John Perkins | USAID, Economic Hit Men, Iran, & The China Model

00:14 I Well, do it live from the Sunshine State. I'm Greg Carlwood and we have known for a long time that the empire runs on blackmail, coups, coercion and cutthroat capitalism? A mob like mentality of offering a deal you can't refuse and a mix of unwanted carrots and sticks designed for domination and competition elimination. A system that works well for those living within the right imaginary box or those who have investments in the right companies but keeps many others around the world in bitter poverty

01:36 Well, like many young guns in the early days of the internet few videos were as impactful on me as The Zeitgeist Series. The highlight of that series being the insightful interview with John Perkins that helped me understand the details of all this where he explained the work he has done around the world as an economic hitman A process where he would be sent to smaller countries that have resources our corporations covet and present their leaders with predatory loans sold as an opportunity for growth, new infrastructure and development that uses their resources as collateral. Only the money never makes it to the country itself it goes to the corporations in the club to build out said infrastructure and establish the means to extract said resources

02:17 When the loan can't be repaid, the leverage is used in a variety of unsavory ways. Rinse and repeat." And John goes even deeper in his book Confessions of an Economic Hitman now in its third edition adding so much more context for the changing world He's also the author of titles like Hoodwinked, An Economic Hitman Reveals Why The Global Economy Imploded And How To Fix It. The Secret History Of The American Empire, The Truth About Economic Hitmen, Jackals and How to Change the World. The World As You Dream it, Teachings From Amazon & Andes. The Stress-Free Habit, Powerful Techniques for Health and Longevity from the Andes Yucatan and Far East

02:55 Touching the Jaguar, transforming fear into action to change your life and the world. And his first novel which came out earlier this year Message from Pleiades We did an interview way back in 2014 and we're definitely overdue for an update so let's get into it The Dark Network Defector & Jaguar Toucher The Economic Hitman Himself John Perkins 11 years later Welcome Back Thank you that was Quite an introduction i think you covered everything we can probably go out there now yes i try to get a little further down field cuz i know you've done so many interviews explaining the basics of your background in the career you had,

03:35 And I'm really grateful that you've been so candid because i've gotten so many insights from you. Well, this part of the news cycle is kind of over it came and went but when Doge was doing all these cuts USAID was being talked about a lot and I remembered this term from your work maybe the only time I ever really heard it before, and front-and-center in the new edition you include the original quote. Economic hitmen are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars they funnel money from The World Bank, The U.S Agency for International Development USAID and foreign aid organizations into the coffers a huge corporations in pockets up a few wealthy families to control the planet's natural resources

04:19 So, right away I had a little different context for what USAID actually did than the way it was being framed in the news. But I reached out because I was curious what you thought of all that when the internet tells us The new administration cut 83% of USAID's programs cancelling all but 1,000 of the 6200 contracts It seems significant, but what does that say to you? Maybe that the strategy has run its course or changed. Well it's an interesting one Greg because you know it depends on what aspect do you look at it from so I wrote my books and included the aspects of people in what we call less developed countries or lower income countries from their perspective things like USAID are part of what we call the debt trap

05:11 And they're part of this whole package that economic hitmen use in order to essentially steal the resources from these countries, oil and today lithium and cobalt and rare minerals etc. So if you look at it from their standpoint getting rid of USAID is probably a healthy thing for them. But although I also have to say that in more recent times, since my book was written USAID has changed a bit and is doing some very good things. I'm the founder of a non-profit called The Pachamama Alliance that works in the Amazon We had a 12 million dollar grant from USAID to help indigenous people develop local economies and we lost it so there's a mixed blessing there but I think perhaps most important of all

05:59 is that if you look at it from the standpoint of the United States versus China, and China now is taking over the world. Getting rid of USAID is a very bad thing that plays right into the hands of China because it basically removes us from a lot of our connections with some of these countries that have resources that we desperately need, countries in Africa and Latin America especially. Yeah, I get that and it is tricky because there's so many conversations happening about this but you gotta kinda start everyone with well we're 60 trillion in debt

