are Vail numbers. Those are Colorado numbers. No, it's not Cottonwoods, but it's deep enough that those ski areas almost always have tree skiing from the beginning.00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:22.000Stuart Winchester: from around Christmas through the end of the season. I've skied Glades at Stowe in April many times. I've done the same at Jay Peak. So, the snow coverage really.00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:38.000Stuart Winchester: comes and it really falls. Mount Mansfield, which is where Stowe is, right next to Smuggs, is the tallest mountain in Vermont, and they have a snow stake there that consistently builds up to around 60 inches or so for the season. So, Smuggs joins Indy Pass.00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:56.000Stuart Winchester: today. It is the… and, and, and, and… No Blackouts on Indie Bass Pass, which goes on sale today to the general public, or actually maybe tomorrow it goes on sale, for… $419.00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:57.000Stuart Winchester: The ND…00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:13.000Stuart Winchester: Plus is 469. So I'll give you a few stats here. So Indy with adding smugs, that is the 43rd Alpine lift serve ski area that Indy has added for the 2026 to 2027.00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:14.000Stuart Winchester: Winter.00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:30.000Stuart Winchester: That gives them a total. Now, my totals are going to be a little different than Indy's because they're counting cross-country ski areas. And I'm leaving those off. And I also count sometimes two ski areas, as one when they're when they're separate entities. But but they share days.00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: So Indy now has 256 ski areas, lift-served alpine downhill ski areas, which get two days each. So they have more than you could possibly use. That includes 148 ski areas in the United States.00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:57.000Stuart Winchester: 32 in Canada, 39 in Europe, and 32 in Japan. You can ski 30% of all ski areas in America on Indy.00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:14.000Stuart Winchester: Now, on the flip side, Indy also had some important losses this winter. They lost, and they're all in the Midwest, and Indy's lost mountains before, and with a roster that big, you're gonna have some turnover. Uh, but the first wave of losses came back.00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:24.000Stuart Winchester: in past release season in March, when the three areas owned by Midwest Family Ski Resorts, some of the best operators in the country, uh, they own Lutzen Mountain in Minnesota.00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:39.000Stuart Winchester: one of the largest ski areas in the Midwest, uh, Granite Peak in Wisconsin, which has 3 high-speed lifts, and Snow River, which is really 2 side-by-side ski areas and a nice snow belt in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They left for Icon Pass.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:53.000Stuart Winchester: Now, there's a little bit of a historical precedent there, because those three ski areas had been on the Max Pass, which had been the immediate predecessor, along with the Rocky Mountain Super Pass, to the Icon Pass. Uh, the…00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:10.000Stuart Winchester: Icon Pass, when it debuted in 2018, left off Snow River, Granite Peak, and Lutzen. And I always thought, well, Snow River wasn't a part of Midwest Family at the time, but I always thought that was a mistake. So I'm not surprised to see them go, but those were big drivers of Indy Pass sales.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:16.000Stuart Winchester: Because those are marquee mountains in the Midwest. They also recently lost…00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:34.000Stuart Winchester: Another three mountains run by another great operator in Wisconsin, Little Switzerland, Crystal Ridge, and Nordic Mountain. Now, these are small ski areas. They're feeder ski areas, but they're important ski areas because Rick is a very smart guy. He's very influential.00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:50.000Stuart Winchester: And he has a lot of influence in the ski business, including being part of the board of directors of the National Skiers Association. Everyone respects him. They also lost Cabar Fay, one of my favorite mountains in Michigan. It was my pseudo-home mountain when I lived in Michigan as a teenager.00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:57.000Stuart Winchester: I have a lot of respect for Tim and Pete Meyer, who run that over there. So, I'll talk a little bit more…00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:10.000Stuart Winchester: about that with Joe, because I think there's going to be some crossover with the snow pass. So, quickly, before we get to our guest, I want to tell you about Profile Search International.00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:15.000Stuart Winchester: A lot of you come to this podcast to hear from the best minds in skiing.00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:20.000Stuart Winchester: But what if you want to find one of these great leaders for your own mountain team?00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:35.000Stuart Winchester: Well, let me introduce you to the folks at Profile Search International. They are the ski industry talent acquisition experts, and are the only executive search and recruitment firm in the world that is 100% focused on the ski industry.00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:48.000Stuart Winchester: They have used their intimate understanding of skiing and related industries and available candidates worldwide to place hundreds of transformational leaders at the best and most progressive ski areas over the past 30 years.00:18:48.000 --> 00:19:04.000Stuart Winchester: With offices in the US and Canada, Profile Search finds and negotiates with the right leaders for your team. You can reach out to them directly at profilesearch.com or contact them by email or phone, or send me a note and I will connect you directly with their expert team.00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:11.000Stuart Winchester: We are joined.00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.000Stuart Winchester: As soon as we get a video.00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:33.000Stuart Winchester: We are joined today by the founder and CEO of Snow Partners, which owns and operates the Mountain Creek Outdoor Ski Area and the Big Snow American Dream Indoor Ski Areas in New Jersey. Snow Partners' terrain-based learning program has been used by more than 80 ski resorts worldwide.00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:50.000Stuart Winchester: And the company has rolled out its SnowCloud all-in-one resort management software with at least 15 clients, including Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Last year, the company launched the Snow Triple Play Pass, which was good for 3 days, total across 16 ski areas in eastern North America.00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:01.000Stuart Winchester: Ahead of Winter 2026-27, Triple Play adds 7 additional mountains, for a total of 23, at a price of $179.00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:18.000Stuart Winchester: Snow Partners has also launched the Snow Pass, which is loaded with two days each at 14 ski areas for $339.99. My guest to break all this down for us today is a good friend of the Storm Skiing Podcast, Joe Heschen. Joe, welcome back to the storm. Always good to track you down.00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:18.000Joe Hession: Thanks.00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:21.000Stuart Winchester: How are you feeling on Snow Pass launch day?00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:36.000Joe Hession: You know, it's launch day for Snow Pass. It's launch day for Mountain Creek Seasons Passes. So winter's in the air. Things are happening. It's really exciting. This is probably my favorite time of year. So thanks for having me on such a special day. Winter's coming.00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.000Stuart Winchester: I'll do it.00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and it's the first day of the new platform for the Storm. So I wanted to get you on first. I'll admit, I want to do a little bit of a flex because I know you're a hard guy to track down and you're doing a lot of cool, interesting things. I want to start with the Snowpass, Joe, because you came on the podcast last year to talk about Snow Triple Play.00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000Stuart Winchester: And your launch, and you were pretty…00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:09.000Stuart Winchester: adamant, you know, this is not a pass. I don't want to do a pass. And, you know, we talked about it a lot, and I probably harassed you about it a little bit, and now we have a pass!00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:01.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:05.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:17.000Stuart Winchester: So, so tell us about that journey. How did, how did we get from TriplePlay to SnowPass, and, and why do you have the two different products?00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:10.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:32.000Joe Hession: Yeah. And, and, you know, you might be very responsible for it because you, you pushed it early on of, you know, why, why would this not be a pass? And, you know, originally we were really following the data and the data we were really focused on was 73% of people ski between one and five days.00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:50.000Joe Hession: the price point for that, and we were looking at the data for Mountain Creek with our triple play, and saying, you know, there's really not a lot of triple plays for multi-resort. That's kind of a cool, unique concept. So we were really stuck on the data. Obviously, we heard feedback from folks like yourself, and also your other… all your listeners and subscribers, and…00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:21:50.000 --> 00:22:05.000Joe Hession: And… but then, it was really our past partners. The people that bought the Triple Play were like, if we had this option, we'd be really happy. They hit us that in our post-survey, they said, we really would like this. Um, and then the resorts. We had great partners on the Triple Play program, and…00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:13.000Joe Hession: they came in and said, we would like this as well. So, you know, the model's been done, and we made the leap to do it. So we're really excited about it.00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:28.000Stuart Winchester: You have a great network to launch, and I think especially if you live in New York Metro, and I want to talk about — I do want to talk about Triple Play, but let's focus on Snowpass for a minute. The three key mountains here are Bel Air, Gore, and Whiteface.00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:43.000Stuart Winchester: These mountains, for those of us who are in the area, we know they're state subsidized. They've gotten a half billion dollars in investment. That's a whole different subject. We're going to leave that alone because the result of that for your pass holders is these are awesome ski areas. Bel Air is essentially a brand new ski area.00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:58.000Stuart Winchester: And if you're in New York Metro, you get two days at Mountain Creek, and you get two days at Big Snow, then there's some little ones. You get up in Connecticut, you have Mount Southington. So you have a really nice network of.00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:10.000Stuart Winchester: 14 ski areas, 12 of them are in the east. Talk about that network, Joe, and how deliberate it was that they kind of worked together to create a compelling pass product.00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:27.000Joe Hession: Yeah, that's a great question because that is, you know, we probably look at the world a little differently than people looking at different passes and different programs. And I think you nailed it. Like, you know, with the news last week, you know, sometimes people from Colorado chirp and they, this pass doesn't make sense for me. I'm like, yeah.00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:44.000Joe Hession: Yeah, congratulations. You can read and understand basic logic. So we love our friends in Colorado, we love our friends out west, but this is a pass that's very regional. It makes so much sense if you live in this area and you're planning to have those trips and, and, and you might remember this, but years ago.00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:32.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:23:44.000 --> 00:24:00.000Joe Hession: at the NSA show, which is the National Ski Association. I was on stage with a bunch of different groups, talking about Epic Pass and ICOM Pass, and this is before we had a Pass product. And I was saying, and I was a little critical too.00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:18.000Joe Hession: you know, listen, I think the high-level past products that exist, which just throw out big numbers, like, you know, 40 of these resorts, these resorts, or 300 resorts, like, it's cool, but the reality is, is I'm really focused on how does someone actually use it? So if we go back to the skier.00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:35.000Joe Hession: and the snowboarder, and how do they actually use this pass? And, you know, back in the day, and I love, you know, the industry is much smaller than people, especially your listeners might realize, like, I have a ton of respect for almost everybody. If anyone's in this business, I respect them, because it's a really hard business.00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:51.000Joe Hession: And so for us, I've always looked at it and said these big pass products that are kind of like overwhelming with the options, like how do people actually use them and where does it drive traffic and traffic to the right places at the right time and stuff like that. So we're very deliberate.00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:02.000Joe Hession: very deliberate in, if you live in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Long Island, um, upstate New York, parts of Pennsylvania, this is a very compelling pass that not only takes you from the city.00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:18.000Joe Hession: Because for us, what's really critical is that kind of warm handshake from, we're teaching a hundred thousand new people a year to ski at Big Snow. Where do they then go to? And obviously we want them to come to Mountain Creek, but I also want them to go to Whiteface and Bel Air and Gore and Platic Hill.00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:34.000Joe Hession: Um, because things like that, that's kind of how this industry can work together to take people who are new to the sport, or people who are, maybe have never gone. Maybe they always go to Vermont, and we love Vermont, but maybe this is their chance to go up to Whiteface and realize, oh, wow.00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:41.000Joe Hession: That's, you know, you can see JP from there, right? So it's kind of it's people don't realize how far north Whiteface is.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:49.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you have a really nice network, and I think it's gonna sell really well. I mean, just even if… even if you just launched.00:25:49.000 --> 00:26:05.000Stuart Winchester: a Bel Air Gore Whiteface pass at that price point, I think it would probably sell really well. Uh, but the reality is you're going up against a very competitive market. So, uh, you look at Epic Pass, not maybe so competitive, you're doing something different, they don't have as many mountains in the market. Indy Pass.00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:20.000Stuart Winchester: I'm not even sure if you know this yet, because the embargo literally lifted when we started this at 10 a.m. eastern. A smuggler's notch today announced they are joining the Indy Pass. So the Indy Pass gives you a really nice network of resorts in your neighborhood.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:34.000Stuart Winchester: In New England, it has Waterville Valley, Cannon, Jay Peak, Saddleback, and now Smug, some of the best ski areas in the region. It has ski areas all over New York. That goes on sale to the public.00:26:34.000 --> 00:26:50.000Stuart Winchester: Today or tomorrow, the Indy Pass, they do a fall sale for $419. They have 256 alpine ski areas as of today, including 61 in the western US. They have a big head start, right? They started in 2019, so.00:26:50.000 --> 00:27:04.000Stuart Winchester: you're offering a different product, but it works in the same way, right? SnowPass. Uh, little lower price point, $340 as opposed to $419. What's your pitch for someone considering SnowPass or IndyPass?00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:20.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so, well, well, first let me hit that because it's, it's, what's interesting is, and, and it's important to kind of explain our background and where we come from. I probably see the world differently than almost everyone involved in this past world. I, I kind of look at it as.00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:35.000Joe Hession: you know, the pitch is, if you live in this area and you want to visit the resorts on our pass, it's a no-brainer. Not only that, I don't think we're going to live in a world where there's Epic, Icon, Indy, Snow Pass, Mountain Collective.00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:53.000Joe Hession: I think we should be trying to live in a world where we democratize skiing back to the skiers and snowboarders, and allow them to make choices in their price points where they want to go, vastly different than it is today. I think these programs, um, really exist because lack of good technology.00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:08.000Joe Hession: Like, like, basically, we would have reciprocal programs back years ago with, uh, like, Mound Creek and Killington. And to get that to actually make sense to the guests, where they show up, and it's seamless, and the money's able to be traded the right way, wasn't possible years ago.00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:24.000Joe Hession: So, for us, you know, and I'll get to the question of what the pitch directly to Indy, but I see the world so dramatically different than IndyPass. I see a world where independent ski resorts should be working with each other.00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:43.000Joe Hession: for the betterment of their guests to share people to different locations that people find interesting. A real-life example is Martok in Nova Scotia and Cape Smoky have a reciprocal program that they're actually allowed to have… they have one pass that's able to work at both places and can split the revenue and funding between it.00:28:43.000 --> 00:29:00.000Joe Hession: between them. They have common ownership. But they're both on SnowCloud. So really, you know, our software platform, SnowCloud, which really operates all the things that is involved with Snowpass and Snow TriplePlay, our real pitch long-term, our real pitch of what we're trying to do with Snowpass.00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:46.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:17.000Joe Hession: is open up the door to give resort leaders and operators tools where they take out the middleman. And what I mean by the middleman is Wachusett and a resort up in Vermont doesn't need a third party to organize their pass benefits.00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:33.000Joe Hession: They should be doing it directly themselves, using better technology. So, I am calling for a shift, a big shift, in the way that people think of this, of, let's get away from these big, pillar, clunky things that are these big, like.00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:46.000Joe Hession: big, like, kind of ego plays of passes, and let's take skiing back to the skiers and snowboarders, and let them have direct relationships with the resorts they love, and give these operators great tools to allow that to happen.00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:50.000Joe Hession: Um, so that that's our long term pitch. Yeah.00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:56.000Stuart Winchester: So let me jump in there. I just want to ask now, I want to follow up on that. So are you saying this snow pass, your goal is to…00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:01.000Stuart Winchester: make it extinct at some point? It's a building block to the next level, is that what you're saying?00:29:58.000 --> 00:29:59.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:01.000Joe Hession: You…00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:17.000Joe Hession: Yeah, what's interesting is Snowpass, we have no upside in Snowpass. So we've been very open and clear about this. And I just want to make sure the goal of Snowpass is secure. We share all of our books openly with all of our resort partners. They can see every transaction, every dollar flow.00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:33.000Joe Hession: There's overhead in some of the expenses. They get a clear, like, this is the piece that we do that. We originally said it was estimated at 5%. If it ends up becoming 3%, we'll distribute the rest of that to the resorts. We have no profit margin built into our plan for Snowpass.00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:43.000Joe Hession: Snowpass to us is the first step in trying to prove the theory of could we remove the middleman from the equation?00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:58.000Joe Hession: And we applaud the idea that if you're on Snowpass, and let's say that Whiteface wants to now work with Platykill directly, we would celebrate that and see that as a huge win.00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:14.000Joe Hession: Because we want resorts to collaborate. If people are real fans of skiing and snowboarding, and they've been buying passes for years, and part of it, they know that the beauty of the ski industry is when the ski industry, skiers, snowboarders, the people that operate these resorts, work together.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:26.000Joe Hession: they create beautiful things. So we need to give them tools to work together, and also the ability to work together, because some companies restrict people from being able to work with each other, which goes against the spirit of the whole ski industry in the first place.00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:32.000Stuart Winchester: So if you were… So let's think of… Let's do a thought experiment here. So let's take some…00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:32.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:53.000Stuart Winchester: some resorts that share your operating software, right? So you have Mountain Creek, so you can do whatever you want with it, and you have big snow. I know that, for example, Greek Peak up in upstate New York uses, it's up near Cornell, sort of central New York for folks who aren't familiar. It would be a great feeder from Mountain Creek because it has.00:31:39.000 --> 00:31:40.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:45.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:09.000Stuart Winchester: a resort feel, and it's a big mountain, and it has a nice hotel across the street with a water park and everything. So you have, uh, Greek Beak, and then you signed Jackson Hole, right? So would an example be that if you were a…00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:05.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:13.000Stuart Winchester: Mountain Creek Passholder, you could somehow…00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:25.000Stuart Winchester: Mountain Creek could sign a deal with Greek Peak for shorter-term visits and Jackson Hole for longer-term. Is that the goal, and how would that be different from a pass we have now?00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:40.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so, yeah, well, because it could be priced exactly to the price, it would make sense to the consumer. Because right now, and remember, when people buy an IndiePass or a pass like that, there's an idea that all these resorts, like, I'm a big fan of IndiePass.00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:57.000Joe Hession: Pareto charts, the 80/20 rule. I will guess, not knowing anything about their business, that 80% of the revenue is made up of 20% of the resorts and the visits. I will almost guarantee it because that's how statistics works. So when you have huge numbers, it starts to cloud the efficiency of it, right?00:32:51.000 --> 00:32:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:17.000Joe Hession: So to me, I look at and say, yeah, so a program where it's like if Mountain Creek went to Greek Peak and said, we want to have a reciprocal program where if someone uses this, it seamlessly just works at the lift. So imagine someone took their Mountain Creek pass, went and rode the lift at Greek Peak and boom, the transaction happened. The guests never even knew it happened.00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:32.000Joe Hession: the business relationship worked, and then we shared data to basically say, oh, this is a Mountain Creek and Greek Peak guest. Now you guys can market directly to them and hopefully get them to come for a longer stay next time. That's where I… that's where I would love to have it, and Greek Peak's a great example.00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:40.000Joe Hession: We're great partners with them. We love that resort. They've been great early adopters of SnowCloud. We're not allowed to have a reciprocal program with them at Mountain Creek or Big.00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:58.000Joe Hession: They're, they're contractly obligated not to work with anyone other than who they work with, which is, which to me is just wild. And I think most people don't realize that that's how it works. And, you know, the last thing we need is, is the middleman kind of inserting themselves into controlling how people operate. It's just.00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:10.000Joe Hession: So… so I would love… I see a future like that. Currently, unfortunately, with a place like Repeat, we're not allowed to work with them. We're… we're… and… and I mean not on Snowpass. We can't have a reciprocal…00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:16.000Joe Hession: We can't give someone a discount if they're a Mountain Creek holder to go to Greek Peak. It's.