06:38 The biggest expense we have outside of the military is interest on that debt. Now, how do you think we should spend money? Because I don't know if we have any it's just crazy. We're in kind of a debt spiral ourselves or very close to one and I guess to back it up so I think a lot of people know your history but you write about the four pillars of the economic hitman strategy being fear, debt anxiety over insufficiency and divide and conquer. Talk to us about the nuances involved in those pillars and how they've changed over time because you wrote the original book, a second edition about the second wave of economic hit man activity which is bringing it back home using the tools against us

07:25 and also applying it to bigger markets than they initially were. And then of course, now we have a third wave but these four pillars how have they changed over time? You know the first one to fear is something that historically is how empires had been created by convincing people to fear something in my day was to fear the Soviet Union therefore they needed our support to keep away this Soviet Union And historically, it's been that fear of attack by somebody else or maybe from us. A little bit like the whole mafia idea, you know? Like... You pay us to protect us from ourselves basically. And so in my time that really changed a lot where we went after the war in Vietnam and was... We understood those kind of wars don't succeed and so

08:19 debt issue came in. So the second one, debt became the driving force behind imperialism behind the US expanding its corporate empire around the world with people like me and that the military played a much less significant role but that didn't please the people who were in charge of the military industrial complex who were pretty powerful they kept pressuring presidents and others to get them back in the deal. 9-11 gave them a tremendous opportunity to do that, so after 9-11 we'd started devoting huge amounts of money to Afghanistan and Iraq and other parts of the Middle East—Israel, Yemen—we're pouring all our resources there. We very much neglected Latin America and Africa

09:08 So, the Chinese went in and they didn't spend money on wars. They did spend a lot of money on creating debt in Africa, Latin America and other parts of the world. This is an interesting map here that it's now a little outdated but up here you can see into the year 2000, United States was the number one trading partner in about 80% of the world countries by 2020 It was China. China is the number one trading partner with 80% of the world's countries, and that has grown since 2020 in the last five years. So China really took over into a large degree because we were spending so much money on the military and so little money on making friends, making headway

10:03 in Africa, Latin America and other countries that have resources we covet. So that's fear and debt. And this idea of anxiety over scarce resources, well that's always out there so you know whoever you are if you convince the country that oh your poor country, you need our help we're going to help bring you out of the dark ages, we're gonna help bringing out poverty take our loans hire companies to build infrastructure projects and your GDP will grow And in fact, we can show that the GDP does grow when you invest when you hire a US corporation to build big electrification systems or power plants and transmission lines.

10:49 ports, airports roads. These sorts of things you can show that the GDP grows and so for many years Craig I believe that what i was doing was the right thing because I could show that when I got these countries to take these loans their economy grew it took a while for me to understand that GDP is not a measure of prosperity for country its a measure of prosperity for few rich families in our country and international corporations that work in our So, this whole idea of anxiety over scarcity is a catchphrase for convincing them that you can help them do better. And then divide and conquer – well that's an age-old ploy used by empires like

11:43 You know, you have two African nations who don't get along very well historically and you go in and work with one of them. And say hey, you've got to help us conquer the other one. And you work very hard to make sure that countries in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere don't cooperate with each other because then you can go in and cut deals with them And that too has changed radically now. China has done an amazing job of creating this new Silk Road, which is a concept that leaders around the world find very attractive. It's very misleading I have to say. I'm not defending what China is doing in any way but I am saying that China

12:24 Strategy is an extremely efficient one. And so China says, you know if you cut a deal with the United States Peru You'll get most favored nation. You will have good trading deals between you Peru and the United States But that's it if you become part of our new silk road will help you build really good relationships and trading routes with all the other countries around you in latin america plus countries in africa asia india all over the world you be part of this huge international trading network so that's a very clever

13:01 strategy for China. When I was teaching in an MBA program in China, when this program really took off and I was deeply impressed and I thought, geez why didn't we think of that? So all of these things kind of, they've really put the United States in a very difficult position globally and they've opened the door for China to step in in big way which it's been doing. And I actually bookmarked an image of the map of the new Silk Road. I'll throw up on the screen later but it really does seem like they're connecting everywhere except us! Like we are really only ones not

13:42 on that map. So it's going to be interesting, but I do like the 12 new chapters you added to the new edition and this is a quote here that's related to what we're talking about. You say, To a large degree China success in recent years is result of hard and creative work by China's third wave of economic hitmen Their team is not limited to the engineers, economists and financiers of my time or to the second economic hitman wave of corporate henchmen that arose in the US during the last decades. Like a well-organized sports team China's economic hitman team has a great deal of depth." Well lots of interesting things there I'm curious what is so creative?

14:24 how they don't have the same limitations that you had. It seems after reading the book, that China offers a lot more carrot than stick kind of as you laid out in the Peru example but how do we know that this is still manipulation? How do we know that they don't honestly just mean like hey let's all be trade partners screw the US Because we've already seen some fruits, as you say. Big debts and rights abuses in the Congo but talk to us about their changing strategy the depth of it and what you really see under the surface having been on the inside of these kind of deals before? Well of course we don't know what motivates China or its leaders like Xi Jinping I can't read their minds

15:09 But if you look at history, the history is building empire. And China has a very successful history of doing that through trade and not through wars. You know, China doesn't go to war with other countries very much except those right around it ones that it considers to be part of China. That includes Tibet and parts of most of Tibet, and it includes Taiwan in Hong Kong and an area that borders with India That's kind of like us saying that Texas is part of the United States, not Mexico even though it originally was Mexico and we took it away. So China says well you know we're going to protect our own sphere here but China doesn't have military bases in many other countries there are a couple of them one in Djibouti but they're more like refueling stations for its vessels

16:01 The United States, on the other hand has over a military bases in over 100 countries. People hate that nobody really wants to foreign military base on their soil and except maybe the leaders of the country but so China has done an amazing job making friends from that standpoint you know there's an old Chinese proverb if you want to build an empire make friends not enemies And the United States has this long history of having, in my case when I made loans to these countries knowing full well that they couldn't repay the principal.

16:41 And they would have to then practically reach bankruptcy, except countries don't define them as bankrupt but too much debt. Then they would have to come back to us usually in the guise of the IMF I would go in and say we'll help you restructure your loans but you have to meet certain conditions And those include cutting taxes on your rich people and cutting wages on everybody else, privatizing businesses that were once governmental like water and sewage systems. Vote with us in the next United Nations vote against Cuba or whatever. Let us build a military base on your soil. And perhaps most important of all

17:25 your collateral on these loans, remember your collateral was your oil. And so now we want your oil that our companies go in and take out your oil without many environmental or social regulations and without paying you much money or any money So we have this reputation around the world of doing that. And also there's the jackal aspect I talk about, whereas if countries don't buy into these deals and then we send in the jackals who overthrow governments or assassinate leaders—we have a long history of that—and if that doesn't work then the military goes in and

18:02 China has a very, very different history in that regard. And so its economic hitmen can say hey look what the United States does it imposes these conditions on you that are just onerous they're terrible conditions we won't do that we don't do that The one thing we do is we want to collateralize your resources also but when I'm going to any of these other things We're not gonna interfere with your government You know when I tell you how to vote in the United Nations There's another side to that. That's not entirely true, but it's a very good selling point. Yes it is and I think a lot of people listening they hear about what China has been doing broadly but they don't get a lot of details Is there any particular deal that China's economic hitmen have attained

18:58 One of the best deals for China or one of the most lopsided deals because all these deals are lopsided. But if you had to pull one out from the various deals that they're making, does one strike? You is like man, they really got him on that one. Well, they just struck a deal with Colombia and I'm not sure this is the most significant one at all but Columbia's tip for for many, many years have been the largest and most important ally in Latin America for the United States. And always been very strong supportive and is considered a democracy although it's an interesting kind of democracy