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, and great.00:34:16.000 --> 00:34:18.000Joe Hession: Less rules. We need less rules.00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:29.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Greek Peak has worked with IndiePass since 2019. They've been an original partner over there. I want to get to that in a second. You know, I…00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:20.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:44.000Stuart Winchester: I don't know if I see a post-pass world, because I like a menu, I like the big passes. However, what I think you're describing could solve is the free visit problem.00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:02.000Stuart Winchester: because I know Indian Ski Cooper, for example, had a dust-up a few years ago because Ski Cooper was essentially… India accused him of essentially creating a national pass, and that was probably my fault because I wrote an article that said, hey, look at this secret national pass for 300 bucks in Colorado. Nonetheless, it's a lot of…00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:56.000Joe Hession: Mm-hmm.00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:19.000Stuart Winchester: Free visits and you have mountains like Bogus Basin in, in Idaho that are still giving away a lot of free visits. Now, Bogus is a great business and, and it's doing well and they have a surplus and, and they've evolved great in the past decade or so. Uh, but, but it seems like that could really solve that.00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:13.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:35:20.000 --> 00:35:26.000Stuart Winchester: free visits problem, where there is some revenue sharing. Is that part of what you're trying to solve here?00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:41.000Joe Hession: 100%. And you see the big players do it, right? Like a big thing about us too is I'm not against anything. I think Indie is fantastic. And it's very important to point this out. I think that is, but I also think Epic and Icon are great.00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:42.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:57.000Joe Hession: Like, I'll put it this way, operating a small resort here in New Jersey, Mountain Creek, or Big Snow, there are things that Vail does so much better than us that we wish we had the resources they have. Now, with that said, we do things way better than Vail does, and they wish they had the resources.00:35:50.000 --> 00:35:51.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:14.000Joe Hession: Or the ability to do what we can do, right? And, you know, there's an old commercial years ago that there was, like, a big boardroom, and the boardroom, they're like, I wonder what the little guys are doing. And then all of a sudden, it showed the people in, like, the startup, and they're like, I wonder what the big guys are doing. So, we're all in the same business, and we're.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:06.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:32.000Joe Hession: some of the things they've done to try to cure their own things. They own most of their resorts on their program, so they're gonna do things the way that benefits them, because they own all those resorts together. And they've tried to solve these problems in similar ways, and I think learning from them on that stuff, same thing with Icon is doing similar stuff to that.00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:35.000Joe Hession: Um, but yeah, I think…00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:44.000Joe Hession: that's exactly what we're trying to solve. We're trying to solve… we want resorts to have relationships that make sense to the consumer. Like, for example.00:36:44.000 --> 00:37:00.000Joe Hession: Who is going to go, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll focus on someone else for a minute. Who's gonna, who's gonna go to 40 resorts in a year on a certain pass? Nobody. Nobody. Skiers are smarter than that. No one's doing that. What they're doing, if you buy an Epic or Icon.00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:57.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:08.000Joe Hession: in the real world, the conversation goes, um, oh, I live in New York? Great. What pass are my friends buying?00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:24.000Joe Hession: Because where are they going to go this year? Where do we want to take our family trip? Oh, and it just happened. My wife and I, our family, we have a place in Snowmass. So every year, we have some friends who are like, I want to come out to Snowmass. Well, they buy an IconPass. Their decision is made based on, oh.00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:18.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:43.000Joe Hession: your condo's available, I can go, I'm gonna lock in an Icon Pass. That's how consumers actually work. So, to me, it's like, I agree with you, I love the big passes, I don't think they should go away. I think there's a great place for India, I think there's a great place for Icon, I think there's a great place for Epic Pass. There might be a great place for Snowpass.00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:59.000Joe Hession: But I also get really excited about other options. And I feel like we're at this disruptive time where we're seeing the results of these passes and kind of the rubs that are rubbing people the wrong way. And I think it might be time with technology that we can kind of.00:37:56.000 --> 00:37:57.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:06.000Joe Hession: take it to the next level. Like, you know, we're talking about the evolution of, you know, major.00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:21.000Joe Hession: uh, success has been done, and there's been some learnings, right? Like… like, the pictures of the long lines and stuff, uh, that we see every holiday or powder day, like, is a result of the PASS program. It's a result of this, it's an output of that, and I think there's ways we can maybe.00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:37.000Joe Hession: Make it better where the skier gets a better choice, a better experience, and then the resorts get to share in different ways. So really, at the end of the day, I think it's a technology driven way to better collaborate for the betterment of the ski experience to democratize.00:38:34.000 --> 00:38:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:42.000Joe Hession: It's kind of the price and take out the middleman is really, is really my pitch.00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:44.000Stuart Winchester: So, Joy, I appreciate…00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:45.000Joe Hession: I'd like to remove myself from the equation eventually.00:38:44.000 --> 00:39:01.000Stuart Winchester: You know, the problem with you removing yourself from the equation, Joe, is that everyone I talk to really likes working with Snow Partners, your team. They like the train-based learning, they like your operating software.00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:55.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:16.000Stuart Winchester: And I appreciate that spirit of Bonhomie, and you're right, the ski industry is small, and it was smaller than I would have imagined, and it was more welcoming than I would have imagined. I'm not sure if you read the lawsuit.00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:25.000Stuart Winchester: The most recent one filed against Veil Altera, Boyne Powder, the National Skier Association and and RRC. And it's built.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:21.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:34.000Stuart Winchester: the case for the lawsuit is built on accusations of collusion. Using a lot of.00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:33.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:50.000Stuart Winchester: kind of fluffy evidence of people getting together at NSAA shows and basically sharing data and sharing best practices. I think all industries do this. Now, I'm going somewhere with this.00:39:50.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: I appreciate that, and I think IndyPass, a lot of people love working with them. However, maybe a little more conflict would be good for the ski industry, because one thing I've seen as I've been reading old newspaper clippings is ski operators used to talk a lot more junk to each other, like, oh, Summit County, Colorado does.00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:17.000Stuart Winchester: more skier visits to the whole state of Utah. Obviously, those days are over, but there used to be a little more smack talk. So let me get into a little controversy here, and you can address this as you want.00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:17.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:34.000Stuart Winchester: As you said, Indy Pass does not share. You have been willing to share and and the snow triple or snow pass shares two mountains, Bromance in Quebec and Whiteface with Mountain Collective and three.00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:45.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Butternut, Jiminy Peak, and Cranmore with the Icon today. You and Indy are both claiming Snow King, you're both telling me it's locked in, uh, and…00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:55.000Stuart Winchester: Indy's telling me it's only gonna be on Indy, so… there's a little conflict for ya. Uh, how are you approaching that, and what do you think about the scenario?00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.000Joe Hession: Yeah, yeah.00:40:56.000 --> 00:41:00.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so we're talking about Snow King specifically?00:40:59.000 --> 00:41:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yes, Snow King specifically.00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:10.000Joe Hession: Yeah, so specifically Snow King, we have a signed agreement with Snow King. We're very excited to work with Snow King.00:41:07.000 --> 00:41:08.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:23.000Joe Hession: Uh, Snow King would love to have visits, uh, come from us, and they are on our website, and we launched with Snow King. Um, that's where we're at. Um, you know, as far as what's going on with them in Indy.00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:39.000Joe Hession: Um, I'll kind of let them speak to that to themselves, but from what I understand, which I'll take some liberties and say what I think is going on, is there is a clause in an IndyPass that if someone leaves the IndyPass program.00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:55.000Joe Hession: They have to not work with anyone for another year. And it's kind of buried in the fine details. So I think what happened is I think they were off that pass, planned to be off that pass, maybe wasn't familiar with that clause, and then signed an agreement with us.00:41:55.000 --> 00:42:10.000Joe Hession: So for me, so the big question is, hey, so here's the choices as we sit today. We have a signed agreement. We've told Snow King, if this is going to hurt you, we never want to hurt you. So we are 100% willing to do whatever that takes.00:42:10.000 --> 00:42:12.000Joe Hession: to do it.00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:17.000Joe Hession: But, you know, we're not gonna just, like, bow down, because at the end of the day.00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:31.000Joe Hession: It's also on Indy, and maybe they… maybe they signed an agreement that wasn't… that was not the right thing to do. We have a signed agreement. They're on our paths, right? Um, at the end of the day, there's one person who can make a big choice here.00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:27.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:37.000Joe Hession: Is Indy gonna sue Snow King because of this clause in the piece?00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:54.000Joe Hession: I read in the Boston Globe that Eric Mogensen is going to, like, change and save skiing. Is he going to sue a small ski resort? Like, and I know that's blunt, but I would put the ball right back in his court. I would love to, you know, if he sues Snow King.00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:45.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:42:54.000 --> 00:43:12.000Joe Hession: That would be an insane thing. And I think he should go out to everyone and say, you know what, we're not going to litigate. You know, I know he hasn't been operating a ski resort long, and I have a ton of respect because of the fact that the fact that he's a GM of a ski resort, the fact that he's operating a ski resort, there's not a single person. And I respect him.00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:27.000Joe Hession: I really do. I really do. There's just one piece that we don't see eye to eye on. And it's… he's told me he's the anti-collaborator, and I am the ultimate collaborator. So when you get us in the ring together, it's one is super collaboration and one isn't. And so to me.00:43:27.000 --> 00:43:39.000Joe Hession: I think, you know, the more he operates a ski resort, he's gonna realize that litigation is one of the hardest things we have to deal with in the ski business. We have realities of things that happen at ski resorts that involve litigation.00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:49.000Joe Hession: suing each other is just a waste of time. Like, what are we doing? Like, we should be, like, we need… we should be talking about skiing and snowboarding, and we should be thinking.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:43.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:49.000 --> 00:44:09.000Joe Hession: how many visits can Indy give Snow King? I would love for them to get a ton of visits. How many visits can Snow Pass give Snow King? Let's get Snow King visits. Let's give people options. And just because of, like, some, uh, you know, red tape in a contract, we're then gonna threaten and clause, like.00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:28.000Joe Hession: So that's… so here's… so I gave you probably more than I should have, but… and I'm sure Hugh is no longer looking at me, so he… but he didn't give me the hook, so I'm still talking, right, Hugh? We're good? So, I'm sure… you know, but you'll definitely… you wanted to have, you know, for this inaugural session, you wanted to have some stories. This is a story.00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:39.000Joe Hession: The story is, the reality is, the truth is, that they were under contract, Indy, from what I understand, which they've told me, they wrote they are no longer to work, they gave them the right.00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:53.000Joe Hession: I'm out. This is the time you're supposed to be out. They were unaware of this one clause, which we were also unaware of. We signed, we moved forward, we announced. After announcement, it was, no, you can't do that. So, really, right now, I think Snow King would gladly take visits from both.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:56.000Joe Hession: We would gladly take visits from both.00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:02.000Joe Hession: Ball's in Mogensen's court, we'll see what he does. I guess the best way to approach this is publicly. So, here.00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.000Stuart Winchester: And he…00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:16.000Stuart Winchester: I agree, and Eric is scheduled to be on this podcast on Thursday, so he will have his chance to respond. And you know what, Joe, you're welcome back anytime to respond. But before you go out the door, I do want… I did promise to keep these short, and I know for you and I.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:07.000Joe Hession: Perfect!00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:12.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:16.000Joe Hession: Yep.00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:31.000Stuart Winchester: Both, that's a challenge. I do want to call out some of these awesome new triple play partners, uh, Jiminy Peak and Cramore, especially. I have a ton of respect for the Fairbanks and, and, uh, what, and what they do. Uh, Bromont is, is an excellent.00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.000Joe Hession: Yeah.00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:51.000Stuart Winchester: edition, and Hallamont. Actually, Hallamont is on Snow Pass as well, which is a terrific skier. I never realized until I went there this year. It's just because it's private on the weekends and in public during the week. What do you have to do to convince some of these folks, especially Jiminy Cranmore Bromont, to jump over to Snow Pass? Do you think there's a path there?00:45:52.000 --> 00:46:10.000Joe Hession: Yeah, you know, I do. I think it's kind of proving it out over time, but also making, you know, going back to what I said earlier, maybe the right product for them is a relationship with different resorts, right? Maybe it's a whole new version of what happens, but I think we're very lucky to have them on the program.00:46:10.000 --> 00:46:25.000Joe Hession: Both operators are fantastic. Brian and Tyler Fairbank, we go back really far. Like, they were early adopters of us with snow operating and train-based learning. Brian Fairbank, if people don't know, is one of the godfathers of snowmaking in the industry.00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:40.000Joe Hession: He's still at it. He's in his 80s. He's out there making snow. I mean, he's an absolute legend. So anytime we get to work with him and his resort partners, we're really happy. Tyler, we've obviously known for well over a decade and a half as well.00:46:40.000 --> 00:47:00.000Joe Hession: great resorts, we've loved visiting them, and I think they're great operators, so I think people are going to love discovering them. And that's, you know, one thing I'll give a lot of credit to Indy for, which has opened our eyes, is the fact that there's so many passes on the program, there's the fact that there's all these different options. People learn new places they've never learned before, right? And I think Epic and I kind of have done the same.00:46:54.000 --> 00:46:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:15.000Joe Hession: You know, I never thought of going to Crested Butte, but because it's on the Epic Pass, I'm going to go to Crested Butte, or I never thought of going to this resort, but because of it. And I think that's been a huge success. And it's great to hear you say, like, Hollymont, like, oh, I didn't know that much about the.00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:05.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:29.000Joe Hession: I think that's the spirit. The spirit is, how do you take skiers from different regions and inspire them to want to go to somewhere else and make that transaction seamless and easy for the operators to navigate, is really our goal.00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:49.000Stuart Winchester: It's such a rich world, and I love how you're helping folks explore it. Leave us with this, Joe. Where can we buy Snowpass? And I believe you said you're selling a limited number. You probably won't tell me that number, but how soon should folks go to where you're going to tell us to go before they're going to lose this special price of, I believe, 340 for Snowpass and 179?00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:52.000Stuart Winchester: For the triple play.00:47:52.000 --> 00:48:05.000Joe Hession: Correct. So, so 4pm today, mysnowpass.com, uh, it's gonna be a limited release. Uh, if you know the Mound Creek world, and you know how we do it, it's actually Mound Creek's on the clock right now.00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:22.000Joe Hession: Um, we've been selling for 31 minutes, so I'm gonna get an update when we get off the call here, but at 4 o'clock, we will have our watch party with our group in the kind of war room. We're watching the transactions live. We have a number that we have promised ourselves we will not exceed, and it'll shut itself down at that number.00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:09.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:48:22.000 --> 00:48:40.000Joe Hession: Um, so 4PM today will be, uh… will be the birth of a new product in the industry, which hopefully will inspire other new products down the road, and… and hopefully start to change the relationship between resorts and… and the skiers, because that's what it's about. It's about getting skiers the best price for the best mountains, new… doing new things, and working together.00:48:40.000 --> 00:49:00.000Joe Hession: And we have a beautiful industry of resorts, but we have great customers. People who are skiers and snowboarders are so passionate. Like, I read everything they post on your stuff. You know, the comments have been just amazing. And, you know, we're looking forward to, over time, I want to make that person in Colorado that keeps saying, this pass stinks, has nothing to do for me.00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:09.000Joe Hession: I want to eventually win them over by giving them a product that does make sense for them or allowing resorts there to find a product that works for them. So it's really exciting day.00:49:06.000 --> 00:49:17.000Stuart Winchester: Colorado bro is very proud of Colorado. Uh, last year, Joe, you sold Snow Triple Play, I believe, until Christmas Eve. You have a similar schedule in mind for these two passes this year?00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:11.000Joe Hession: Yes.00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:32.000Joe Hession: Yeah, exactly the same schedule. So they'll be… the best price will be the launches. So today will be the lowest possible price, it'll scale up in another drop, and then it'll be on sale for a little bit at its full retail price, and then it'll turn off at that time. Exactly.00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:51.000Stuart Winchester: Joe, so good to run you down. Good luck with the launch. I can't wait to see how it goes, and how this thing grows, and frankly, how this little controversy between Snowpass and Indypass resolves itself, because I'm sure that you will find a way through it. So, thank you so much for being my first guest on the new platform. I really appreciate it.00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:35.000Joe Hession: Yes.00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:51.000Joe Hession: Okay.00:49:51.000 --> 00:49:54.000Stuart Winchester: You're welcome on anytime. We'll talk to you really soon.00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:56.000Joe Hession: Great. Thanks for having me.00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:57.000Stuart Winchester: All right, take care, Joe. Bye now.00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:00.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, so…00:50:01.000 --> 00:50:03.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, what do you…00:50:03.000 --> 00:50:23.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so that was Joe Heschen, the CEO of Snow Partners and the founder. Quick update from another partner before I wrap up the show today. If you run a ski area or outdoor brand, I want to tell you about my friends at Bonfire Collective.00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:35.000Stuart Winchester: They are a fractional marketing team that collaborates with ski areas and outdoor brands, and they will give your marketing a fresh perspective and better storytelling to supercharge your rebranding or advertising.00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:41.000Stuart Winchester: Bonfire can help you rethink your approach in ways that can turbocharge your business.00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:49.000Stuart Winchester: For example, Bonfire took on the marketing at one New Hampshire ski area and doubled revenue in just three years.00:50:49.000 --> 00:51:04.000Stuart Winchester: When the storm was ready to invest in its first ever digital marketing campaign last year, I worked with Bonfire to make it happen. I could not be happier with the results, and I think you will love working with them as well. To get started, you'll want to talk to Eric.00:51:04.000 --> 00:51:21.000Stuart Winchester: over at Bonfire Collective. He was a co-founder of Bluebird Backcountry Colorado, the first human-powered ski area, so he knows the ski business. You can actually listen to his podcast episode on the Storm Skiing Podcast, long form. Visit bonfirecollective.com.00:51:21.000 --> 00:51:25.000Stuart Winchester: Or I will be happy to make that connection for you.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000Stuart Winchester: All right, how great was Joe?00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:45.000Stuart Winchester: This is why I love the new pod, because I can have guys like that on all the time. I have dozens of relationships like that throughout the ski industry. Anytime you've listened to a podcast and you've heard someone on there and you enjoyed the conversation.00:51:45.000 --> 00:52:01.000Stuart Winchester: Whether it was Carl Kapczynski, who runs California Mountain Resorts, or… and owns Mountain High, and Bear Valley, and China Peak, and Dodge Ridge out in California. Or if it was…00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:15.000Stuart Winchester: Dustin, who… the president at Copper Mountain, uh, or it was Rob Katz, you know, the Vale CEO. I'm interacting with these people, or… or the folks who represent them, all the time.00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:31.000Stuart Winchester: I talk to Carl Kabasinski all the time, but I haven't had him on the podcast in four years. He's already agreed to come on the new shorter form to talk about all the things going on in his mountains. And that's what's great about it. And, you know, one of the concerns that I heard from people when I announced a shorter form pod was.00:52:31.000 --> 00:52:47.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, well, I really like when you covered small mountains. Well, this will allow me to do that much more, because I don't have to commit an entire hour and a half long episode to it, and it doesn't have to be the whole history of the area. I can just, for example, ask.00:52:47.000 --> 00:53:02.000Stuart Winchester: Rick Schmitz from Little Switzerland in Wisconsin to come onto the show and talk about the new quad chairlift that he's putting up or two new quads put