19:35 I won't go into that now, but just recently Colombia struck a very strong deal with China which surprised everybody. Partly that's just because there is a lot of resentment of US things that I did while I was there. I had an office in Colombia—I had two offices in Colombia one in Bogota and one in Barranquilla And so there's resentment there. But another point I think is really important to make, Gregg, is that China has an important story to tell the world and that it had about 10% economic growth for three decades – 30 years! Nobody else has ever done anything like that. It brought about 900 million people out of dire poverty. That's more than twice the population in the United States

20:27 And so, China's economic hitman can go out and say well what did the United States done in that amount of time? The United States is federal basic wage rate. The minimum wage rate federally speaking hasn't increased since 1974 in the United States. Now many states have increased it so again that's a little bit of a stretch but But the truth is that it hasn't. And that's a very telling statement to say, we've brought 900 million people out of dire poverty. We've had this amazing economic growth. What's the United States done? Which model do you want Mr President? You don't have to buy into our government system but Dubai into our trading system become a partner of ours on the new Silk Road and let us help you develop your economy because we're good at it. We know what we're doing

21:16 We have a track record that proves that. It's a great story, it's a great story you know and if you're really good con artists and that's basically what economic hitmen are, con artists, you know how to spin that story in a way that's extremely attractive Right yeah they're really just playing off of what we've done for so long and we kind of shot ourselves in the foot by being so aggressive I say we like I have any choice or saying anything you know that gets done around here but And you're just doing your job as they say but I kind of glossed over your background because I know you've gone over it so many times But just for people who aren't familiar some of the bullet points to your story You wanted to avoid being drafted to Vietnam as you were wrapping up

21:59 college in 1968. Your father-in-law at the time was high up in the Department of the Navy and his best friend was high up in the NSA, and you were looking to take a draft deferred job with them but then felt called to join the Peace Corps and go to the Amazon for three years which they told you would actually make you much more useful to them And after that, they reached out to you and got you set up with one of their corporate partners a company called Charles T. Maine and they sent you on your first job to Indonesia did I get most of that right? Yes! I love it so before Indonesia they had trained you by a woman

22:37 who really seemed like a fixer in a Hollywood movie, Claudine I believe. And she taught you some things about persuasion as I understand? Can you talk to us about some of the things she taught you that really might be useful to anyone listening? You mentioned that I first was recruited by the National Security Agency or I was offered a job by them. Before they offered me the job, I went through three days of intensive tests including a lot on an L.I. detector and I didn't think I would ever get the job because I had to admit that I was opposed to the war in Vietnam which i thought they would not like

23:19 I had to admit that i'd been, i lied to the police. You know, i dropped out of college at one point before i went back and i was with a friend who is Iranian who he would celebrate we went to this bar near the college and And I get a guy sucker punched me because he thought I was flirting with his wife. And my Iranian friend pulls out a knife and cuts him across the cheek, just very gently here. He had a technique for doing this where he put his thumb across the blade, just the tip so it was it was just a scare tactic more than anything. And then by right in front of pushed me into the men's room and we jumped out the window and into a little river below

24:05 and made our way back. And the next day, the police brought me in and questioned me. I denied that I knew anything about anything he had done. I totally lied. So I've got to tell the NSA that I lied at the police. I was involved in this knife fight. And I think well this is going to screw me but it did the opposite. Regarding Vietnam they knew at this point we were losing the war in Vietnam This is now what 1971 And they knew that we were, I'm sorry this was 1968. They knew that you know this war is what they didn't mind that I wasn't going to go in the war and it

24:50 They were very impressed by the fact that I lied to police. This, to them was a plus that I had the guts to do that and as it turned out my Iranian friend his father was a general in the Shah's army and very close to the Shah worked for the CIA Right. I was going to bring that up, I was gonna bring that up. To have a friend like this meant a lot so you know they and they also on the lie detector discovered that i had several weaknesses that they could use to hook me and those were...I think most young men my age had those but perhaps I had them more than a lot because uh I'd grown up in a boys private school where my dad taught and I was very very shy of women and very fascinated by

25:34 So one of my weaknesses was I wanted to have sex. I wanted to be able to, you know, seduce women and I was terribly...I was so shy that I didn't even dare talk to women! Another one is that I wanted money because I grew up in a school with private boys' schools where it's surrounded by kids with a lot of money and my dad was the teacher who didn't make any money hardly And another one is that I wanted power. Those three things—sex, power, and money And so Claudine now, once I start training with her she knows all of this and she uses all of it to entice me. The idea that I was going to make a lot money the idea that I was gonna have a lot power is gonna be meeting with presidents of countries I'm just gonna be representing the World Bank and other such organizations the IMF and others and sex you know? She was very good at that and very good at teaching me how to seduce

26:26 wives of diplomats and people in high positions in government because that's one of the things that she was doing, in that profession. So I don't remember the question anymore. You kind of carried it away. Well, I was curious about some of the things she might have taught you about persuasion or seduction especially these days when the young fellas out there their game is drying up with all the digital technology they need some old school tips Well, you know one of the most important things that she taught me was seduction for most women and especially if you're dealing with some young wife of an older government official who's not very happy. And her husband is not around very much and he's this real macho guy who is high up in the government and he doesn't really listen to her very much." She said just really listen look these looked a woman in the eye

27:21 what are you feeling? What's coming from your heart?" And, oh my gosh. You look... No no I know you're smiling but deep down in it I can see in your eyes that you're really sad tell me about your sadness! Tell me what's frustrating you and then start to do this and then like cry on my shoulder go ahead you know like I'm here for you and so the bring this out was a technique that I did find often All right. Well, you know just looking people in the eyes these days is going to be challenging enough. Well yes, things are changing and I wanted to say one other thing Gregor that is that when you mentioned that...I can't remember exactly what they said but like who am I? Like if don't have any power…

28:06 story my life really yeah well that's another thing that the chinese love to point out to people in other countries they say you know i said your democracy it says everybody has everybody has equal right to vote everybody has power this freedom of the press you can speak out and change things you can do what you want and the chinese say well Yeah, that's not really true in the United States. You know big corporations have a lot more power they you know their executives may have one vote but because they can finance political campaigns that's incredible corruption the Chinese will refer to this as it's corruption it's legalized so legally speaking it isn't corruption but it truly is true corruption that we have this system and other countries are getting the hypocrisy

28:55 of the United States' idea of what democracy and freedom of speech and those sorts of things really means. Yeah, great points! It's really like sometimes there is a lot debate on who is the good guy or bad guy? Maybe there isn't no good guy. A loan shark can come up to someone in poverty and be like man these credit cards they want 28% they're ripping you off this isn't fair I'll come in and give you the loan for 18%. You know, I'm your buddy. I'm your neighborhood guy." Well you don't want to default on that loan it's a lot worse than what Visa and MasterCard are going to do i'm sure so that aspect of your story about the knife fight

29:32 I think about this a lot because you say that this buddy of yours, his dad was high up in the military and i ran but also a CIA asset. The lines are a lot blurrier than we realize and i know there's some history in iran that uh... In the fifties the coup that happened was largely considered to be CIA fronted. Well, now Iran's clearly in the news we might be going to war with them I mean who knows Trump is in his two weeks to think about it phase so we'll see what actually happens when this show airs and he makes a decision

30:10 But that is just interesting insight into Iran, just that little thread. And I know you...I think you maybe did some work or saw the template applied in Iran that wasn't actually your personal job but talk to us about Iran a lot of people are wondering we don't really they're kind of a closed box to some degree but we might be going to war with them so it might be nice to learn a little bit about them It was my job. I had an office in Tehran and over a period of 10 years, in the 70s, I spent a lot of time in Tehran—never more than a month or two when usually it was more like a week but I was going back and forth a lot. I had offices in Columbia, Panama, and

30:56 Tehran, as well as my headquarters office in Boston. So I did it. I spent a lot of time and I worked for the Shah essentially or I worked for us but- Who works for who? It's hard to tell anymore. The Shah worked for us so yeah the history there is that Iran had this democratically elected prime minister his name was Mohammed Mosaddegh And he decided that he was going to force the foreign oil companies, which at that time was mainly what became BP British Petroleum. He's gonna force them to pay a fair share of their profits to the Iranian people which they hadn't been doing and they refused and so he decided to nationalize them. England came to Eisenhower to the United States and asked for help