Part one of a series on the CFA franc, the currency France created for its African colonies on Boxing Day 1945 and still runs today, across fourteen countries and more than two hundred million people.In this episode you will discover:How the Nazi occupation actually extracted wealth from France, which had almost nothing to do with soldiers and everything to do with an exchange rate, an occupation currency, and France's own central bank being legally forced to do the workWhy Charles de Gaulle signed the CFA franc into existence on the same day France ratified the Bretton Woods agreements, eighteen months after liberation, with no African government in the roomHow the system still works in 2026 why these countries have access to roughly thirty percent of their own foreign currency reserves, and why every banknote they use is printed in a factory in central FranceI built a free calculator that shows exactly what consistent monthly Bitcoin investing could do to your wealth over 5, 10 or 20 years. It's called the Steady Stack Calculator — punch in what you can afford to put in each month and see what the numbers actually look like at the other end. Most people are genuinely surprised. You can also download the 10 Bitcoin Mistakes to Avoid document completely free at the same link.Steady Stack Calculator and 10 Bitcoin Mistakes Document — click here to grab both for freeHit follow, so you never miss the latest insights on money, finance, invest and build wealth - plus clear guidance on cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and Bit Coin for today's serious investors.

Mối quan hệ giữa Hoa Kỳ và Trung Quốc là một trong những trục quan trọng nhất trong dòng chảy lịch sử thế giới đương đại. Giữa các cuộc chiến thương mại, đối đầu địa chính trị và cạnh tranh công nghệ, mỗi ngày trôi qua càng củng cố thêm niềm tin chắc rằng cuộc đối đầu giữa Washington và Bắc Kinh đang định hình thế giới ngày nay và có thể cả trong tương lai.  Nhà sử học Pierre Grosser, trên đài phát thanh France Inter nhận định, nếu nhìn lại lịch sử hơn một thế kỷ quan hệ Mỹ - Trung, hai quốc gia này đã nhiều lần thay đổi vị thế đối với nhau : Từ đối tác thương mại, đồng minh thời chiến, đối thủ ý thức hệ, cho đến đối thủ cạnh tranh chiến lược toàn diện như ngày nay. Là chuyên gia về quan hệ quốc tế và châu Á và cũng là tác giả tập sách « Chiến tranh lạnh khác chăng ? Đối đầu Mỹ - Trung », Pierre Grosser còn nêu ra sáu cột mốc lớn quan trọng để lý giải vì sao Washington và Bắc Kinh đang trong một cuộc cạnh tranh được nhiều nhà quan sát gọi là « cuộc đối đầu định hình thế kỷ XXI ». Đằng sau những tranh chấp thương mại, công nghệ hay vấn đề Đài Loan, là một câu chuyện dài về quyền lực, nhận thức lịch sử và trật tự thế giới. 1900 : Khi Hoa Kỳ đến « mở cửa » Trung Quốc … Vào cuối thế kỷ XIX, Trung Quốc đang ở giai đoạn suy yếu nghiêm trọng. Sau thất bại trước Nhật Bản năm 1895 và hiệp ước Shimonoseki, các cường quốc châu Âu và Nhật Bản lao vào cuộc đua tranh giành tô giới và nhượng địa ở Trung Quốc. Trong bối cảnh này Hoa Kỳ tự thể hiện mình là người ngoài cuộc bằng cách ủng hộ chính sách « Mở cửa » (Open Door Policy), với hai công hàm ngoại giao năm 1899 và 1900, đề cao việc bảo vệ chủ quyền của Trung Quốc và tự do cạnh tranh thương mại. Theo sử gia Pierre Grosser, trong « cuộc chạy đua đến Trung Quốc », chính sách này của Mỹ là mang tính hai mặt : Hoa Kỳ tự thể hiện mình như « một cường quốc đế quốc kiểu khác, chủ yếu được thúc đẩy bởi các lợi ích thương mại », nhưng vẫn không thoát khỏi lô-gic truyền thống của chủ nghĩa bành trướng. Việc Hoa Kỳ chiếm Cuba và nhất là Philippines sau cuộc chiến với Tây Ban Nha năm 1898 có liên hệ trực tiếp với tham vọng thâm nhập thị trường Trung Quốc, đồng thời tạo thành bàn đạp chiến lược để Mỹ tiến sâu vào châu Á, khẳng định vị thế cường quốc Thái Bình Dương. « Đây là một phần của bước ngoặt chủ nghĩa đế quốc, đánh dấu sự trỗi dậy của Hoa Kỳ như một cường quốc thế giới vào thời điểm đó. Đồng thời, đó cũng là thời điểm Washington hầu như chính thức thâu tóm Hawai ». Nhưng chính ở giai đoạn này đã làm xuất hiện nghịch lý đầu tiên trong quan hệ Mỹ - Trung. Trong khi Washington yêu cầu Bắc Kinh mở cửa cho hàng hóa Mỹ, thì Hoa Kỳ lại đóng cửa với người Trung Quốc khi ban hành đạo luật « Loại trừ » (Loi d'Exclusion) năm 1882, cấm phần lớn người Trung Quốc nhập cư vào Mỹ. Luật này được đưa ra sau « những hành động bạo lực chống người Trung Quốc », khiến gần 1000 người thiệt mạng, đặc biệt là những người đã tham gia xây dựng tuyến đường sắt xuyên lục địa. Sự mâu thuẫn này trong chính sách của Mỹ khó hiểu đến mức, nhà báo Yves Guillot, trên tờ Le Siècle (Thế kỷ) ngày 27/06/1900, phải viết : « Người Mỹ [...] mở cửa Trung Quốc cho chính họ và các sản phẩm của họ, nhưng họ lại có ý định đóng cửa nước Mỹ đối với người Trung Quốc. Làm sao người Trung Quốc có thể hiểu được logic này ? » Một chi tiết khác cũng được nhà sử học Pierre Grosser nhắc đến là vào đầu thế kỷ XX, đã tồn tại những định kiến rất giống với những lời chỉ trích nhắm vào Trung Quốc ngày nay. « Ngay từ thời đó đã tồn tại một quan niệm gắn liền người Trung Quốc với ma túy. Và ngày nay, với vấn đề fentanyl, chúng ta thấy ý tưởng cũ ấy được khơi lại theo cách tương tự : người Trung Quốc bị cáo buộc là nguồn gốc mang ma túy đến Mỹ, tìm cách lách các hàng rào thuế quan và đôi khi gian lận về bản chất hay thành phần thực sự của hàng hóa. » 1943 : Roosevelt đặt cược vào Trung Quốc Chiến tranh Thế giới thứ hai bùng nổ, Trung Quốc nằm trong số các quốc gia kháng chiến chống đế quốc Nhật mạnh mẽ nhất. Pierre Grosser nhấn mạnh rằng, trên thực tế Trung Quốc đã tham chiến sớm hơn nhiều so với cường quốc khác. « Trung Quốc đã chiến đấu đơn độc từ năm 1931 trở đi, ngay cả khi chúng ta coi chiến tranh bắt đầu từ năm 1937. Khi sự leo thang giữa Trung Quốc và Nhật Bản thực sự bắt đầu, thì Hoa Kỳ chỉ tham gia chiến tranh vào tháng 12 năm 1941. Trước đó, điều gì đã xảy ra ? Mỹ cũng giống như Liên Xô, đã hỗ trợ Trung Quốc để kìm chân Nhật Bản, ngăn chặn họ tấn công vào phía bắc hoặc cuối cùng là về phía Hoa Kỳ. » Trong bối cảnh này, tổng thống Mỹ Franklin Roosevelt đã có một quyết định mang ý nghĩa lịch sử. Ngày 11/01/1943, Hoa Kỳ ký « Hiệp ước Trung – Mỹ về miễn áp dụng luật ngoài lãnh thổ tại Trung Quốc ». Trong điều khoản thứ 3 có ghi, xin trích : « Hoa Kỳ từ bỏ quyền quản lý và kiểm soát tại Trung Quốc và đồng ý hỗ trợ Trung Quốc trong việc đạt được sự từ bỏ các quyền đó từ các quốc gia khác. » Điều này có nghĩa là Mỹ từ bỏ các đặc quyền ngoại trị từng áp đặt lên Trung Quốc từ thời các « hiệp ước bất bình đẳng », theo đó, các quyền tài phán của Phương Tây cho phép công dân nước ngoài trốn tránh công lý của Trung Quốc. Những đặc quyền này khá phổ biến ở châu Á trong thế kỷ 19, từ lâu đã được biện minh bằng ý tưởng rằng các nước châu Á « không đủ văn minh để xét xử đúng đắn » người phương Tây. Theo quan điểm của Pierre Grosser, động thái này không chỉ là một cử chỉ ngoại giao, mà còn là một yếu tố cốt lõi trong chính sách của Roosevelt : « Hoa Kỳ đã lôi kéo Trung Quốc trở thành một cường quốc », đưa Trung Quốc tham gia vào câu lạc bộ các cường quốc lớn. Như một phần thưởng, Trung Quốc thời Tưởng Giới Thạch đã giành được một ghế trong Hội Đồng Bảo An Liên Hiệp Quốc tương lai vào năm 1943. Và Trung Quốc trở thành quốc gia đầu tiên ký Hiến Chương Liên Hiệp Quốc, được tham gia các cuộc đàm phán lớn về trật tự kinh tế quốc tế như Bretton Woods. Ngày nay, Bắc Kinh vẫn thường nhắc lại giai đoạn này để chứng minh rằng Trung Quốc không phải là một cường quốc mới nổi. Theo lập luận của họ, Trung Quốc đã được các đồng minh thắng trận công nhận là một cường quốc từ năm 1945. 1950 : Cuộc đối đầu quân sự Mỹ - Trung đầu tiên Năm 1949, Mao Trạch Đông thành lập nước Cộng Hòa Nhân Dân Trung Hoa. Bại trận, Tưởng Giới Thạch chạy ra đảo Đài Loan, thành lập nước Trung Hoa Dân Quốc. Đây thực sự là một cú sốc lớn, ám ảnh giới chính khách Mỹ trong nhiều năm sau đó. Chủ nghĩa MaccarThy bài cộng sản ra đời từ đó ở Mỹ. Năm 1950, chiến tranh Triều Tiên bùng nổ buộc Mao Trạch Đông phải điều khoảng một triệu quân sang Triều Tiên, khiến người con trai ông yêu quý nhất bị thiệt mạng. Theo Pierre Grosser, quyết định này của Mao Trạch Đông ít nhất vì ba động cơ : Thứ nhất là vì lợi ích an ninh. Bắc Kinh không thể chấp nhận việc quân đội Mỹ tiến sát biên giới Trung Quốc. Thứ hai là lý tưởng cách mạng. Và thứ ba, thường là yếu tố hay bị bỏ qua nhất, đó là nhu cầu củng cố quyền lực trong nước. « Bằng cách phóng đại mối đe dọa từ Mỹ và nguy cơ về một cuộc “phản cách mạng toàn cầu” do Hoa Kỳ dẫn dắt, đặc biệt là nguy cơ can thiệp từ bên trong Trung Quốc, đây là một cách để củng cố quyền lực và trấn áp mọi hình thức có thể thách thức chế độ cộng sản. Và vì thế, từ cuối năm 1950 đến giữa năm 1951 đã diễn ra một chiến dịch trấn áp đẫm máu, khiến khoảng từ 500.000 đến 600.000 người thiệt mạng ». Tuy nhiên, chuyên gia về châu Á Pierre Grosser đánh giá, hệ quả lớn nhất của cuộc chiến lại liên quan đến Đài Loan. Trước chiến tranh, Washington đã phần nào mất niềm tin vào Tưởng Giới Thạch. Nhưng chiến tranh Triều Tiên đã khiến Mỹ thay đổi hoàn toàn chính sách. Hạm đội 7 được điều tới eo biển Đài Loan và từ đó Mỹ chính thức trở thành lá chắn an ninh của hòn đảo. Đối với nhà sử học, đây là một bước ngoặt chiến lược quyết định, bởi vì Đài Loan từ đó trở thành điểm nóng lâu dài trong quan hệ Mỹ - Trung. 1972 và cú bắt tay « lịch sử » Nixon – Mao Trạch Đông Ngày 28/02/1972, hình ảnh tổng thống Mỹ Richard Nixon, nổi tiếng chống cộng sản bắt tay chủ tịch đảng Cộng sản Trung Quốc Mao Trạch Đông đã gây chấn động thế giới. Sự xích lại gần này, theo ông Pierre Grosser, đầu tiên bắt nguồn từ nhu cầu của Trung Quốc, diễn ra trong bối cảnh quốc tế có những biến đổi quan trọng : « Điều cốt lõi mang tính bước ngoặt là sự rạn nứt quan hệ Trung – Xô. Sự rạn nứt này thậm chí đã leo thang đến mức suýt nổ ra chiến tranh thực sự. Dĩ nhiên, chiến tranh đã không bùng nổ vì leo thang không đến mức mất kiểm soát. Tuy nhiên, vào năm 1969, nhiều cuộc đụng độ nghiêm trọng dọc theo biên giới phía bắc giữa Trung Quốc và Liên Xô đã nổ ra. Từ đó, Mao Trạch Đông dần dần cho rằng kẻ thù số một của Trung Quốc là Liên Xô chứ không còn là Hoa Kỳ nữa. Chính điều này đã phần nào tạo thuận lợi cho quá trình xích lại gần nhau giữa Trung Quốc và Hoa Kỳ ». Nếu như cuộc gặp lịch sử này thường được thần thoại hóa như là một đòn chiến lược thiên tài của bộ đôi Nixon – Kissinger, đối với nhà nghiên cứu về châu Á, sự thay đổi này đã được chuẩn bị từ trước và xuất phát từ nhu cầu chiến lược của cả hai bên. Sự kiện diễn ra trong bối cảnh Mỹ sa lầy trong Chiến tranh Việt Nam. Và do vậy Washington kỳ vọng Bắc Kinh sẽ gây áp lực với đồng minh cộng sản Việt Nam để có được một thỏa thuận hòa bình. Theo Pierre Grosser, nước cờ cho thấy là « vô ích ». Cộng sản Việt Nam kiên định duy trì thế tự chủ chiến lược, và thậm chí còn nuôi dưỡng sự ngờ vực lâu dài đối với Trung Quốc khi nhìn thấy nước này đang đàm phán với kẻ đang ném bom họ. Dù vậy, sự kiện này đã mở đường cho việc bình thường hóa bang giao Mỹ - Trung vào cuối thập niên 1970, và tạo đà cho Trung Quốc bước vào giai đoạn cải cách mở cửa. 2021 : Ngày Hoa Kỳ tạo ra đối thủ… Ngày 07/04/1999, tại Nhà Trắng, tổng thống Mỹ Bill Clinton tuyên bố : « Nếu Trung Quốc chấp nhận những trách nhiệm đi kèm với việc gia nhập WTO, điều đó sẽ mang lại cho Hoa Kỳ khả năng tiếp cận rộng lớn đối với thị trường Trung Quốc, đồng thời thúc đẩy nhanh hơn các cải cách nội bộ tại quốc gia này. Nếu Trung Quốc sẵn sàng tuân thủ các quy tắc của thương mại quốc tế, thì sẽ là một sai lầm nghiêm trọng nếu Hoa Kỳ nói không. » Từ thập niên 1970, tại Mỹ, đã tồn tại một niềm tin chiếm ưu thế cho rằng Trung Quốc sẽ là một « miền đất hứa » về kinh tế. Và việc Trung Quốc gia nhập Tổ chức Thương mại Thế giới (WTO) sẽ làm thay đổi đất nước này từ bên trong. Điều đáng chú ý là các nhà lãnh đạo Trung Quốc cũng chia sẻ tính toán nhưng không theo cách như Hoa Kỳ và các nước phương Tây nghĩ : Trung Quốc xem việc gia nhập WTO như là một đòn bẩy để thúc đẩy cải cách nhằm thay đổi bộ máy quan liêu trong nước. Tuy nhiên, canh bạc này còn được dựa trên một sự tính toán kinh tế rất cụ thể. Sử gia Pierre Grosser tóm tắt học thuyết do Robert Reich, bộ trưởng Lao Động Mỹ thời tổng thống Bill Clinton nêu ra như sau : « "Trong tiến trình toàn cầu hóa này, chúng ta sẽ giữ lại những công việc được trả lương cao nhất, các khâu thiết kế và sáng tạo." Ở phía bên kia sẽ là những lao động Trung Quốc đảm nhận công việc sản xuất. Họ chỉ cần nhận hướng dẫn qua máy tính về cách thức chế tạo sản phẩm, thực hiện khâu gia công rồi gởi thành phẩm trở lại. Và như vậy đôi bên sẽ cùng có lợi. Tóm lại, nước Mỹ sẽ giữ những công việc sáng tạo, hấp dẫn nhất bởi vì tôi không nói là ông ấy nói như thế, nhưng hàm ý rằng, Trung Quốc sẽ không bao giờ có thể nâng cấp công nghệ sản phẩm ». Nhưng những thực tế sau này đã cho thấy đây là một tính toán sai lầm, khi Trung Quốc dần trở thành đối thủ cạnh tranh trực tiếp của Mỹ trong nhiều lĩnh vực chiến lược. Việc hy vọng thương mại sẽ thúc đẩy dân chủ hóa Trung Quốc, chỉ là một ảo tưởng. Theo giải thích của Pierre Grosser, « đúng là có hy vọng đó (…) Nhưng ngay từ giữa những năm 1990 người ta đã thấy rằng những người siêu giàu và tầng lớp trung lưu không nhất thiết sẽ ủng hộ dân chủ. Người ta đã phần nào thấy rõ điều đó. Họ đã từng có hy vọng như vậy nhưng xét cho cùng, những lý do kinh tế mới là động lực chính khiến chính sách này được thúc đẩy ». Tuy nhiên, sự kiện ngày 11 tháng 9 năm 2001 đã chuyển hướng toàn bộ sự chú ý của Hoa Kỳ sang Trung Đông. « Mỹ sa lầy ở Trung Đông trong suốt mười lăm năm, » trong khi đó, theo Pierre Grosser, « Trung Quốc lại phát triển mạnh mẽ trong những năm 2000 mà hầu như không bị Mỹ chú ý đến. » 2026 : Trận đấu thế kỷ Ngày 13/05/2026, nhân cuộc họp thượng đỉnh Mỹ - Trung diễn ra ở Bắc Kinh, chủ tịch Tập Cận Bình tuyên bố : « Hợp tác mang lại lợi ích cho cả hai bên, trong khi đối đầu sẽ gây tổn hại cho cả hai. Chúng ta cần hỗ trợ lẫn nhau để cùng thành công và cùng thịnh vượng, qua đó mở ra một con đường mới : con đường chung sống hòa thuận giữa các cường quốc trong kỷ nguyên mới ». Theo Pierre Grosser, tuyên bố trên của ông Tập Cận Bình không có gì là mới mẻ : Điều này nằm trong chiến lược nhất quán nhằm thể hiện Trung Quốc là một cường quốc có trách nhiệm và lý trí, đối lập với hình ảnh một nước Mỹ bị xem là thất thường, khó đoán định. Kể từ năm 2008, các nhà lãnh đạo Trung Quốc tin rằng Hoa Kỳ đã bước vào giai đoạn suy yếu, cả về kinh tế lẫn địa chính trị. Nhà sử học nhắc lại : « Tập Cận Bình từng nói rằng thế giới đang có những biến đổi chưa từng có từ một thế kỷ nay. Và một trong những biến đổi đó là Trung Quốc hiện đang lấy lại vị thế của mình, trở thành một đại cường, chứ không phải là một siêu cường, bởi vì, siêu cường thì không tốt, siêu cường gây chiến tranh, còn một cường quốc lớn đương nhiên phải được đối xử với sự tôn trọng ». Vị chuyên gia này còn nhắc thêm rằng, « Trung Quốc thích suy nghĩ trong dài hạn, đồng thời thường xuyên nhắc lại rằng họ có hàng nghìn năm lịch sử, trong khi đó Hoa Kỳ mới chuẩn bị kỷ niệm 250 năm lịch sử của mình ». Dù vậy, Pierre Grosser cũng lưu ý thêm rằng, cạnh tranh Trung – Mỹ hiện nay chưa hẳn là một cuộc Chiến Tranh Lạnh giống như thế kỷ XX do sự phụ thuộc sâu sắc lẫn nhau về kinh tế giữa hai ông khổng lồ, « ngay cả khi hiện nay sự phụ thuộc của Trung Quốc vào Hoa Kỳ ít hơn nhiều so với bảy hoặc tám năm trước, bởi vì đã có cuộc chiến thương mại nhưng cũng vì giờ đây Trung Quốc tiến hành giao thương và đầu tư vào châu Á, quan tâm đến châu Âu và thậm chí người ta thường xuyên nói đến sự hiện diện của Trung Quốc ở châu Phi ». Sử gia Pierrer Grosser nhìn nhận hiện nay Trung Quốc đang nỗ lực củng cố thế tự chủ về tài chính do lo ngại phải đối mặt với các biện pháp trừng phạt quy mô lớn nếu xảy ra một cuộc khủng hoảng nghiêm trọng, đặc biệt liên quan đến Đài Loan, giống như những gì Nga và Iran đang trải qua. Tóm lại, sự cạnh tranh giữa hai đại cường hàng đầu thế giới tồn tại đồng thời với nhu cầu hợp tác. Raymond Aron, một triết gia, nhà xã hội học, khoa học chính trị nổi tiếng người Pháp về Chiến tranh Lạnh chẳng phải đã từng nói : « Chiến tranh là điều không thể, nhưng hòa bình hoàn toàn cũng khó xảy ra ». Theo nhiều khía cạnh, công thức này có lẽ phản ảnh khá chính xác mối quan hệ Mỹ - Trung hiện nay !

There is a hidden machine underneath the world's money — a web of banks, payment rails, and rules, built up over the better part of a century, that quietly keeps the U.S. dollar at the center of everything you earn, spend, and save. Almost nobody can see it. And right now, pieces of it are breaking. In late 2025 you got the clearest signal yet: BHP, the largest mining company on Earth and one of America's closest military allies, was pushed off the dollar and forced to sell its iron ore to China in yuan — because its biggest customer demanded it. In this episode, Jay pulls back the curtain on that machine and breaks it into the five jobs any global money system has to do — price it, move it, park it, trust it, free it — then grades the dollar on each one. The verdict: on pricing trade and moving money the dollar is still miles ahead, but on the two jobs that matter most — trust and freedom — it has started breaking its own rules, and the rest of the world has noticed. This is not a story about the dollar crashing tomorrow. It's about the gap between one monetary era and the next — the valley between two peaks — and how to tell which slope we're standing on. Citations: https://rentry.co/jms-machine-beneath-money-sources Learn to invest alongside the top minds in commodities. Join The Commodity University today. CLICK: https://join.thecommodityuniversity.com/ Sign up for my free weekly newsletter at https://2ly.link/211gx Be part of our online investment community: https://cambridgehouse.com https://twitter.com/JayMartinBC https://www.instagram.com/jaymartinbc https://www.facebook.com/TheJayMartinShow https://www.linkedin.com/company/cambridge-house-international 00:00 — BHP Just Got Pulled Off the Dollar 00:52 — The Machine Beneath the World's Money 01:30 — The Deal That Should Be Impossible 03:17 — The Five Jobs Every Money System Must Do 03:28 — Job 1: Price It 04:19 — Job 2: Move It 06:20 — Job 3: Park It 07:32 — Job 4: Trust It 08:14 — Job 5: Free It 08:55 — Why This Quietly Makes the World Rich 10:24 — When Britain Ran the System 11:03 — Britain's Sunset: The 1931 Gold Break 11:35 — Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression 12:31 — Bretton Woods and the Greatest Boom Ever 13:14 — Why the World Really Runs on Dollars 13:47 — Scorecard: Pricing — Cracks on the Margin 15:47 — Scorecard: Moving Money 16:24 — Scorecard: Parking and the $39 Trillion Problem 17:13 — Scorecard: Trust — Broken in 2022 17:52 — Scorecard: Freedom — The Same Asterisk 18:38 — The Honest Scorecard 19:09 — Back to the Ship 20:37 — What This Means for You 21:25 — The Valley Between Two Peaks 22:04 — What Am I Missing? Copyright © 2026 Cambridge House International Inc. All rights reserved.

Current geopolitical events continue to expose just how complex and fragile our global economic system is. As such, The Great Simplification team is re-releasing this episode with Ed Conway, which covers the deceptively critical materials that continue to underpin everything from the phone in your hand to the house that you live in.  In contrast to 'The Great Simplification', some might call the events of the last few hundred years a 'Great Complexification' in terms of relationships, governance, supply chains, and many other human activities. This conversation with economics journalist Ed Conway focuses on the six essential resources that underpin our modern economies –  sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium - and dives into the (often unseen) environmental and human costs of extracting them, as well as the surprisingly fragile global supply chains they fuel. In order to understand what possibilities – and dangers – may await us in the future, we need to understand the realities and constraints of the present, as well as the failure points of the past.  What does it take to mine, refine, and transform the materials that are foundational to the world around us – which many of us now take for granted? How can we ensure the stability of global supply chains, and could we predict potential disruptions and chokepoints before they arise? If we understood the intricate web of complexity, energy, and resources that go into everything we consume, would it change our expectations for how much we need in order to live a good and fulfilling life? (Conversation originally released June 12th, 2024 | Recorded on May 7th, 2024)   About Ed Conway: Ed Conway is the economics and data editor at Sky News, covering major UK and international economics, business and political stories. He has broken a series of exclusive reports on the banking and financial crisis. He is also economics columnist for The Times, and has been one of the longest-running economics editors in UK journalism, having started covering the sector in 2003. Prior to joining Sky, he was economics editor of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, where he was also a weekly op-ed columnist, and economics correspondent at the Daily Mail.  Ed is the author of the book on Bretton Woods, The Summit: The Biggest Battle Of The Second World War – Fought Behind Closed Doors and an economics guidebook, 50 Economics Ideas You Really Need to Know. His 2024 book Material World, was nominated as one of the Financial Times Book of the Year. Ed is a governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, and has lectured on the international monetary system at the London School of Economics, the US Treasury and many other forums.   Show Notes and More   Watch this video episode on YouTube   Want to learn the broad overview of The Great Simplification in 30 minutes? Watch our Animated Movie.   ---   Support The Institute for the Study of Energy and Our Future   Join our Substack newsletter   Join our Hylo channel and connect with other listeners  

Ultimately, the US faces a stark binary choice: defeat Iran or retreat. Both carry profound implications for the post-war Bretton Woods order that has shaped modern economies and the commodity flows that sustain them. Indeed, it is precisely those commodity flows that both define this binary choice and make commitment to either path so difficult. Jeff Currie, Co-Founder of 1947 Oil & Gas, returns to the show to unpack this stark reality, its consequences for the world, and why he decided to launch an oil and gas company. For related content and to find out more about HC Group, a search firm dedicated to the energy & commodities sector, visit https://www.hcgroup.global

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we step back from the specific history of Congo to examine the broader theoretical framework of neocolonialism – and how the decline of formal empire prepared the ground for the neoliberal revolution.Drawing on thinkers from Marx and Lenin to J.A. Hobson and Rosa Luxemburg, we explore the purpose of empire from the perspective of capital: the pursuit of cheap resources, cheap labour, and captive markets. Britain's transformation from a middling European kingdom to a global superpower was built on the extraction of wealth from its colonies – from the opium trade with China to the slave‑based sugar and cotton economies to the systematic deindustrialisation of India.But what happens when empire becomes unsustainable? In India, the British lost control of the Indian Army in 1946, and with it, their ability to monopolise armed force. By the 1950s and 60s, most of Britain's African colonies were gone. Yet the flow of wealth from the Global South to the City of London did not stop. It continued through neocolonialism – debt, the Bretton Woods institutions, corporate infiltration, and support for pliant regimes.And then came neoliberalism. As the returns from empire declined, capitalist elites in the Global North turned inward, cannibalising their own societies through privatisation, the erosion of welfare states, and the breaking of organised labour. The neoliberal revolution was, in part, a response to the crisis of empire – a way to maintain elite wealth and power when the old imperial structures could no longer deliver.We also consider the explicitly colonial and eugenic thinking of some neoliberal architects, and the destructive consequences of imposing market logic on societies with no history of it. From the mass unemployment of Thatcher's Britain to the ongoing exploitation of Africa, the arc of capital bends towards extraction – and the people always pay the price.Topics covered:Marxist and liberal theories of imperialism (Hobson, Lenin, Luxemburg)Britain's transition from formal empire to neocolonialismThe loss of control over the Indian Army in 1946The Bretton Woods institutions and the weaponisation of debtNeoliberalism as a response to the decline of empireThe cannibalisation of Western welfare statesThe role of organised labour and the defeat of the minersThe eugenic and colonial thinking of neoliberal theoristsIf you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we begin a journey into one of the darkest and most overlooked chapters of the 20th century: the establishment of neocolonialism in Africa after the formal end of European empires.After the Second World War, the dreams of a genuinely independent Africa – of nations free from exploitation, able to chart their own futures – were mercilessly snuffed out by Western powers. Drawing on Susan Williams's brilliant White Malice: The CIA and the Neocolonialisation of Africa, we explore the relationship between Ghana and Congo, and the forces that destroyed the hopes of the independence era.We begin with the brutal history of King Leopold II's Congo Free State – a territory nearly 80 times the size of Belgium, where an estimated 10 million Congolese people died as a consequence of forced labour, mutilation, and murder. The purpose of Belgian rule, as Kwame Nkrumah observed, was not to suppress slavery but to change its nature, to make it more profitable.But the exploitation did not end with formal decolonisation. The Congo's Shinkolobwe mine produced uranium of unparalleled richness – up to 75% uranium oxide, compared to ores from America that contained just 0.2%. This uranium was essential to the Manhattan Project, powering the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, the resource extraction continued, but through new means: corporate infiltration, debt, coups, and the tools of the Bretton Woods system.We trace the origins of American intelligence operations in Africa, from the OSS bases in Accra, Cape Town, and Addis Ababa, to the top-secret mission to protect Congolese uranium from falling into enemy hands. And we consider the broader tragedy of neocolonialism – how the West used every tool at its disposal to ensure that Africa's resources remained under its control, long after the flags of empire had been lowered.Topics covered:The Belgian Congo and the crimes of King Leopold IIThe forced labour system and the rubber tradeThe Shinkolobwe uranium mineThe Manhattan Project and the atomic bombThe OSS and early US intelligence in AfricaKwame Nkrumah and Pan-AfricanismThe tools of neocolonialism: debt, coups, and corporate powerThe continuing relevance of resource exploitation todaySusan Williams's White Malice is available from all good bookshops. Please consider buying from an independent retailer.If you enjoy the podcast, please consider supporting us – we are migrating from Patreon to Substack. Details in the show notes.Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: patreon.com/explaininghistory▸ Join the Community & Continue the ConversationFacebook Group: facebook.com/groups/ExplainingHistoryPodcastSubstack: theexplaininghistorypodcast.substack.com▸ Read Articles & Go DeeperWebsite: explaininghistory.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is the global financial system undergoing its biggest transformation since Bretton Woods—and are most Americans missing what's happening right in front of them?In this episode of On the Record with Christian Briggs, we investigate the explosive claims spreading across social media that President Donald Trump is preparing a monetary reset, Fort Knox gold could be revalued, the Federal Reserve is losing control, major banks are building a new digital-dollar system, and governments around the world are quietly preparing for a new financial order.Some of these claims sound unbelievable. Some aren't supported by the evidence. But underneath the internet mythology, something very real is happening.Central banks have returned to gold. America's enormous gold reserves remain carried on the Treasury's books at the statutory price of just $42.22 per ounce, raising provocative questions about what would happen if those reserves were ever revalued. Meanwhile, governments are competing for critical minerals, supply chains have become matters of national security, and the technologies powering artificial intelligence are changing the strategic importance of resources buried beneath the ground.But perhaps the biggest transformation is happening inside money itself.A 2026 Deutsche Bank report describes a financial system moving toward 24/7, always-on infrastructure, where stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits and central-bank digital currencies could coexist rather than replace one another. Stablecoins alone had surpassed $300 billion in market capitalization by April 2026, with approximately 99% of the market denominated in U.S. dollars. That raises a possibility almost completely opposite to the narrative dominating social media: what if digital money doesn't destroy the dollar—but actually extends its global reach?We also examine the crucial distinction between controversial retail CBDCs and the much less discussed wholesale digital-money infrastructure being developed between banks and central banks. Projects involving dozens of major financial institutions are already exploring tokenized deposits, programmable money and near-instant cross-border settlement. Finally, Christian tackles the biggest claim of all: Has a new Bretton Woods-style monetary agreement already been secretly negotiated?The evidence doesn't support that conclusion. But the deeper investigation leads somewhere arguably more consequential. There may be no secret reset at all. The global financial system may already be changing in plain sight.

Protect your investments with And We Know http://andweknow.com/gold Or call 720-605-3900, Tell them “LT” sent you. ————————— ➜ Our AWK Website: https://www.andweknow.com/ ➜ AWK Shirts and gifts: https://shop.andweknow.com/ ------- *DONATIONS SITE: https://bit.ly/2Lgdrh5 *Mail your gift to: And We Know 30650 Rancho California Rd STE D406-123 (or D406-126) Temecula, CA 92591 ➜ AWK Shirts and gifts: https://shop.andweknow.com/ ➜ Audio Bible https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/kjv/1John.3.16 Connect with us in the following ways:

CannCon and Ashe in America wrap up Chapter 10 of The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, finally closing out the Mandrake Mechanism and the entire first section of the book. This week covers reserve ratios and just how arbitrary they really are, why national debt and inflation are not always the same beast, and the strange history of the 1980s bond market that briefly kept inflation in check. The hosts also dig into some of the names behind the Federal Reserve system itself, from the Bretton Woods architects to the Wall Street connections that helped push the Federal Reserve Act through Congress in the first place. Expect a heavier academic stretch than usual, some genuine frustration at how little has changed, and the usual sponsor detours along the way. It is a dense one, but the payoff is worth it.

Writing in 1991, Rothbard sets the essay in its original context: Bretton Woods as an international dollar standard masquerading as a gold standard. He contrasts it with the classical pre-1914 system, in which every currency was a defined weight of gold redeemable on demand, then recounts how the breakdowns of 1968 and 1971 tested Misesian predictions against an Establishment certain that gold would fall to $6 an ounce.

In Episode 14 of the Noss Gold Treasure, the investigation shifts to the early 1970s as President Richard Nixon positions himself to gain access to the vast fortune hidden inside Victorio Peak. The episode explores a pivotal July 6, 1970 meeting at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California, where geologist Keith Alexander—representing a coalition of treasure hunters known as the "Filthy 50"—met with Nixon and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman. Alexander revealed secret knowledge of 742 gold bars weighing 40 to 50 pounds each (totaling over 3 million troy ounces) stockpiled at White Sands, seeking executive immunity and an official agreement to monetize the gold through the U.S. Mint.Three days after the San Clemente meeting, Ehrlichman dispatched a personal memorandum to Treasury Secretary David M. Kennedy inquiring how the group could legally recover and sell the treasure. On July 17, 1970, Secretary Kennedy responded with an accommodating roadmap, noting that no federal license was required to search for or possess buried treasure, while proposing a 50/50 split with the government based on the prior Fort Huachuca precedent. However, when Kennedy proved too rigid regarding strict regulatory compliance, Nixon replaced him on February 11, 1971, with former Texas Governor John Connally—a close associate of Lyndon B. Johnson and an alleged co-incorporator of the LaRue Corporation, an entity formed in 1967 to manage and launder Victorio Peak gold proceeds.The episode then unpacks one of the most consequential economic maneuvers in modern American history: Nixon's live televised address on Sunday, August 15, 1971, closing the gold window and ending the direct convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold. By dismantling the Bretton Woods monetary system, Nixon eliminated international audits and physical reserve accountability, effectively creating a systemic blind spot where missing national reserves or illicitly extracted military gold could no longer be tracked or audited.Connecting internal White House memorandums, Treasury Department correspondence, corporate records, and Watergate-era disclosures, Episode 14 details how Nixon installed key gatekeepers and altered global monetary policy to set the stage for the massive thefts that followed. From San Clemente to the Oval Office, this episode exposes how presidential authority and monetary policy intersected with the covert plundering of America's most controversial treasure. Join us for this latest episode as we tell the story so well documented by  author John Clarence.

¿Estamos asistiendo al nacimiento de un nuevo sistema monetario mundial? En esta conversación con César Meseguer, profesor universitario y defensor de la Escuela Austriaca, analizamos el origen secreto de la Reserva Federal, la reunión de Jekyll Island, el Bancor de Keynes, Bretton Woods, el privilegio del dólar, la compra masiva de oro por los bancos centrales, el avance de las stablecoins y la posibilidad de un nuevo patrón monetario digital respaldado por activos reales. Mientras gobiernos y bancos nos venden las bondades del dinero fiduciario y digital, ellos acumulan oro, deuda y poder: ¿están preparando una reforma para salvar el sistema o una nueva arquitectura de control? También explicamos quién podría ganar, qué países quedarían atrapados y cómo proteger el patrimonio mediante oro, inmuebles, empresas sólidas y conocimiento financiero.✅SIN CENSURA en SUBSTACK: https://substack.com/@magnatesladrillo✅¿Necesitas un PSI (Personal Shopper Inmobiliario) para acompañarte a invertir en bienes raíces en la Com.Madrid?: magnatesladrillo@gmail.com✅Si vas en serio «La Biblia del Magnate del Ladrillo» está AQUÍ✅

Martin Daunton is one of Britain's most distinguished economic historians, Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge, where he served as Master of Trinity Hall from 2004 to 2014 and twice as Head of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Born in Cardiff in 1949, he studied economic history at the University of Nottingham, completed his PhD at the University of Kent, and was appointed lecturer at Durham in 1973 before moving in 1979 to University College London, where he was promoted to the Astor Professorship of British History. He held the Chair of Economic History at Cambridge from 1997 to 2015 and is currently a Visiting Professor at Gresham College in London.Daunton's scholarly work covers the economic and social history of Britain since 1700, the shifting boundaries between the market and the state, the politics of taxation and public finance, the relations between national and international economic policies, and debates over intergenerational equity. His many books include House and Home in the Victorian City (1983), Royal Mail: The Post Office since 1840 (1985), Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1700-1850 (Oxford University Press, 1995), and a major two-volume history of British taxation, Trusting Leviathan: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1799-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914-1979 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), followed by Wealth and Welfare: An Economic and Social History of Britain, 1851-1951 (Oxford University Press, 2007) and State and Market in Victorian Britain: War, Welfare and Capitalism (Boydell Press).His most recent book, The Economic Government of the World, 1933-2023 (Allen Lane / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), is a sweeping history of the institutions and individuals who have built and managed the global economy over the last ninety years. It traces how one economic order breaks down and another is built, from the trade and currency warfare of the Great Depression, through the liberal Bretton Woods order that emerged after the Second World War, to the rise of neoliberalism, financialization and hyper-globalization in the late twentieth century, and ends with a call for a more just and sustainable economic government in the face of inflation, food insecurity, climate change and renewed geopolitical conflict. The book was named one of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of the Year.Beyond Cambridge, Daunton has served as President of the Royal Historical Society, Commissioner of Historic England, trustee of the National Maritime Museum, and Chair of the Leverhulme Trust Research Awards Advisory Committee, and has held visiting professorships in Japan and Australia.Jiří Zatloukal, financial journalist at Seznam Zprávy and contributor of PFI Talks, talked with Martin Daunton.