31:50 And so the United States was very leery of Iran setting a precedent with Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries that if they did nationalize, then everybody would go that route. So Eisenhower was very happy to enter into this and at that time his secretary of state and head of the CIA were the two Dulles brothers, Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles who you know, may know about who were incredibly fanatic anti-communists. And so they were determined to make sure that Iran didn't go with Russia which of course Iran's right on the border so there was all these aspects it was oil those helping England that was keeping Russia out and

32:36 But the fear was that Russia had nuclear weapons, where just the Cold War is really gearing up. Eisenhower's afraid to use the military or do anything overt in Iran because he doesn't want to start a nuclear war which as you pointed out could still happen and so he sent in this CIA agent card carrying CIA agent named Kermit Roosevelt Teddy Roosevelt's grandson And Roosevelt goes in with literally suitcases filled with US dollars, and he goes in and starts distributing all this money. He had a couple of assistants with him. They convinced members of the police, members of the general public to demonstrate against Mossadegh

33:25 and to make it seem like Mosaddegh is an unpopular head of leader. At the same time, there's a huge propaganda campaign in the United States that's painting Mosaddegh as a communist, as a friend of Russia which just wasn't true But there was this huge campaign to get rid of this guy and put in our own guy who had been designated as the Shah, whose family... His father had been head of Iran previously. He had a long history and so it was successful. It was very inexpensive way of getting rid of having a coup that was successful. Most of debt was placed under house arrest

34:10 the CIA brought the Shah in. This was all a huge, a CIA operation. It really had very little to do with Iran it was the CIA and it actually set the precedent for my job and for what would follow after that because here you had this inexpensive and relatively safe way of overthrowing a government without incurring the wrath of the Soviet Union or anybody else and it was very subtle and very, very effective. But it also caused this huge wave of underlying wave of resentment so now the Shah is in power and remains in power from this was the early 50's that this happened when I'm there throughout the 70's and the Shah is in power

35:01 I thought the Shah was popular and most Americans did, and part of the reason was that I didn't speak Farsi. And most Americans didn't. And we had interpreters, translators, interpreters who were hired by the Shah. They worked for the Shah and they were trained in US schools or European schools, English schools so they were part of this system. So I would later realize that I was getting information that was very biased in favor of the Shah from the only people I could really communicate with And there was this, apparently this huge undertow of resentment that boiled to the surface.

35:46 in 1978, and when the Shah was then over this period was overthrown very quickly and replaced by these by the mullahs. And I was rushed out of Iran on the morning that fire started in a movie theater in Iran and things really started to explode this well That's another story. Do you want me to go into that one? Sure, I find this very interesting! I just can't...I don't want to over-talk here. I'm here all the time. So August 1978, I'm in Tehran and staying at the Intercontinental Hotel and I met the bar

36:28 in the evening and I got a tap on the shoulder. And I turn around, and it's the guy who'd been in knife fight with me, and I hadn't seen him like 10 years had been to school with them you know? He had been really good friend back then but then he pretty much disappeared And he's tapping me on the shoulder and I turn around, we hug and we get into a conversation. Then he says, I've got to take it for both of us tomorrow to fly to Rome and stay at my dad's villa in Rome. And I said no-no-no! I have a meeting tomorrow with the Minister of Finance And he said, there is no Minister of Finance. Wait what about your dad? He's very close to the Shah. Not anymore my dad is now in Italy outside Rome and his villa outside Rome that's where we're going tomorrow. We have tickets on Air France early morning flight.