Denize kıyısı olmayan, doğal kaynakları kısıtlı ve etrafı dev imparatorluklarla çevrili dağlık bir ülke, nasıl oldu da dünyanın finans merkezine dönüştü? İsviçre mucizesinin arkasında sadece tarafsızlık mı var, yoksa çok daha karmaşık bir tarihsel ve finansal mühendislik mi? Bu videoda, İsviçre bankacılığının doğuşunu, yükselişini ve günümüzde yaşadığı kırılmaları tarihsel ve ekonomik bağlamıyla ele alıyoruz. Ömer Özgen bu videoda şunları anlatıyor:Neden İsviçre? Protestan göçü, paralı askerlik, düşük kamu harcamaları ve erken sermaye birikimi İsviçre'yi nasıl bir finans ülkesi yaptı?Gizliliğin İnşası: 1713 Cenevre servet gizliliği yasasından 1934 Bankacılık Gizlilik Yasası'na uzanan süreçte, gizlilik kavramı nasıl bankacılığın merkezine yerleşti?İki Dünya Savaşı Arasında İsviçre: Büyük Buhran, güçlü İsviçre Frangı ve tarafsızlık algısı bankacılığı nasıl bir güvenli limana dönüştürdü?Nazi Altınları: İsviçre'nin Nazi Almanyası ile altın ticareti, üçgen ticaret mekanizması ve İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nda RolüSavaş Sonrası Altın Çağ: Bretton Woods sistemi, Soğuk Savaş ve güçlü frank döneminde İsviçre bankacılığı neden zirveye çıktı?1990'lar ve Sonrası: Aşırı finansallaşma, gizliliğin aşınması, ABD baskısı, otomatik bilgi paylaşımı İsviçre modelini nasıl değiştirdi?Skandallar ve Çöküş: LIBOR skandalı, vergi kaçakçılığı davaları ve 167 yıllık Credit Suisse'in 72 saat içinde çöküşü bize ne anlatıyor?Bugün İsviçre Bankacılığı: Gizlilik sonrası dönemde İsviçre artık ne vadediyor? İsviçre modeli sürdürülebilir mi?Kaynakça: Switzerland and Its Banks: A Short History, Nils Herger, 2023Swiss Finance: Banking, Finance, and Digitalization, HB Meier et al., 2023 Switzerland, Gold and the Banks: Analysis of a Crisis, Jacques RossierCapitals of Capital A History of International Financial Centres, 1780–2005, Youssef Cassis, 2006The Swiss Banking Sector, Oliver Wyman, 2025 The Meltdown, Duncan Mavin, 2024Swiss Made, James Breiding, 2012Zurich and Geneva: The End of the Golden Age, Tobias Straumann ,2018Safety in Numbers: The Mysterious World of Swiss Banking, Nicholas Faith ,1982Swiss Banking: An Analytical History, Hans Bauer, 1998 00:00 Giriş1:39 Altın Çağ4:24 Bankacılığın Tarihi Kökleri14:21 Endüstriyel Bankacılığın Doğuşu20:00 Gizlilik Yasaları26:57 İkinci Dünya Savaşı ve Nazi Altınları34:40 Soğuk Savaş Sonrası Altın Çağ'ın Sonu38:36 Gizliliğin Bitişi41:39 Skandallar ve Credit Suisse'in Batışı46:05 Bankacılığın Güncel Risk ve Avantajları51:21 Kapanış

We welcome Michael Steger of Promethean Action to talk about the ongoing war with Iran and ask the question: Is this really different from the foreign interventions of the past? Then it's time for Weekend Peak Insanity: government-run grocery stores, Europe's latest political and cultural headlines, infuriating court decisions, and whatever else this completely unhinged weekend has thrown our way. As always, I'll try to get your calls and comments in there as well! I REFUSE to Live without Keto Brainz Nootropic Creamer 15% OFF w/ code JULY: https://tinyurl.com/2cess6y7 Every purchase enters you into the America 250 Product Raffle! E-Mail me @ Frank@QuiteFrankly.tv for FREE SAMPLES! JOIN The Culture Club!: https://www.quitefrankly.tv/sponsor Read Books, Watch Film, Keep Frank INDEPENDENT! One-Time Tip: http://www.paypal.me/QuiteFranklyLive Quite Frankly Amazon Storefront: https://amazon.com/shop/quitefranklyofficial Frank's Exquisite Light Roast Coffee: https://www.coffeerevolution.shop/category/quite-frankly Frank's Official MERCH: https://tinyurl.com/f3kbkr4s Gold & Silver: https://quitefrankly.gold Send Holiday cards, Letters, and other small gifts, to the Quite Frankly P.O. Box! Quite Frankly 222 Purchase Street, #105 Rye, NY, 10580 Tip in Crypto: BTC: bc1q97w5aazjf7pjjl50n42kdmj9pqyn5zndwh3lng XRP: rnES2vQV6d2jLpavzf7y97XD4AfK1MjePu Quite Frankly Socials: Twitter/X: @QuiteFranklyTV Instagram: @QuiteFranklyOfficial Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/xPu7YEXXRY Telegram: https://t.me/quitefranklytv Streaming Live On: QuiteFrankly.tv (Powered by Foxhole) Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/yc2cn395 Rumble: https://tinyurl.com/yeytwwyz Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/quitefranklylive Audio On Demand (Please Leave A Nice Rating!): Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/59vma35y iTunes: http://apple.co/2dMURMq Tonight, Promethean Action makes its Quite Frankly debut for a wide-ranging conversation on Iran, tariffs, trade, globalization, the future of the American economy, and why they believe the world is undergoing a historic geopolitical realignment. We'll examine their thesis that today's conflicts are part of a larger struggle over the post-1971 global economic order, and ask the questions many Americans are already asking: Is this really different from the foreign interventions of the past, and what evidence should we watch for in the months ahead? The interview draws directly from Promethean Action's recent presentations on tariffs, Bretton Woods, globalization, Canada, China, and the "American System." Then it's time for Weekend Peak Insanity: government-run grocery stores, Europe's latest political and cultural headlines, bizarre court decisions, and whatever else this completely unhinged weekend has thrown our way. As always, we'll finish the night with your calls, comments, and open lines.

ABD'de 2024 seçimleri yaklaştı. Harris'in mi yoksa Trump'ı mı kazanacağı önemli bir mesele ve tartışma konusuyken Mehmet Yaşar Altundağ Trump'ın hikayesini Reflect Studio'nun sponsorluğunda bizlere anlattı. Yaşar, bu videoda Trump gibi bir liderin neden seçildiğini anlamak ve anlatmak için Amerikan ekonomisinin ve siyasetinin dönüşümünden bahsediyor. II. Dünya Savaşı'nda sonra önce Bretton Woods ile Altın sistemini getiren, ardından küreselleşme ve neoliberalleşmenin öncüsü olan ABD Trump ile beraber eski üretim ve sanayi ekonomisine geri dönüyor. Öyle ki Biden da Trump'ın sanayi destekçisi ve Çin karşıtı politikalarını devam ettiriyor.Reflect Studio'nun sponsorluğunda ABD'nin Büyük Dönüşümü, Trump'ın Gerçek Hikayesi videosu yayında!

For nearly eighty years, the United States has occupied the center of the global financial system. The dollar became the world's reserve currency, Wall Street evolved into the deepest capital market on Earth, and American financial infrastructure quietly became the operating system for global commerce. But what if the rest of the world is no longer asking how to participate in that system? What if it's asking how to build an entirely new one?In this episode of On the Record, Christian Briggs examines one of the most overlooked geopolitical stories unfolding today: the quiet race to reduce dependence on America's financial infrastructure. It begins with an unexpected place—Brazil's Pix payment system—but quickly expands into a much larger investigation involving India's UPI network, Europe's Wero initiative, China's CIPS payment platform, and the growing movement toward payment sovereignty around the world.Rather than focusing on sensational predictions of a dollar collapse, Christian explores a more compelling question: why are countries that often disagree with one another politically arriving at the same strategic conclusion? The answer reveals a profound shift in how governments think about national resilience, financial independence, and the risks of relying too heavily on infrastructure they do not control.Along the way, the episode revisits Bretton Woods, the birth of America's financial supremacy after World War II, the rise of sanctions as a geopolitical tool, and the unintended consequences that may have encouraged nations to quietly develop alternatives. The discussion then turns toward the future, examining artificial intelligence, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, tokenized assets, and the technological transformation that is rapidly redefining money itself.Most importantly, this is not a story about America's inevitable decline. It is a story about competition. The United States still possesses extraordinary strengths—world-leading capital markets, innovation, entrepreneurship, and technological leadership—but history demonstrates that financial leadership is never permanently guaranteed. It must be continually renewed.The episode concludes by asking a question that will shape the coming decades: Can America remain the world's financial leader while the rest of the world builds alternatives, or are we witnessing the early stages of a more decentralized global financial order?Whether you're interested in economics, geopolitics, investing, artificial intelligence, or simply understanding where the world is headed, this conversation reveals why one of the most important transformations of the twenty-first century may already be underway—quietly, steadily, and almost entirely out of public view.

Keith Weinhold explains why inflation has become a permanent part of the post–World War II economy and what that shift means for today's financial system.  He breaks down economist Dr. Mark Skousen's five structural reasons behind never-ending inflation and ties them to the hollowing out of the middle class and the "last generation to live normally" concept.  Keith then introduces opportunity cost as the biggest financial expense most people overlook and illustrates how leveraging low-cost, long-term debt to buy productive real assets can turn inflation into an advantage.  He closes by outlining a practical hierarchy for which debts to eliminate first and which to keep as tools for long-term wealth building. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/614 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. In less than 40 years, America has gone from 75% gasoline to permanent inflation. Then learn about the biggest financial expense you will ever have in your life. It's not taxes, housing, interest charges, inflation, children, or healthcare. Most people have never heard of it today on Get Rich Education. You know, Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider. I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties. It's an executive coach. For nine years now. Their CEO Terry Kerr and his COO Pat Nix have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one-on-one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to DanielThomashHind.com. H-I-N-D. That's DanielThomashHind.com, and sign up before spots fill.   Keith Weinhold  1:41   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com.   Speaker 1  2:14   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world, this is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  2:31   Welcome to GRE from Bavaria, Germany, to Batavia, New York, and across 188 world nations. I'm Keith Weinhold, and you're listening to Get Rich Education. In the 19 the 1988 movie Die Hard, there's a California gas station sign in the background that's visible. You can see it there. The gas price on this sign is a jaw dropper. Unleaded 77.9 cents per gallon, regular 70-4.9 cents per gallon. That now looks like it belongs in a museum next to rotary phones and blockbuster video cards. Yes, California gas for 75 cents, and the movie Die Hard. It had all these actors from yesteryear, like Bruce Willis and Reginald Vel Johnson. Yet you, depending on your age, you might remember 1988. It's not like ancient history. Now we all know that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, like Milton Friedman said, but is there more to this? Is there more than the Fed targeting 2% inflation, just like it says on their website? Oh, there sure is. And by the way, with a little research, it looks like California Gas averaged 95 cents in 1988, not 75 like it shows in Die Hard, but in any case, the point is still there. And today, inflation keeps running hot. Four years ago, the pandemic made CPI inflation peak at 9.1 percent. Today, the hangover effects of tariffs push it up, and the Iran war are turning up the heat even more, with the latest reading above 4% Inflation is running at more than double what the Fed wants. You can even make the case now that inflation is out of control. But here's the thing: inflation has exceeded that 2% target for 60-three consecutive months now. I mean, think about what that means. My gosh, just imagine having an important target that affects every American and missing it 60-three times in a row. That's kind of what's happening now, and they're. Going to keep missing it. So this streak of inflation above 2% started back in March of 2021 during the pandemic hangover, and it is still going strong after 63 months. Nobody knows where this is going to end. Most Americans get crushed by rising prices because their wages don't keep up, and you know collectively they sort of think we are concerned, but then they mostly keep doing the same thing while their lifestyle quietly shrinks. So consumers despise inflation. Everyday investors are lukewarm about inflation, and leverage real estate investors are smiling like they found a 20-dollar bill in last winter's coat. Leverage real estate investors are pretty ecstatic about inflation. Now the history gets super interesting.   Keith Weinhold  5:59   Okay, how did we get into this, where we just always seem to have inflation? So learn the history, and then I'll tie it back to how it affects you as an investor. Because before World War II, inflation behaved differently. The old pre-1945 pattern was that we had inflation during wars and booms. We had deflation after panics and depressions. So therefore, the result was that over long stretches, price levels often just moved sideways. We used to have recessions more often back 80 plus years ago than we do now. So therefore, you just had these price levels move sideways because a recession even prompted deflation, actually a strengthening of purchasing power. But then after World War II, inflation basically went permanently positive. I mean, yeah, permanently positive, where inflation is just always turned on with very few exceptions to that. In wartime, now we have inflation. In peacetime, now we have inflation. During the Super Bowl, now we have inflation. It is inflation, no matter what is going on. Right then, so what changed? Prominent economist and GRE podcast guest here, Dr. Mark Skousen. He has cited five major reasons that inflation became a permanent fixture from 1945 until today. And Mark Skousen was here on the show with us almost exactly two years ago because he's also the founder of a great event called Freedom Fest that Nareesh and I broadcast a show from, the five reasons that Scowson cites for never-ending inflation are first, never-ending wars. Now this doesn't only mean formally declared boots on the ground wars where tanks are rolling, never-ending wars. It means this permanent state of global military readiness that we have today, where we have overseas bases, defense contractors, right with the military-industrial complex. We have NATO commitments.   Keith Weinhold  8:17   We have anti-terror operations, naval patrols, intelligence agencies, and all this enormous machinery that's required to keep America as the world's security backstop. Well, all that costs an awful lot of money, and when government wants more money than it collects, it has a favorite trick: just create more dollars and create them out of nothing. I mean, it's like ordering another round of drinks for the table and then putting it on the unborn grandchildren's tab. The second reason for the never-ending inflation is the 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve and how that's changed over time because the Fed they were originally supposed to defend the dollar, defend the gold standard, and act as lender of last resort. Today it mostly just does the last one. It acts as the lender of last resort, and it's really not even last resort. I mean, she shit seems to patch any significant hole in the economy by creating more dollars and then pumping them into the system. When markets wobble, banks panic, or politicians overspend, or the economy catches any kind of cold, you know, the Fed often just shows up with this fire hose of liquidity. Now, sometimes that's necessary, but either way, it means more currency creation. So, the Fed it began as this sort of sober hallway monitor, but now they're often the responsible party that needs monitoring. But no. No one is going to stand up and do it because no one in power wants austerity under their watch because that is extremely unpopular. The third reason for permanent inflation is the Bretton Woods Agreement. You've probably heard of this, but let me summarize what it briefly means. Okay, Bretton Woods was the 1944 deal that basically created the post-World War II global monetary system? It made the U.S. dollar the world's reserve currency. If you remember anything from Bretton Woods, just remember that it did that. It made the U.S. dollar the world's reserve currency, and the dollar was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce.   Keith Weinhold  13:29   And finally, the fifth reason for never-ending inflation post World War II is Keynesian economics. I mean, you probably at least heard the term before. It's been thrown around here from time to time. Named after John Maynard Keynes, K E Y N E S. And before I go on, I invested in real estate for a long time before I learned all this stuff. Probably close to a decade of investing first. So I taught myself this material, Keynesian economics. That's the belief that demand is what drives economic output and employment. So, if you only remember one thing about Keynesian economics, it's that you need demand, and it stokes demand. It says demand drives everything, and what I mean by that is the spending, spending from households, corporations, and government. So, in plain English, when private demand weakens, the government should step in and spend. That's what Keynesian economics says. Well, that means deficits, borrowing, stimulus, support, programs, relief, rescue packages, emergency measures, and see what happens is that temporary measures somehow become permanent measures wearing a fake mustache. Remember, even Nixon said removal from the gold standard is temporary. Well, that was now 50. 55 years ago, in theory, the government runs deficits in bad times and then tightens up in good times. But that doesn't really happen because, in practice, government often runs deficits in bad times and good times, war times, peace times, election years, non-election years, leap years, all the time running deficits, spending more than we take in, and when deficits become normal, well, then currency creation has got to follow. That's the consequence. Well, these five forces that I told you about for never-ending inflation, the reasons that I just shared with you-they are now structurally embedded. They are not going away.   Keith Weinhold  19:03   I mean, there is even political resistance to deflation in this system. Investors benefit the most when they own one thing: real assets tied to long-term debt. You probably knew that I was going to say that because if the dollar is designed to slowly melt. You don't want to be the one holding the ice cube. You want to own the freezer. That's the control that you have. The first half of the year recently ended. It's time for our asset class rundown. From the midpoint of last year to the midpoint of this year, single-family home values are up only about one and a half percent. That's the average of Case-Shiller and FHFA. Apartment building values are down 1% in the past year. When it comes to rents per Zillow, single-family home rents are up 2.8% in the past year to an all-time record of almost 20-$300 Apartment rents are up just. 1.3% nationally. Sunbelt Apartments were the weak spot. Apartments.com said the South was down seven tenths of 1% year over year, and the mountain region down one and a half percent. With San Antonio, Denver, Austin, and Phoenix among the weaker markets, that's due to oversupply in those areas. 30-year mortgage rates down from 6.8 to 6.6% The S S&P 500 up 21 percent on AI optimism, despite a war in Iran. Though down in past months for the year, gold is still up 21 percent, silver soared 63 percent, Bitcoin down 45 percent. I mean, speculative digital assets have really gotten a cold shoulder. Oil up 4% although it went on a wild ride, and CPI inflation reheated to 4.2% That's our asset class rundown.   Speaker 2  22:59   This is our rich dad poor dad author Robert Kiyosaki. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  23:17   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. I want you to listen to something along with me, and then I'll come back to comment. This is from the parallel truth. It's called the last generation to live normally, and it's less than two minutes in length.   Speaker 2  23:32   We have to talk about something that sounds dramatic, but it is becoming true. Your parents may have been the last generation to live a normal life-not an easy life, not a perfect life, but a life where the basic deal still made sense. You could get a stable job, you could buy a house, you could raise children, you could save some money, you could retire one day. And even if life was hard, most people still believed that if they worked honestly, their future would slowly get better. But look at what happened to your generation. You work more, but own less. You study more, but feel less secure. You have more technology than any generation in history, but less peace, less time, and less confidence about the future. Your parents were told, "Work hard, and you will build a life. But you are being told that, "Work hard, and maybe you can afford rent. And the most disturbing part is that this did not happen overnight. It happened slowly. First, housing became an investment instead of a basic need. Then, education became a debt trap. Then, healthcare became too expensive. Then, stable jobs disappeared. Then, everything became a subscription: your house, your car, your software, your entertainment, even your future. Everything slowly became something you rent but never truly own. And while ordinary people were falling behind, the economy kept looking strong on paper. The stock market went up, billionaires got richer, companies made record profits. Politicians kept saying that everything was fine, but if everything is fine, why does an entire generation feel like it is drowning? The truth is, your parents did not live through normal history. They lived through a rare window where ordinary people. People were allowed to share in the wealth of the system, but that window is now closing. The old promise was simple: work hard, buy a home, raise a family, retire with dignity. The new promise is different: work forever, rent everything, delay children, carry debt, and call it freedom. So maybe young people are not lazy. Maybe they are just the first generation honest enough to admit that the old deal is dead. Your parents were not lucky because life was easy. They were lucky because they were the last ones who got the deal before it was taken away.   Keith Weinhold  25:27   Yeah, there it is-the last generation to live normally. That's really a fresh slant on the hollowing out of the middle class. The rules have changed. Inflation is entrenched. Now you know why. Back in 2020, the pandemic accelerated that effect, and yet it's just unbelievable to me that people think working hard and saving money is enough to get you the lifestyle that you desire. Now I am not against hard work, it's the fact that people think that that's all that it takes. Before we hit the permanent inflation era, it might have made sense for you to say, save your money, pay all cash for a cheap fixer-upper property, and work hard for years to fix it up yourself. Oh, and then you could own a modest home debt-free. Today, even if you could do that, why would you? Instead, you can just prudently finance your way through life. You could have instead borrowed for two or three already renovated properties and let debt, inflation, and perhaps even tenants do the work for you. Above all, do the right thing before you do things right. That's what I like to say. Well, the way you get wealthy is by owning a lot of assets, not by grinding in the salt mines to pay off your debt. Those that are debt free are often asset poor. The biggest financial expense that you will ever have in your life. Do you know what it is? It is not taxes or interest charges. It's not even inflation or housing or healthcare or having children, most people have never heard of it. You probably have, but most people have never heard of this biggest financial expense you'll ever have, and they certainly don't know how to avoid it.   Keith Weinhold  27:34   Say that you're 35 years old and you put 100k under a mattress for 30 years until you're 60- years old. Instead, if that would have been invested at a 12% annual return, do you know how much that would have grown to? That would have grown to $2.996 million All right, basically 3 million bucks, a 30x increase. Therefore, it would be a 2.9 million dollar mistake to save money, and what this means is that the biggest expense you'll ever pay in your life is called opportunity cost. Yeah, opportunity cost is life's biggest expense. It's the return that was foregone when you chose one option over another. So opportunity cost is not what you spend; it's what your money could have become had you put it somewhere more productive. All right, now that was a pretty extreme example of 100k under a mattress. As a listener to this show, you are probably more savvy than a person that would save big lumps of money for close to zero return. Let me give you a better example of how when you pay all cash for something, you've usually just made your future self poorer. A friend of mine heard the episode last year where I talked about buying a new car for myself, a BMW X3 SUV. As it is, you probably remember that episode. Though I could have paid all cash for the car, I put the minimum down payment in there and then financed as much as I could because of a favorable 4% interest rate that I got on a car loan. Well, my friend Jesse heard that episode. This influenced him. So what he did is he bought a Subaru for his wife. Although he had planned to pay all cash and could have paid all cash for the car, Jesse got financing, and he did better than me. He got just a 1% interest rate somehow. Wow! It was actually nine tenths of 1% but let's just call it 1% What a deal! Instead of paying all cash for the car, he held on to that chunk of money. Instead of tying it up in a depreciating asset, he is financing it all. Now I don't. How much the Subaru costs, but let's just say it was 50k to keep the numbers simple. Well, look, if Jesse feels like he can get a 10% return over time by investing his money instead of sinking it into a car, how much does he profit by borrowing? Of course, he has the advantage of keeping his funds more liquid as well, but how much does he actually profit from this arrangement?   Keith Weinhold  30:24   Well, the math is so easy that you can even visualize it in an audio format here. Now it depends on the loan term, but the simple spread is a 10% investment return minus a 1% car loan cost. That is a 9% positive spread on 50k. That's roughly $4,500 per year in benefit. That's before any taxes, risk, or fees. $4,500 a year just for doing some loan paperwork. Like if you wonder whether the loan paperwork is worth it or not, that's what we're talking about here, and that's 375 bucks a month. So if you're wondering if it's even worth it taking the time to get a car loan when you could pay all cash, it probably is. All right, now that's the upside. What about the risk that's associated with taking a loan instead of paying all cash, well, the caveat here is that the 1% loan is guaranteed, but the 10% return is probably not, and that risk gap does matter. If you're financially fragile and you can't make the payment with another pot of money, well, then you risk default. That is over leverage risk. That's the worst case scenario. All right, what's the flip side? The flip side is that you could earn a return even better than 10% As we know, with real estate pays five ways on investment property. If you earn a 20% return, now you're making $9,500 a year on the spread, not $4,500, but a 10% return. That is the base case. So again, by paying all cash instead of getting the loan, your future self would be poorer by $4,500 a year. And now, my friend Jesse, that learned this from me, he's actually a CFA, a chartered financial analyst, a sophisticated money guy. But he had simply been overlooking this. And said another way, what you're doing here is that over time, your investment is paying you more than your interest is costing you, and in my life, I have been doing exactly this sort of thing all over the place for decades. An interesting thing that I hear about this, although it makes me scratch my head, I've heard a few people say this. It's just like, oh well, I don't want to have to deal with a car payment? I just rather be done with it and move on. What is there to deal with? Just set up auto pay with preserving funds for say a 10% return. You're then going to see more dollars flowing into your account than you will out of it. I mean that part can just be automated.   Keith Weinhold  33:19   My life and finances are set up this way. In fact, when I get a loan for a rental property, I have had mortgage loan officers that are looking at my finances. They tell me that I have more stuff flowing into and out of my checking account than they've ever seen anyone have. I'm I'm financing and arbitraging my way through life passively. This is thanks in part to inflation. I am not paying very much at all in that biggest financial expense that we all have in our lives-not taxes or children or housing, but opportunity cost. I am avoiding paying that. This is the world that we live in today, a lot of times debt reduction is horrible advice. Debt free that can keep people from falling over a cliff, but it stalls any wealth creation. Now the debts that usually make the most sense to pay down they're the ones with high interest, variable rates, no tax benefit, and no productive asset attached. And here is the priority order that I use for paying down debt or paying off debt. First, it is credit cards. Pay down these first almost every time. I mean, a 20% or even 30% credit card rate. This is like financial quicksand. You don't need a sophisticated investment thesis when you can get a guaranteed 20-4% quote-unquote return by eliminating this debt. The next place I would pay down are payday loans, personal. Loans and consumer finance debt. I mean, these are usually bad debts because they're at a high rate, have a short amortization, and they're usually tied to consumption instead of an income-producing asset. Pay these aggressively too, and then next in priority is paying variable rate debt that could reset higher. This isn't quite as important to address.   Keith Weinhold  35:24   We're talking about things like HELOCs, adjustable rate loans, margin debt, and some business lines of credit. Some of those can become dangerous when rates rise, even if the rate's tolerable today. The uncertainty can be a bit of a problem. Now, when it comes to should you pay down student loans, consider that. low fixed-rate student loans that might not be urgent. It sure wasn't for me. High-rate private student loans that could be different. That could get more of your attention. You also got to weigh things like tax benefits. Look out for forgiveness programs when it comes to student loans, those haven't been quite as available lately under this administration. Also, look at employer repayment benefits before you rush to pay down student loans, and then really the last one: low fixed-rate mortgage debt. Pay that last if you ever do. In fact, it is quite possible that I will always keep this debt type around that low fixed rate mortgage debt. So really, my rule of thumb here is to kill toxic debt. Be careful with unstable debt, and don't rush to pay off cheap fixed productive debt if you ever pay it off at all. You and I covered a lot of ground today, starting with 75 cent gasoline in California, all the way to the biggest expense you'll ever pay throughout your life, being something that most people have never heard of: opportunity cost. Coming up on the show here, a lot of good episodes, including a great guest and I are going to discuss a new way to invest in residential real estate that we haven't discussed before, and it will massively boost your cash flow. If you found today's show valuable, whether it was the history of why we have permanent inflation or the idea of passively financing your way to wealth, rather than only working harder. I would be grateful if you share this episode with a friend. Just tap the share button in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen, and send it to someone who would benefit from hearing it. Or take a screenshot of this episode and post it on social media. It helps more people find the show, and it gives you and your friends something smart to talk about with each other. Until next week, I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 1  37:53   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.    Keith Weinhold  38:21   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building at getricheducation.com.  

Key Topics How the American experiment of government based on consent and inalienable rights ignited global movements and reshaped societies, from Europe to Asia. The complex legacy of America's post-1945 institutional order, the Marshall Plan, NATO, United Nations, and whether this framework still works or if it's fundamentally broken. The rise of competing models like China's authoritarian capitalism and the implications for democracies worldwide. Why America's internal struggles, polarization, and quest for national self-redefinition threaten its ability to lead and inspire future generations. The risks and opportunities of a world where the U.S. steps back, and other nations forge a new, possibly more interdependent, global order. Links Zanny Minton Beddoes - https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/zanny-minton-beddoes/ James Harding - https://observer.co.uk/contributor/james-harding Sylvie Kauffmann - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/signataires/sylvie-kauffmann/ Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs — belfercenter.org World Review with Ivo Daalder — belfercenter.org/world-review-ivo-daalder

Since stepping into the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV has been a forceful voice pushing back against the anti-human path we're on with AI. In May, he released “Magnifica Humanitas,” a sprawling encyclical warning of the dangers to human dignity and agency posed by runaway AI. Tristan had the incredible opportunity to meet with the Pope ahead of the encyclical's release.  In the modern world, you'd think we would have developed governance structures to deal with powerful new technologies like AI. It's worth asking why a 2,000-year-old religious institution is the only one standing up and loudly declaring that the default path is unacceptable.  In this episode, Tristan and Aza discuss what it was like for Tristan to be at the Vatican, why this is such a critical step toward a pro-human future, and how we can build on the momentum of the Pope's call to action. Your Undivided Attention is produced by Center for Humane Technology. You can find a transcript of this conversation on our Substack. RECOMMENDED MEDIA The Pope's encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?Corrections: Tristan said that Pope John XXIII gave his radio address weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It actually occured during the crisis. Tristan paraphrased the full quote from Pope Leo's encyclical on AI disarmament. Here is the full quote: "Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of “armed” competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance." Aza slightly misquoted Dr. King Jr. The full quote begins "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live." The delegates for Bretton Woods came from just 44 countries, not "hundreds" as Tristan said.     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this episode, Sam sits down with Mel K to explore the hidden power structures that emerged after World War II. They examine the Bank for International Settlements, the Bretton Woods agreement, Operation Paperclip, the Dulles brothers, the creation of the CIA, and the declassified plans that reshaped global finance, intelligence, and political power. It's a deep dive into the institutions and events that many believe shaped the modern world behind the scenes. Please check out Mel K's book "Infiltration Instead of Invasion : America Betrayed (1944–1954)": https://bit.ly/4y1dUpG   Please subscribe to the new Tin Foil Hat youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@TinFoilHatYoutube   Sam Tripoli's 5th Crowd Work Special "Hero Live From Batavia" Drops May 2nd On Youtube.com/SamTripoliComedy   Grab your copy of the 2nd issue of the Chaos Twins now and join the Army Of Chaos: https://bit.ly/415fDfY   Check out Sam "DoomScrollin with Sam Tripoli and Midnight Mike" Every Tuesday At 4pm pst on Youtube, X Twitter, Rumble and Rokfin! Join the WolfPack at Wise Wolf Gold and Silver and start hedging your financial position by investing in precious metals now! Go to https://www.samtripoli.gold/ and use the promo code "TinFoil" and we thank Tony for supporting our show.   Grab Tickets To Sam Tripoli's Live Shows At SamTripoli.com: Miami, Fl: 7/31-8/1 Lawerence, KS: 9/17-9/19 Tulsa, OK: 10/9-10/10 Dallsa, Tx: Nov 7th (TrutherCon) Austin, TX: Dec 11th-13th   Please check out Word War Debate and the WordWarDebate Contenders Series: https://wordwardebate.com   Please check out Sean Mel K's internet:  Please check out Mel K's internet: Website: https://themelkshow.com rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TheMelKShow twitter: https://twitter.com/MelKShow    Please check out Sam Tripoli's internet: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/samtripoli Sam Tripoli's Stand Up Youtube Page: https://www.youtube.com/@SamTripoliComedy Sam Tripoli's Comedy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samtripolicomedy/%20P Sam Tripoli's Podcast Clip Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samtripolispodcastclips/   Please support our sponsors: Ethos: Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy, 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam, you just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month. Ethos has 4.8 out of 5 stars on TrustPilot with over 3,000 reviews. Help protect your family with life insurance through Ethos. Get your instant, free quote at ETHOS dot com slash tinfoil. That is E-T-H-O-S dot com slash tinfoil. Application times and rates may vary.   JackArcher: Finding pants that are comfortable, polished, and versatile doesn't have to be a guessing game. Jack Archer's Jetsetter Tech Pant is designed for work, travel, and everything in between with wrinkle-resistant, stain-repellent, machine-washable fabric that keeps its shape all day. Visit JackArcher.com and use promo code GETJACK to get 15% off your first order.  

In this episode of Beyond the Indus, Carlos Frederico Pereira da Silva Gama, founder of Brazil's BRICS Policy Center and an international relations scholar at the Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, joins host Tushar Shetty to examine the future of BRICS as the postwar order fractures in the wake of the Iran war. They discuss the priorities and divergences of India's BRICS presidency ahead of the September leaders' summit in Delhi, the expansion to BRICS Plus and its toll on the group's cohesion, why BRICS functions as one club in a wider Global South portfolio rather than a unified bloc, the New Development Bank and BRICS Pay as a challenge to the Bretton Woods system, the effect of Trump's tariffs and rhetoric on close US partners like Brazil and India, and the best- and worst-case scenarios for the group in a fracturing world order.

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Eric talks with Mel K about her book Infiltration Instead Of Invasion. Mel argues that America was not conquered by a traditional invasion, but infiltrated through finance, intelligence, international institutions, NGOs, academia, and the post World War II global architecture. They discuss JFK's warning, the Federal Reserve, the Dulles brothers, the CIA, the Bank of International Settlements, Bretton Woods, USAID, NATO, the UN, Trump, sovereignty, and the future of freedom.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World

(This is a rebroadcast of episode 309)See our video at https://youtu.be/BwSR9LpqRm0In this episode of Libertarians Talk Psychology, we dive deep into one of the most defining economic turning points in modern U.S. history: 1971, the year President Nixon ended the Bretton Woods agreement and removed the dollar from the gold standard. This decision—often overlooked—set in motion decades of inflation, currency distortion, and financial instability that still affect every aspect of life today. Drawing on Dave Smith's compelling explanation, we explore how radically different the world could have been if the U.S. had maintained a stable, sound money supply. Imagine a world without runaway inflation, without the boom-bust cycles created by loose monetary policy, and without the government's ability to quietly tax citizens through currency debasement. Smith argues that abandoning gold didn't just change the economy—it changed society, culture, and global power dynamics. We break down:What exactly happened in 1971Why stable money is foundational to liberty and psychological well-beingHow inflation quietly alters behavior, incentives, and family lifeHow fiat money fuels political overreach, endless wars, and corporate distortionWhat individuals and communities can do now, in an unstable financial eraSound money solutions, from decentralization to Bitcoin to local alternativesIf you've ever wondered why everything feels more expensive, more chaotic, and more distorted than it used to, this episode connects the dots. Understanding 1971 is the first step—deciding what to do next is the challenge we tackle together.Clip from Dave Smith | PartOfTheProblemFollow Us:YouTubeXFacebookBlueskyAll audio & videos edited by: Jay Prescott Videography

Bob sits down with economists Alexander Salter and Joshua Hendrickson to discuss their new paper arguing that the standard Austrian critique of the Fed while correct, is fundamentally incomplete. They argue that the Fed's actual institutional role is to backstop U.S. dollar hegemony: the deliberately constructed post-Bretton Woods system in which the dollar serves as the world's reserve currency, U.S. Treasuries as the global safe asset, and the Fed as buyer of last resort for sovereign debt worldwide.Related:Hendrickson & Salter, "Should We End the Fed? Can We?": Mises.org/HAP553a

Bob sits down with economists Alexander Salter and Joshua Hendrickson to discuss their new paper arguing that the standard Austrian critique of the Fed while correct, is fundamentally incomplete. They argue that the Fed's actual institutional role is to backstop U.S. dollar hegemony: the deliberately constructed post-Bretton Woods system in which the dollar serves as the world's reserve currency, U.S. Treasuries as the global safe asset, and the Fed as buyer of last resort for sovereign debt worldwide.Related:Hendrickson & Salter, "Should We End the Fed? Can We?": Mises.org/HAP553a

The Last Trade: Matt Dines, CIO of Build Asset Management, joins to lay out the seismic monetary reshuffling underway in 2026, the unwind of the post-Bretton-Woods offshore-dollar system that ran the global economy from 1971 to 2022, why LIBOR's deprecation and the SOFR transition quietly moved the dollar's command center from London to New York, Scott Bessent's strategy to monetize the asset side of the Treasury balance sheet through the GENIUS Act stablecoin and a Bitcoin reserve targeting 1 million BTC, Tether's December 2023 alignment with the American Sovereignist movement, and the contrarian read on MicroStrategy as a "dollar strategy" rather than a Bitcoin strategy.---

This Day in Legal History: Congress Repeals the Gold ClauseOn this day in 1933, Congress passed the Joint Resolution that voided the gold clauses written into nearly every long-term contract and bond obligation in the United States, both public and private. The resolution declared that any provision purporting to require payment “in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency” was “against public policy,” and that obligations could be discharged dollar for dollar in whatever legal tender currency was in force at the time of payment. It was a remarkable act of legislative power: a one-paragraph statute that rewrote the payment terms of millions of existing contracts overnight, in the middle of the Great Depression, to make Franklin Roosevelt's recent abandonment of the gold standard actually stick. The Supreme Court took up the inevitable challenge two years later in the Gold Clause Cases — Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio, Nortz v. United States, and Perry v. United States — and in February 1935 it upheld the resolution as applied to private contracts by a 5-4 vote, while telling the United States, in Perry, that it had violated its own contractual word in repudiating gold-payment promises on government bonds, but that the bondholder had suffered no compensable injury. The doctrinal residue of that compromise is still with us: Congress can use its monetary powers to alter private contract terms retroactively when monetary policy requires it, the rule that has quietly underwritten every major monetary intervention since, from Bretton Woods to the post-2008 emergency lending programs. June 5 is not a day most lawyers mark on the calendar, but the resolution Congress passed on this date is one of the cleanest examples in American law of a legislature using its enumerated powers to dissolve a contract term that had been considered, until that moment, untouchable.The Supreme Court on Thursday handed Hikma Pharmaceuticals — and the entire generic drug industry — a 9-0 win in a case that had been hanging over the so-called “skinny label” pathway for years. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, writing for a unanimous Court in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., held that Amarin, the maker of the brand-name fish-oil drug Vascepa, had not plausibly alleged that Hikma actively induced infringement of Amarin's patents covering a still-patented cardiovascular use of the drug. The skinny label is a feature of Hatch-Waxman generic-drug law that lets a generic manufacturer copy only the unpatented uses of a brand drug by literally carving the patented uses out of its FDA-approved label, which is supposed to let cheaper generics reach the market for the unpatented indications even while patents on other indications are still in force. Brand companies have been trying for years to sue around that carve-out under the active inducement statute, 35 U.S.C. § 271(b), by pointing to generic press releases, marketing language, or website descriptions and arguing that doctors could read those statements as encouragement to prescribe the generic for the still-patented use. The Federal Circuit had bought a version of that argument and revived Amarin's case. The Supreme Court rejected that approach, and the test that Justice Jackson articulated is meaningful: the question is not how doctors might interpret what a generic manufacturer said, but whether the manufacturer itself actively encouraged the infringing use. Neutral statements that could be read as instructions to infringe do not count. The practical effect is to shore up the skinny label pathway and make it harder for brand companies to weaponize induced infringement against generic competition. The decision was originally framed as a pharmaceutical-industry case, but its inducement standard will reach across patent law generally and into every industry where § 271(b) gets litigated.It's unanimous: SCOTUS agrees with Hikma in ‘skinny label' case vs. Amarin | Fierce PharmaAlso unanimous on Thursday: the Supreme Court in Sripetch v. SEC held that the Securities and Exchange Commission can obtain disgorgement of a wrongdoer's ill-gotten gains without having to prove that any individual investor lost money. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 9-0 Court, which is itself a small surprise given the Court's recent pattern of skepticism toward broad SEC remedial powers. The case came out of a penny-stock pump-and-dump scheme that Ongkaruck Sripetch ran across some 20 small companies — buy shares quietly, promote them aggressively, sell into the bubble — and the SEC won an order requiring him to disgorge roughly $3 million. Sripetch's argument on appeal was that disgorgement is supposed to be tied to investor harm, that the SEC had not shown specific pecuniary losses traceable to him, and that the order was therefore not the kind of equitable relief the Court approved in its 2020 Liu v. SEC decision. The Court disagreed, on traditional equity principles: disgorgement, the Court explained, is measured by the defendant's unjust gain, not the plaintiff's quantified loss, and equity has always been willing to strip a wrongdoer of profit even when the victim cannot mathematically prove harm. The practical importance for the SEC is enormous — the agency reports collecting roughly $1.4 billion in disgorgement in fiscal 2025 alone, and a contrary ruling would have forced the SEC into an evidentiary burden that pump-and-dump and insider-trading cases are notoriously bad at supplying. The opinion is also a reminder that the Court's recent administrative-state skepticism is not all in one direction: when the question is grounded in old equity doctrine, the same justices who narrowed SEC adjudication in Jarkesy are willing to leave the agency's remedial toolkit intact.US Supreme Court Backs SEC in Fight Over ‘Disgorgement' Power | US NewsThe third and most constitutionally significant of Thursday's rulings was FCC v. AT&T, in which the Supreme Court upheld 8-1 the Federal Communications Commission's longstanding practice of imposing forfeiture penalties on regulated carriers through its own in-house process, without first giving the carrier a jury trial. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority, with Justice Clarence Thomas the lone dissenter. The case grew out of the FCC's headline-making fines against AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint for selling access to real-time customer location data to third parties without consent — fines that ran nearly $200 million across the four carriers, with AT&T's portion at $57 million and Verizon's at $46.9 million. The carriers challenged the fines on Seventh Amendment grounds, arguing that the Court's 2024 decision in SEC v. Jarkesy — which struck down the SEC's in-house adjudication of securities-fraud penalties as a violation of the jury-trial right — should reach FCC forfeitures too. The Court said no, on a structural distinction that matters: an FCC forfeiture order is not self-executing. The FCC cannot collect on its own. If a carrier refuses to pay, the matter is referred to the Justice Department, which then has to file a civil action in federal district court — a proceeding in which the carrier is entitled to a full jury trial and the government has to prove the violation de novo, with no deference to the FCC's findings. That collection-stage jury trial, Roberts wrote, is enough to satisfy the Seventh Amendment, even though the agency itself first issues the penalty. Justice Thomas's dissent argued the in-house process is no less coercive than the SEC adjudication the Court rejected in Jarkesy and would have extended Jarkesy here. The practical takeaway: agency in-house penalty proceedings survive after Jarkesy if there is a real, downstream jury-trial backstop. Expect every regulator with a similar two-step enforcement structure to point to this opinion the next time someone tries to push Jarkesy further.Court rules against cell service providers over right to jury trial in FCC proceedings | SCOTUSblog This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