37:18 Reluctantly, kind of I went. I figured I could always come back if this turned out to be true but I went and it was later that day that these firebombs were put off in this movie theater And the country started to erupt. I was just glad to get out when i did, I haven't been back since. There was this undercurrent and then the Mullah's takeover and now of course there is a huge undercurrent of resentment against them against the current regime apparently Right. Apparently, sorry it's like apparently cause you just don't know like you've got this great history of understanding there's always unadvertised motivations and it's all about perception management and narrative control. And it seems like they're dusting off two or the big old plays they used to use well they're going to have weapons of mass destruction that are right around the corner

38:12 they're going to have it and they're going to use it on day one. They're gonna kill us all." And, well we got to liberate these people this government is just so terrible they want to be liberated they're begging us to come in there and like... We've heard this tale a thousand times again where how many trillion in debt? Not our problem not our business! I could honestly believe the oppression thing because I've seen pictures of Iran in the past, like several decades ago and it looks like Times Square. The people look like they're dressed in regular clothes. It could be an American city! And now obviously it's far different. Is that their choice? I don't know how much is coercion and choice and oppression... Again, it's not my business but we're seeing these two things used again and I'm shocked that it's working so well

39:02 But knowing everything you know, how do you interpret the current news cycle and the current relationship and what we should even do versus when you read between the lines? What does it seem like we're gonna to do. You know let me go back a little bit and say that in talking about the way people look when I was there up until 78 Tehran that there was an avenue called Pahlavi Avenue which is named after the Shah's family And it had all these coffee shops and bistros and restaurants. It was beautiful, this big tree-lined avenue. And you'd sit there and Iranian people would walk by in their latest styles—men and women—but

39:48 I of course was especially impressed by the women who had shorter mini skirts than those in paris and they were very sexy dress with just mind blowing. Think that within a very short period of time after that, dress very, very conservatively. I don't know how they could adapt to that it must have been very difficult as I said i haven't been back-I have talked to Iranians since who've come out of Iran and yeah they tell me there's a very large undercurrent of resentment but at the same time there's still a resentment against the United States for taking out Mosaddegh

40:29 So, you've got these two kind of conflicting things. People are torn what do they want? And I think to complicate matters right now in the United States we have a president who part of his platform and running for president was not to get us involved in foreign wars. Right. There's a large part of his followers who were very adamant about that. They don't want us going into Iran so I read and hear But you've also got a president who many people suspect is wanting to run for a third term. And maybe, we don't know but if that's true and it's against the 22nd Amendment says he can't but if there's a war going on and China's involved because China now has allied itself with Iran

41:24 And so if we go into Iran, if we join Israel and do something in Iran. If we send in the big bombers and drop the big bombs where they were also kind of declaring war on China that could be interpreted that way which then puts us in a position where a president could call on a War Emergency Act to stay in power. So, I mean these are just issues that kind of swim around my mind and this is all just supposition and speculation but coming from where i come from with knowing that there's always these stories behind the stories...I can't help but think about these things so you got these couple of things you get the Iranian people

42:10 What are they really thinking? You've got the American people, many of whom voted for a president who said he wasn't going to get us involved in foreign wars. And then you've also got the possibility of a president who wants a third term. All of these things make for very confusing story and we don't know what's gonna happen but I do believe that this is an incredibly dangerous situation that it's potentially very explosive and could be devastating to the world. I mean, let's not get in a war over Iran. Right? Well you know the elephant in the room that has to be mentioned is Israel and why do we treat Israel like the 51st state or really the first state

42:57 Some people have described Israel as walking us like a dog, and it's just kind of crazy because the story that the alternative narrative that I hear again. I'm on the outside. I don't really know what to believe but they apparently have a very sophisticated blackmail network You know, that's another thing that wasn't in the news when we first talked 11 years ago is the whole Epstein thing. They say he was a Mossad agent they say he's got blackmail on everyone Trump was a protege of Roy Cohn He also seemed to lean on Blackmail as his form of power seems like even Diddy had a blackmail operation going in his little corner of his industry so

43:36 We've learned in the last decade that blackmail really makes the world go around and i find it interesting that elon and trump had this falling out any line tweets hey here's a bombshell everybody trumps in the ebstein files and thats why you won't release it. And then like ten days later, the president who said he'll never get no war is like well we gotta do whatever israel does they might have a weapon we got to get in there and its like Is there some unsavory tape that they have on you or some kind of dirt? I don't know, but. I guess i would ask you because we talked about the four pillars blackmail isn't one of them did you ever see blackmail used as a tactic in these sorts of negotiations in your day yeah Of course that was one of the reasons you'd seduce uh the wife