A century ago, when depositors lost confidence in a bank, they'd rush to withdraw their cash. In 1971, US president Richard Milhous Nixon faced a similar dilemma. But his problem wasn't ordinary citizens fearing for their savings. Instead, it was America's closest allies who were nervously eyeing the dwindling supply of gold in Fort Knox at a time when the dollar's value was tied to gold and allies' currencies were in turn tied to the dollar. And just like a beleaguered bank manager of yore, Nixon chose to shut America's doors to further withdrawals. His decision threatened to pull the plug on the entire international monetary system established at Bretton Woods in 1944. It was so unexpected and outrageous, it became known as the “Nixon Shock”. In the first of two episodes on the topic, hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth get the story from economist and ex-financier Jeffrey Garten – a man with a CV so long that he once even worked for the Nixon administration himself.Further reading:Three Days at Camp David: How a Secret Meeting in 1971 Transformed the Global Economy, by Jeffrey E Garten (2021)Gold and the dollar crisis, by Robert Triffin (1960)Credits: Getty Images, the Richard Nixon Presidential LibraryTo enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoneyHosts: Gillian Tett and Robin WigglesworthProducer: Laurence KnightExecutive Producer: Manuela SaragosaOriginal music: Breen TurnerBroadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros GioumpasisPodcast Development: Laura ClarkeVideo editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast DiscoveryLearn more at www.ft.com/tsom or get in touch at thestoryofmoney@ft.com.Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The economy was designed to serve life. At some point, it forgot. This article traces how that happened - through colonial extraction, currency manipulation, and centuries of treating the Earth as an inexhaustible resource - and more importantly, what is already being built in its place. It is also worth naming what is being built against it. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), digital identity systems, and the broader technocratic agenda advancing through institutions like the World Economic Forum represent a competing vision of the future - one where economic participation is surveilled, programmable, and ultimately controlled by the few. That is not a regenerative economy. It is the extractive economy in a new interface. The regenerative economy moves in the opposite direction: toward decentralization, sovereignty, reciprocity, and life. From Time Banks in New York to community currencies in Ecuador to worker cooperatives in Spain, it is not a future vision. It is a present reality, waiting to be joined. And while blockchain and regenerative finance are real and important parts of this picture, the regenerative economy is bigger than any single technology. It is a whole-systems redesign - cultural, spiritual, and practical - of how human beings relate to value, to each other, and to all living beings on Earth.A System Feature | Designed to ExtractA president steps up to the podium in Manila, praising the economic progress their country has fulfilled after, what many of us call “ the plandemic”. Outside the auditorium, a young mother carries her child on her hip, knocking on car windows at a red light, eyes down, asking for alms. The applause inside the hall doesn't reach her. It never does.The president says the currency has strengthened. That prices are coming down. Meanwhile, across the city, a farmer named Rodrigo is standing in the field he has worked for thirty years, calculating whether this harvest will cover the loan he took out before the last typhoon swept his crop away. It didn't. This is not an exception to the economic system. It is a feature of it. A reflection of a culture that does not care about those actually in need.Many nations measure their health through GDP - Gross Domestic Product - which essentially dictates whether or not an economy is “progressing.” It runs under one quiet assumption: that the Earth will keep giving. Indefinitely. Without asking anything in return. That before the calculations around supply, demand, and the balance of everything else, all the raw materials are already ideally supplied.The Earth is answering. Typhoons that once came once a generation now arrive like clockwork. Harvests that fed communities for centuries are failing across the Andes, the Sahel, the Mekong delta. The seasons that indigenous peoples read as living calendars have become erratic, unreliable, grieving. None of this is random. It is a response - accurate and proportional - to an economy built on the assumption that extraction has no cost.If we were truly “abundant” financially, we would not have billions of people at risk of starvation, homelessness, and other manifestations of neglect and poverty. The economy was supposed to serve all life. It has forgotten this. And in forgetting it, it has begun to abandon human life itself.The Story We InheritedMoney was supposed to be a promissory note for the gold reserves one actually held. The paper was a symbol - pointing at something real, something held in a vault somewhere, something that could be touched.Then the notes began circulating. And the longer they circulated, the more people forgot what they were pointing to. Eventually, the circulation gave rise to the idea of turning the notes into currency itself. The symbol became the standard. It became backed not by gold, but by story - a story so strong, so repeated, so programmed into every transaction of daily life, that we began to mistake it for the truth.We placed a middleman between ourselves and our needs. And somewhere along the way, we forgot we had done it. Perhaps, by design. Here is what the story never tells you: the gold itself did not arrive innocently.In 1302, Pope Boniface VIII issued Unam Sanctam, declaring papal authority supreme over all earthly power - making the Earth itself, philosophically, ownable. A century and a half later, that claim became economic policy. Dum Diversas (1452) authorized the enslavement of non-Christians across the globe. Romanus Pontifex (1455) granted Portugal the right to colonize and extract across Africa and the New World. Inter Caetera (1493) extended the same to Spain and the Americas.These were the founding economic legislation of the extractive world we live in - all cloaked in religious language.What followed was centuries of forced extraction. Economists Flynn and Giráldez have documented that colonial American silver - mined through indigenous forced labor in Potosí and across Peru and Mexico - became the standard monetary foundation of early global trade. The gold in the vault was never simply there. It was coercively taken.And then, on August 15, 1971, even that material trace was erased. President Nixon closed the gold window, ending the Bretton Woods system and severing the dollar's convertibility to gold. According to the Federal Reserve's own record, the international community was not consulted. From that moment, currency was backed by nothing but the authority of the government printing it.Knowing that we wrote ourselves into this story, we are now remembering that we can write ourselves out of it. Not only by writing new stories, but by reconnecting with stories that existed long before our current economic situation - stories that are still alive, still practiced, still remembered by the communities that never abandoned them.What Has Always WorkedBefore the conquest of certain nations to centralize power into their hands, other societies practiced more communal and regenerative ways of exchanging value. To them, considering other people and the Earth itself was not an ethical add-on. It was integral to the flourishing of their economies.Pre-colonial PhilippinesLong before the Spaniards arrived, the Philippine archipelago was a major hub in the maritime Silk Road - one of Asia's most active trade networks. Communities exchanged with Chinese, Japanese, Arab, and Indian traders at coastal ports and river settlements.The archipelagic geography made it impossible to consolidate wealth in any single place. Different tribes like the Maranao exchanged surplus agricultural produce, textiles, metalware, and forest products through robust barter systems built on kinship ties and alliances among polities. Value moved between two people who chose to relate. No middleman. Mutual trust was the economic infrastructure.Andean PeoplesThe Quechua people organized their economy around a relational foundation that lives in the language itself. Ayni - sacred reciprocity. Minka - collective community work. Randi-Randi - generalized reciprocity, the understanding that what circulates returns. All three connect to the broader principle of Sumak Kawsay: good living in right relationship with community, land, and the living world.Sumak Kawsay does not separate prosperity from the wellbeing of ecosystems. It understands them as one thing. This recognition runs so deep that Ecuador enshrined it as the central guiding principle for its national development in its 2008 constitution - the living legal inheritance of an ancient economy that knew how to stay.Haudenosaunee in North AmericaIn their 1981 formal statement to the United Nations, the Haudenosaunee Council of Chiefs articulated what their communities had practiced for centuries: that the earth was created for all to use, forever - not for the present generation to exhaust. Under their law, land is held by the women of each clan, who farm and care for it for the benefit of future generations.The Haudenosaunee saw land as a responsibility to be stewarded in trust. Anthropologist Kurt Jordan from Cornell University documented their economic practices and described them as “a reasonably sustainable, localized economy” even under intense external pressure. They had embodied communal stewardship long before theories about such things were written down.Southern Africa“I am because we are.”This is Ubuntu - the philosophy at the core of both social and economic life across Southern Africa. Communities in South Africa and Mozambique relied on mutual aid networks, intergenerational knowledge systems, and participatory rituals as practical economic infrastructure. These systems enhanced community cohesion and collective resilience precisely in the moments when extractive economies failed them. They understood, bone-deep, that no human being thrives in isolation.Diversity of Regen Economic SystemsMany communities across continents are actively rebuilding economic systems beyond the extractive model. The following are not theoretical. They are actively running. Hence, the more diversity of economic systems each person and community practices, the more abundant, unbreakable and independent we are from degenerative systems from governments and corporations that want to control it all. The Commons FoundationOne body of research forms the intellectual foundation for nearly all of them: the life's work of Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics. Ostrom spent decades documenting over 800 cases of communities successfully governing shared resources - in Switzerland, Kenya, Guatemala, Nepal, and beyond - without either privatization or state control.Her conclusion was simple and radical: communities do not inevitably destroy what they share. Given the right institutional design, they protect it and pass this duty to the next generation. And her eight design principles for successful commons governance - the framework that emerged from all that fieldwork - describe, as she herself acknowledged, the same governance systems that indigenous communities had been practicing for centuries.Her work is not a new idea. It is a confirmation of ancient ones.Regenerative Economics | Beyond ReFi - The Whole-Systems VisionWhen most people first encounter the term “regenerative economy,” they arrive through crypto. Through ReFi - regenerative finance - and the promise of blockchain as a tool for funding ecological restoration, decentralizing power, and making impact transparent. These are real contributions. They matter.But John Fullerton, founder of the Capital Institute and one of the most rigorous thinkers in this field, spent two decades on Wall Street before arriving at a different and more fundamental question: what if the entire framework of modern finance is running in conflict with how life actually works?Fullerton's work focuses on building an economic framework that supports the long-term health of people, communities, and the planet - not by tweaking the existing system, but by replacing its underlying logic. His core argument is that we are running our society in conflict with the patterns and principles that explain how life works.His answer is what he calls regenerative economics: eight principles drawn from living systems science that describe how healthy economies - like healthy ecosystems - actually function. Diversity. Balance. Circular flow. Robust circulation. Surplus financial capital, in his framework, needs to be recycled and regenerated into other forms of capital - natural, social, and cultural. Not hoarded nor extracted. Composted back into the living system that produced it.ReFi, in Fullerton's framing, is one tool within this larger architecture. Blockchain can decentralize power. Tokenized nature credits can make ecological value legible to markets. Community currencies can circulate value locally. But the technology is only as regenerative as the values underneath it. A crypto project built on extraction logic is still extraction, regardless of the chain it runs on.Regenerative economy is not a financial product. It is a civilizational shift - in how we measure wealth, in what we decide to protect, in whose voices count when decisions are made. ReFi is welcome in that shift. It is one current in a much larger river.Time BanksIn Jackson Heights, Queens, a retired nurse named Gloria hasn't touched the formal economy in months for the things that matter most to her. She spends three hours teaching English to a recent immigrant. Those hours become credits. She spends them on home repairs from a neighbor who knows carpentry. He spends his credits on childcare. The loop keeps moving.This is a Time Bank - a community exchange system built on one radical premise: everyone's time is worth the same. One hour of legal advice equals one hour of gardening equals one hour of emotional support. The hierarchy of market wages disappears. What remains is a web of people who need each other.Edgar Cahn, who developed Time Banking in the 1980s after surviving a near-fatal heart attack, called it “co-production” - the idea that the economy needs what the market can never price: care, community, civic participation, the work of raising children and holding elders. Time Banks make that invisible labor visible, and circulate it back into the community that produced it.Today there are over 500 Time Banks operating in more than 30 countries. Some have formalized into neighborhood institutions. Others run through apps. All of them rest on the same foundation the Quechua called Ayni - sacred reciprocity - translated into the language of modern urban life.Mondragon CorporationThe Mondragon Corporation in Spain's Basque region remains the most studied proof that democratic ownership functions at scale. Founded by six worker-owners in 1956, it now comprises 96 cooperatives employing over 70,000 people, with annual revenues exceeding €11 billion. Workers own the company collectively, vote on strategy at general assemblies, and operate under a constitutionally capped pay ratio of 6-to-1 between the highest and lowest earners.Traditional Dream FactoryIn a 25-hectare village in Alentejo, Portugal, Traditional Dream Factory is a living prototype of the self-sustaining regenerative community - blending collective ownership, ecological restoration, intentional community, and decentralized economy in one working place. They have raised over €1.25 million in total capital across 280+ token holders. Their 2026 build phase is completing co-living rooms, artist studios, a farm-to-table restaurant, a mushroom farm, and a biopool wellness space.AtreyuInvestment, as most of us have encountered it, prioritizes short-term financial returns above all else. Atreyu challenges this at the root by approaching investment through living systems principles and deep relational due diligence. They support their investees to ensure that both the enterprises and the ecosystems they steward realize their potential - together. They focus on early-stage businesses and actively encourage steward-ownership models that enshrine self-governance and purpose orientation.Muyu CoinOne of the first social coins in South America, Based in Ecuador - Muyu serves as an alternative exchange system rooted in community trust and an understanding of sacred economy. It protects the sovereignty of communities in their production, distribution, exchange, consumption, and post-consumption - keeping the loop of value inside the community rather than extracting it outward. It uses Cyclos, an enchrypted platform, a base.It first did an attempt to start in 2015, but not many people showed interest. It then came back very strong in 2020, due to the “plandemic”. People felt the need to have alternative ways to transact that was not controlled by limiting governments. Giving communities complete independence. Currently with over 150+ members who are exchanging goods and services in different nodes throughout the country. From food produce, clothing and art -to- car mechanic, dentists and school teachers serving to the community.Grassroots EconomicsFounded in Kenya, Grassroots Economics supports communities in building their own self-sustaining economies - even when national currency is scarce - through a model called Commitment Pooling.Consider Wanjiru, a vegetable seller in Mombasa's Bangla Pesa network. During a slow week when Kenyan shillings are tight, she issues a Community Asset Voucher - a commitment to provide vegetables - and deposits it into a communal pool. Her neighbor, a carpenter named Kamau, redeems it. He offers his own labor in return. The loop closes. Food reaches a family that needed it. A roof gets repaired. No national currency changes hands.This is not a workaround. It is a return to how value was always supposed to move.Since Grassroots Economics was established in 2010, they have supported 26,600 people across 290+ communities, issuing over 2,140 vouchers. Their protocol is inspired by indigenous Rotational Labor Associations similar to Kenya's mwethya and harambee traditions. It is open-source and blockchain-agnostic - meaning any community, anywhere, can deploy it.The Choice in Front of UsThese regenerative endeavors share one answer to the core assumption of the extractive economy: the economy does not need to extract in order to function. Value can circulate and regenerate rather than accumulate. Ecological health, community resilience, and the wellbeing of the next generations are not costs to minimize - they are the actual metrics that demonstrate economic success.The question is no longer whether it is possible. It is happening. The question is whether enough of us choose to participate in building it, and whether we remember our roles as stewards of the Earth that has always sustained us.We get to choose the future we want for ourselves, our children, and the seven generations that come after.Your Role in the Regenerative EconomyReading this is already a kind of remembering. The question that follows is simple: where do you begin?The regenerative economy is not waiting to be invented. It is waiting to be joined. Every one of the models described here started with a small group of people who decided to practice a different relationship with value - before it was proven, before it was popular, before it was funded.Here are real entry points, available now:Start with your immediate circle. Identify three skills or resources you have in excess - time, knowledge, food from a garden, tools sitting unused. Offer them. Ask for what you need in return. This is Ayni. It requires no platform, no signup, no permission.Relocalize your spending. Every dollar (fiat currency) that circulates inside a local economy multiplies its impact without leaving the community. Farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, local cooperatives, regenerative small businesses - these are not lifestyle choices. They are votes for a different system, cast weekly.Find or start a Time Bank in your area. hOurworld.org and TimeBanks.org maintain active directories. If nothing exists near you, starting one requires little more than a spreadsheet and a Telegram/Whatsapp group.Join a community working on this. It can be our Regenerative Leadership Community from www.regenerativeculture.life is one place. There are others - transition towns, ecovillages, commons networks - in most regions of the world. Find your people. The regenerative economy is, at its root, a relationship economy. It does not work alone.Learn the language. Permaculture design, commons governance, cooperative economics, sacred reciprocity - these are not abstract concepts. They are practical skills with deep traditions behind them. The more fluent you become, the more useful you are to the communities building this.The scale of what needs to change can feel paralyzing. It is not meant to. The models described in this article did not begin at scale. Mondragon began with six people. Grassroots Economics began in one neighborhood in Mombasa. The Quechua did not design Ayni for a movement - they designed it for a harvest.Start where you are. With what you have. With whoever is near you. That has always been enough to begin. It's not easy, but it is possible.Written by Gertie Farenas and Yoshi Pantera - 90% by us humans and 10% AI assisted.This Audio is recorded by a true voice - Yoshi PanteraThis article is part of the Regenerative Culture Chronicle - a publication exploring the ideas, practices, and communities building a world that benefits all life.Learn more at RegenerativeCulture.LifeThanks for reading Regenerative Culture Chronicle! This post is public so feel free to share it.Regenerative Culture Chronicle is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Thank you! Get full access to Regenerative Culture Chronicle at regenerativecultureworld.substack.com/subscribe

“The rules-based system just hasn't worked. China's system is so opaque that you can't see the subsidies. And when you've got China not interested in new rules and the US not interested in a referee, you've got two of the world's biggest actors who aren't on board.” — Soumaya Keynes It would have been nice to get John Maynard Keynes on the show to get his critique of Trump's trade war. But in the long run, we're all dead — even old Maynard. So instead, we found his great-great-niece, Soumaya Keynes — Financial Times columnist and co-author of How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy. Having already appeared on Jon Stewart this week, Soumaya has a bit of Keynesian star quality about her. But she's also a first-rate economist. Her thesis is that the old rules-based trading system that her great-great-uncle helped design after World War II is gone. And it ain't coming back. China's subsidies are so opaque that rules can't be written to constrain them, let alone enforced. The US is no longer willing to submit to a referee. Without the two biggest players, no rules-based system is meaningful. So — now what? Keynes says we must think like a trade warrior. Donald Trump should leverage the tools available — but use them strategically. Trump's error in his second term was not being tough on China while being too tough on everyone else, especially allies like Canada and Mexico. Soumaya Keynes' most contemporary idea might be her most Keynesian one. John Maynard Keynes proposed penalties for countries running large trade surpluses as well as those running deficits — recognising that global imbalances are a two-sided problem. That idea didn't make it into the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement. Eighty years later, in equally anxious economic times, his optimistic great-great-niece is reviving it. Five Takeaways •       Can Trade Wars Be Won? Yes, Sometimes: The conventional wisdom: no one wins a trade war. Keynes and Bown agree — in theory. In practice, countries in a weaker position cave. History has examples: France in the late nineteenth century told its trading partners they were renegotiating treaties, and the smaller partners complied. Trump's tariffs in his first term produced concessions. The problem is not that trade wars can't be won. It's that the smaller power's only defence — coordinating with other smaller powers — is extremely hard to sustain. There's always an incentive to cut a deal first. •       China Is the Doper on the Sports Field: Keynes's sharpest analogy: the global trading system is like a sports game that needs rules to ensure a level playing field. China's subsidies — cheap credit, corporate handouts, opaque support for state-linked companies — are the equivalent of performance-enhancing drugs. The problem is that unlike doping in sport, China's subsidies are invisible. You can write a rule saying China won't give these handouts. But you can't verify compliance. And without enforcement, rules are meaningless. The WTO has not solved this. Nothing has solved this. •       Trump Was Right About China, Wrong About Everything Else: Keynes is careful here. She credits Robert Lighthizer in Trump's first term with identifying China as the real problem and building a focused strategy. In the second term, Trump put tariffs on everyone simultaneously — which dissipated leverage, alienated the coalition of allies needed to pressure Beijing, and mixed up the problem of China's subsidies with grievances against Canada, Mexico, and the EU. If you were genuinely tough on China, you wouldn't have put tariffs on everyone. You would have been more targeted. •       The Rules-Based System Is Gone and Isn't Coming Back: Why can't we return to the system Keynes's great-great-uncle helped build? Two reasons. China's subsidies are too opaque to write enforceable rules against. And the US has lost confidence in any international referee — a long and complex story, but the result is that America won't submit to neutral adjudication. Without the two biggest players, no rules-based system is meaningful. Yearning for the old approach is not an option. A new strategy is needed — and that's what the book is about. •       AI and the Next Trade War: Services: AI is central to the US-China conflict already — chip restrictions, military advantage, economic supremacy. But Keynes's less-noticed observation: AI could fundamentally reshape international services trade. The UK, for example, is a massive services exporter — finance, legal, consulting, accounting. If AI eliminates demand for those services, the UK faces a new current account crisis, new trade tensions, a new wave of economic conflict. Nobody knows how this plays out. Which is why, she suggests, the tools in the book will remain relevant for longer than the current tariff cycle. About the Guests Soumaya Keynes is an economics columnist at the Financial Times and host of The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes. Before joining the FT she spent eight years at The Economist. She co-founded the Trade Talks podcast with Chad Bown during Trump's first term. Chad P. Bown is the Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former Chief Economist at the US State Department under President Biden. Together they are the authors of How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy (Simon & Schuster, May 26, 2026). References: •       How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy by Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown (Simon & Schuster, May 26, 2026). •       Soumaya Keynes on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, May 19, 2026 — referenced in the interview. •       Episode 2892: Jason Pack on the Iran war — the companion episode on America's strategic distractions from the China problem. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouT...

Take 730 delegates from 44 countries, plus another 2,000 or so hangers-on. House them in a remote, dilapidated hotel with holes in the roof and broken furniture. Deliver a train wagon filled with alcohol. Throw in some Russian spies, German prisoners of war, a troupe of bombshell “secretaries” and a magician. And then have the lead protagonist, the world's most famous economist, almost die of a heart attack. What does that give you? Only the most successful international monetary negotiation in history. This is the story of the Bretton Woods conference of 1944, as relayed by journalist and author Ed Conway to hosts Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth. The three weeks of chaotic talks would deliver three decades of postwar peace and prosperity, and enthrone the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The discussions also nearly killed Britain's lead negotiator, John Maynard Keynes, and would later disgrace his US counterpart, Harry Dexter White.Further reading:The Summit, by Ed Conway (2015)The Economic Consequences of the Peace, by John Maynard Keynes (1919)John Maynard Keynes, biography by Robert Skidelsky in three volumes (1983-2000)Treasonable Doubt: The Harry Dexter White Spy Case, by R Bruce Craig (2004)Credits: King's College Cambridge, the IMF, Dreamstime, Getty Images, the Hulton Archive, Ullstein Bild, Bettmann, Shutterstock, the LIFE Picture Collection, Thomas D McAvoy, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and the Darling Archive.To enjoy future episodes, be sure to subscribe to The Story of Money wherever you get your podcasts, also on the show's dedicated YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@FTTheStoryOfMoneyHosts: Gillian Tett and Robin WigglesworthProducer: Laurence KnightExecutive Producers: Flo Phillips and Manuela SaragosaOriginal music: Breen TurnerBroadcast engineers: Bianca Wakeman and Petros GiuompasisPodcast Development: Laura ClarkeVideo editor: Kristen Kenyon and Josh Divney at Podcast DiscoveryLearn more at ft.com/tsom or get in touch at thestoryofmoney@ft.com.Love listening to FT Podcasts? Join us live on Saturday June 20 at our inaugural NYC FT Weekend Festival at Spring Studios. Put your questions directly to our experts, experience your favourite podcast in person, and see the FT come to life. Register now and enjoy 10% off with code FTPodcast — this is one Saturday you won't want to miss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Asked what secret he would use his resources to uncover, CZ says he would pick the private discussions around Richard Nixon's 1971 decision to close the gold window and end dollar convertibility, a move that destroyed Bretton Woods and launched the modern fiat currency system.

A pesar de la tregua comercial entre China y Estados Unidos de octubre pasado, persisten asuntos explosivos en las tensas relaciones entre los dos países, entre otros, las ventas de armas de Estados Unidos a Taiwán, el control de las exportaciones de tierras raras por parte de China o la política arancelaria. Laia Comerma, consultora de negocios, destaca un punto relevante: sentarse a discutir sobre Taiwán. Trump llega a China para su visita oficial acompañado de un puñado de dirigentes empresariales, entre otros, los de Tesla, Apple y Boeing, para pedirle a su homólogo chino que abra el país a empresas estadounidenses. Sin embargo, es sobre Taiwán que este encuentro ha tomado un rumbo inédito. "El hecho de que se discuta el tema de Taiwán ya es muy relevante en sí, porque desde  Reagan, la política de Estados Unidos es que sus ventas de armas a Taiwán no es algo que se discuta ni que deba discutirse con la China", explica la consultora Laia Comerma, presidenta de la Cámara para la Cooperación Hispano China. "En Estados Unidos se consideraba que ese no era un asunto de su incumbencia, según la Taiwan Relations Act de los Estados Unidos. El hecho de que Trump si esté dispuesto a discutir sobre eso ya de por sí es muy relevante y cambia la política de Estados Unidos hacia Taiwán. Esto puede tener un efecto muy significativo en un primer plano en la política doméstica de Taiwán. Y, por el otro lado, están las ‘garantías de seguridad', las cuales han posibilitado la autonomía y el statu quo en el estrecho de Taiwán. Ahora bien, si cambiase cualquier pieza de este rompecabezas gigante, complicado e inestable podría desencadenar un efecto domino". El encuentro entre los dos líderes se produce en un contexto interno difícil para Trump, con baja popularidad alimentada por la guerra de Irán y un repunte de la inflación, pero también lo es para Xi Jinping, pues China está atravesando un momento incierto para su economía marcado por el débil consumo interno y una persistente deuda del sector inmobiliario. Pero es en la imagen exterior, en la fiabilidad, donde China quiere ganar con sus cartas, dice Laia Comerma. "China desde el inicio del mandato del presidente Donald Trump se está presentando como una fuente de estabilidad, como el principal promotor del régimen multilateral. Aunque podamos preguntarnos qué representa ese régimen multilateral. Eso se puede discutir. Pero sí que es verdad que en un momento en el que Trump está atacando las instituciones que Estados Unidos había creado con el régimen de Bretton Woods, China se está presentando, mientras tanto, como una fuente de libre comercio, de literalidad y de globalización". Trump puede necesitar la ayuda de Xi para conseguir que Irán acceda a un acuerdo y para que Pekín consienta en reducir o eliminar sus compras de crudo procedente de la República Islámica.

The post-WWII global order is officially dead—and a new era is beginning. In the episode recorded live at the S&P Global Market Intelligence's Annual Community Bankers Conference on May 6, geopolitical strategist and author Dr. George Friedman discusses the conflict between the U.S. and Iran, Russia's failure in the Ukraine, how America reinvents itself through instability, and the pivotal U.S.-China summit on May 14. Dr. Friedman's core argument: The entire Bretton Woods system—NATO, multilateral trade, the U.S.-European alliance—was built to contain the Soviet Union. Russia's catastrophic failure in Ukraine proved that threat no longer exists, rendering the old framework obsolete. What's replacing it is a bilateral U.S.-China order that could reshape global economics for a generation.

The Clarity Act is being sold as stablecoin regulation, but the real story is much bigger. This breaks down how the US could use private stablecoins to extend dollar dominance, funnel global demand into Treasuries, and quietly roll out a CBDC-style system through the back door. Michael Saylor, Ray Dalio, Bretton Woods, fiat debasement, AI, and Bitcoin all collide in one massive macro shift.SPONSORS✅ Ledn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.nmj1gs2i.com/9W598/9B9DM/?source_id=podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Simply Bitcoin clients get 0.25% off their first loanNeed liquidity without selling your Bitcoin? Ledn has been the trusted Bitcoin-backed lending platform for 6+ years. Access your BTC's value while HODLing.

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured  Another round of Trump tariffs just got blocked in court — exactly like we said would happen. The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump's new Section 122 tariffs were unlawful because the law was designed for balance-of-payments emergencies, not general trade deficits. The administration knew the legal ground was shaky from the start.In this episode, we break down:• Why the court ruled Trump's “Tariff 2.0” plan illegal• What Section 122 was actually created for after Bretton Woods collapsed• How the White House likely knew these tariffs wouldn't survive judicial review• Why this strategy mirrors Biden's legally questionable student-loan maneuvers• How Trump may now pivot toward “Tariff 3.0” targeting countries accused of “taking advantage” of the U.S.• Why markets and allies are increasingly nervous about unpredictable escalationAnd the uncomfortable reality: people may now fear Trump's reaction to losing more than the policy itself.

In this episode of Soar Financially, Clive Thompson, a retired Swiss wealth manager with 50 years of experience, reveals the real strategy behind a potential gold revaluation reset. Could the U.S. use a massive gold price reset to erase its debt?We explore the brewing battle between Trump and Powell, the Fed's next move, and why Jerome Powell's sudden exit could spark a gold and equity market boom. From Basel III and COMEX deliveries to Bretton Woods 3.0 and dollar devaluation, Clive connects the dots between central banks, debt relief, and gold manipulation.#Gold #Powell #debtcrisis

They'll tell you Wall Street corrupted the system. That's the distraction. The real power wasn't in the bribes — it was in the blueprint.Before the Federal Reserve existed, a small network of bankers had already written the rules. The 1907 Panic wasn't a crisis they survived — it was the crisis they used. Jekyll Island wasn't a secret meeting. It was a founding session. And the system they designed wasn't built to serve the public. It was built to serve the architects.This episode investigates the hidden financial history of how America's central banking system was constructed — not by politicians, but by a private banking cartel that had already spent decades perfecting its methods. This isn't monetary theory. This is how power actually moves.What you'll discover:— Who was really in the room at Jekyll Island and what they decided— How the 1907 Panic was used to manufacture public consent for central banking— Why the Federal Reserve was designed to concentrate power, not distribute it— The blueprint that still runs the financial system todayCHAPTERS:00:00 Cold Open: The Lie They Taught You About Wall Street00:28 Lesson 1: The Blueprint Before the Federal Reserve01:24 Lesson 2: Jekyll Island — Who Really Designed the Fed03:50 Lesson 3: War, Debt, and How America Replaced London06:49 Lesson 4: Bretton Woods and the Architecture of Global Control09:50 Lesson 5: Deregulation, 2008, and Too Big to Fail12:18 The Ledger Today: What the System Was Actually Built For

Low Value Mail is a live call-in show discussing current events, politics, conspiracies and much more.Every Monday night at 7pm ETSupport The Show:

Is the Iran War a pre-planned controlled demolition of the failing Petrodollar system — and the engineered launch of Phase 2 of the Great Reset? In this episode, Alex Sachon expands on his Substack article exploring the geopolitical, financial, and historical forces driving the current conflict. Drawing on the work of F. William Engdahl and others, Alex traces the arc from the Bretton Woods collapse and the 1973 oil shock to today's Iran War — arguing that the same imperial playbook is being run again, this time to transition the world out of the Petrodollar era and into a new technocratic global order.Topics covered include the role of Zionism as a US imperial asset, the engineered 1979 Iranian Revolution, the deep state's relationship with the Trump administration, and what the Great Reset really signifies for the future of Israel, the NeoCons, and the American Empire itself.

In Episode 468 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with renowned economic historian and author Barry Eichengreen about the history of international currencies and the prospects for the US dollar's continued preeminence, drawing on his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto. The first hour traces the long arc of international currency history, from the invention of coinage in ancient Lydia through the monetary innovations of Athens, Rome, and the Byzantine Empire, to Renaissance Florence, where a city-state with no navy and no silver mines managed to make its currency the dominant medium of exchange in Europe. The hour closes with a discussion about the Dutch Republic's revolutionary contributions to modern money and finance, and the Spanish silver dollar—the first truly global currency, which circulated from the New World to China and remained legal tender in the United States until the eve of the Civil War. The second hour examines Britain's emergence as the world's first modern financial superpower, whose decline opened the door to the internationalization of the US dollar, and the role that figures like Paul Warburg, the Federal Reserve, two World Wars, and the Bretton Woods Agreement each played in establishing dollar dominance—further cemented by the breakdown of Bretton Woods and the era of floating fiat currencies. They then turn to the present, examining what Eichengreen sees as the two most serious threats to the dollar's continued preeminence: the erosion of the rule of law and separation of powers inside the United States, and the fraying of the alliance relationships that underpin global confidence in dollar-denominated assets. They close with a discussion about whether stablecoins could extend the dollar's network effects, why the Euro and the Chinese renminbi fall short as credible alternatives, and what a world without a reliable global reserve currency could mean for international trade, finance, and geopolitical stability. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Join our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/09/2026

Want to reach out to us? Want to leave a comment or review? Want to give us a suggestion or berate Anthony? Send us a text by clicking this link!A strange AI intro sets the tone for a conversation about power, myth, and the cracks running through our civilization. We start with Tucker's claim that some believers try to force God's hand, and that secular boosters dream of a tech-ruled future. From there we pull the lens wider: the Bretton Woods order is threadbare, NATO expectations are stale, and a managerial class that once kept the peace now leans on slogans no one believes. Whether you see him as a disruptor or a danger, Trump becomes a prism for realism—treating Europe's security habits, Ukraine's symbolism, and great-power hedging as signs the old narrative no longer binds.Then we enter the thicket of AI. Not sci-fi hype, but concrete pressures: law firms cutting junior roles, back-office “email jobs” vanishing, and a narrow set of labs racing for an advantage that could snowball. We weigh the fear of a winner-take-all “singleton” against the possibility of AI fragility, closed-loop error, and a financial bubble built on scarce chips and shaky energy. Either way, the labor shock seems real, and the blow will land hardest on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. That lands us in the heart of the meaning crisis: social media frays trust, the dating market corrodes goodwill, and the institutions that once turned information into wisdom—churches, schools, civic bodies—feel absent when we need them most.We don't retreat into mysticism or denial. Instead, we argue for recovering thick stories and practices that hold under stress: moral limits, local bonds, real sacrifice, and the courage to say no when power dresses up as destiny. We also warn about importing religious wars we barely understand; others see sacred stakes even when we insist it's just policy. If this is the end of a world, not the world, then our task is to stand upright in truth, steward what's still good, and build the scaffolding for what comes next.If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—your support helps more curious listeners find these conversations.Support the showNeed seafood for Lent? Check out https://shoplobster.com/ and use code AB10 to get 10% from Maine's ONLY Catholic lobster company.Check out our new sponsor, Nic Nac, at www.nicnac.com and use code "AB25%" for 25% off of your first order!********************************************************Please subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKsxnv80ByFV4OGvt_kImjQ?sub_confirmation=1https://www.avoidingbabylon.comMerchandise: https://avoiding-babylon-shop.fourthwall.comLocals Community: https://avoidingbabylon.locals.comFull Premium/Locals Shows on Audio Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1987412/subscribeRSS Feed for Podcast Apps: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1987412.rss

In Episode 465 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yale historian and Cold War scholar Odd Arne Westad, author of The Coming Storm, about why the pre-WWI era of multipolarity, imperial decline, and great power rivalry offers a far more instructive — and alarming — historical parallel to today's world than the Cold War, and what must be done to prevent the catastrophic descent into total war. The first hour explores what went wrong after the fall of the Soviet Union, how the end of the Bretton Woods system helped enable China's economic rise, and the striking structural parallels between the rise of Germany before 1914 and the rise of China today. Westad and Kofinas also examine the roles that Russia, India, and the United States play in this historical analogy, and how the failure to integrate rising powers into meaningful international frameworks — then and now — has set the stage for catastrophic conflict. The second hour takes a deeper look at the specific forces that could push the world from strategic rivalry to outright war, including the role of nuclear weapons in a multipolar order, the most dangerous flashpoints — from Taiwan to the Korean Peninsula to the South China Sea and China's border with India — and the underappreciated threat that terrorism could pose as a catalyst for great power conflict. They also examine the internal political dynamics that boxed leaders into impossible positions before 1914, how frighteningly familiar those constraints look today, and what Professor Westad believes must be done to stabilize the international system before the world faces consequences it is not remotely prepared to confront. Subscribe to our premium content—including our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports—by visiting HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you'd like to join the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community—with benefits like Q&A calls with guests, exclusive research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners—you can also sign up on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed today's episode of Hidden Forces, please support the show by: Subscribing on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, CastBox, or via our RSS Feed Writing us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Join our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and support the podcast at https://hiddenforces.io. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/23/2026

For years, we've talked about the world order 'shifting.' Changing. The end of the Bretton Woods agreement, But according to legendary investor Ray Dalio, the shift is over. The break is now here.In a massive new piece Dalio just released—following the 2026 Munich Security Conference—he made it official: **The post-1945 world order has broken down.** We have officially entered what he calls "Stage 6' of the Big Cycle."Historically, Stage 6 is the 'War Stage.' It's the period of 'Great Disorder' where rules are replaced by raw power, where debt cycles reach their breaking point, and where the global map is redrawn. We're seeing it in the 'Capital Wars,' the weaponization of the dollar, and the total breakdown of trust in traditional institutions.

REGISTER FOR THOUGHTFUL MONEY'S SPRING ONLINE CONFERENCE AT THE EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT PRICE at https://www.thoughtfulmoney.com/conferenceDollar Milkshake Theory developer Brent Johnson has released another report on stablecoins, emphasizing their tremendous potential to upend the global monetary system.He's shouting loudly about this because he sees most of Wall Street vastly unprepared for what's about to happen.It's largely treating stablecoins as a niche amusement, instead of the Omega-level disruptor Brent thinks it will prove to be.In fact, he thinks stablecoins will impact the global monetary order on the same level as the Bretton Woods accord, or when the dollar moved off the gold standard.To learn why, and what the implications will likely be, watch this video.#stablecoin #stablecoins #dollar _____________________________________________ Thoughtful Money LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor Promoter.We produce educational content geared for the individual investor. It's important to note that this content is NOT investment advice, individual or otherwise, nor should be construed as such.We recommend that most investors, especially if inexperienced, should consider benefiting from the direction and guidance of a qualified financial advisor registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or state securities regulators who can develop & implement a personalized financial plan based on a customer's unique goals, needs & risk tolerance.IMPORTANT NOTE: There are risks associated with investing in securities.Investing in stocks, bonds, exchange traded funds, mutual funds, money market funds, and other types of securities involve risk of loss. Loss of principal is possible. Some high risk investments may use leverage, which will accentuate gains & losses. Foreign investing involves special risks, including a greater volatility and political, economic and currency risks and differences in accounting methods.A security's or a firm's past investment performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future investment performance.Thoughtful Money and the Thoughtful Money logo are trademarks of Thoughtful Money LLC.Copyright © 2026 Thoughtful Money LLC. All rights reserved.