44:23 with a diplomat because not only could you get information from the wife, but then you could use that as a way of blackmailing the diplomat who wouldn't have wanted to admit that especially in some other countries. Interesting! So I slept with your wife and we're going to release it Unless you sign the deal? Yeah. Oh my god, that's uh...that's bold! And honestly it wasn't usually me who slept with the wife I never was very good at that but there would be somebody who would do that and then pass on the information to me But when we went into Panama and took out Noriega

45:06 And Noriega was a bad guy. I'm not defending Noriega in any way, but that was the way we did it was a huge mistake because it seemed like a huge mistake because we sent in the military planes came in helicopters came and people in military uniforms It was an invasion, American invasion And it firebombed a huge section of Panama City and killed a lot of civilians. Still nobody knows how many, but it was just totally unnecessary to take out one man to do that. Noriega could have been taken out by many other ways. So I always ask myself why did that happen?

45:49 What was the point? And it pissed off Panamanians. They're still pissed off and all of Latin America, much of the world which said look what the hell's going on here is one of those other things that makes us unpopular Well I went to but not a Panama City and as i said earlier I think I had an office in Panama. I knew a lot of people there and I started asking around and I included asked people whose houses had been firebombed And what came out was this idea, and again I have no evidence to back it up. But there was a building in that part of town that was a government-owned building where they kept archives—that we know—and it was said that in that building were videos and other information that had been taken on Contadora Island which is an island in the Pacific off the coast of Panama owned by Panama

46:44 There was a place where people were taken, politicians, CEOs. Where anything goes there was cocaine this is back before cocaine was really available everywhere else in the world and there were men of all kinds whatever you wanted with on Contadora And when Omar Tariq was the then president, it was a very, very hush-hush place and nothing ever leaked out. But when Noriega became head of state he had been formerly head of the Secret Service in Iran and this story is...the rumor is that there were...that he had cameras that he had recording equipment that he had the goods

47:31 on the younger George Bush, who would later become president. And so he went to his father and threatened the older George Bush with certain conditions that had to be met for him—Noriega—and Owen I've got all this information on your son and therefore It wouldn't have been enough to take out Noriega. You had to take out the building that had all these files in it." Now, that's a rumor that was fairly popular amongst certain Panamanians and in Panama at the time. I don't know about you know the story behind this story but

48:12 It's really the only story that has made sense to me because I never, before I ever heard this story and still don't know any other reason why the US would send in this military force huge large military force and cause such horrible destruction to a major Latin American city. Yeah, wow! That story... I am really intrigued by stories like it and it also seems to be an equation that is used fairly often. I've heard this type of story again—it's always rumors and speculation you really don't know but it logics out—and this has even

48:53 Applying to the current situation. This is a little bit old news by the time this comes out, but trump just had this tweet that we've got the airspace of Iran locked down. That was what he said and I'm hearing this story that Iran had made the comment that they got like 10 terabytes of data, that they stole from Israel What data is that? Is it just accounts and you know trade deals or is it the blackmail file but there's speculation that you can almost see I ran gets the file and trump freaks out and says you know you better give that fucking thing back or we're gonna bomb you to the stone age and he has tweeted in all caps.

49:39 Unconditional surrender right now and suddenly his tune has changed. Maybe he felt comfortable with Netanyahu having the blackmail file, maybe they've always had it, maybe he knows it's safe there but it doesn't seem safe with Iran if they by chance had it but it does seem like blackmail brokering is one of those major stories behind the story at least half the time maybe more yeah Yeah, who knows? And I mean we do know that everybody probably almost...I can't speak for everybody but I would say the majority of us have some secrets that we wouldn't like to be shared out there. I'm an exception because i've written a confession you know

50:26 Three volumes of a confession. I think, I think I've got just about everything out there. You're free and clear! But i'm sure there's some things that I didn't think about and in any case we also know that Trump has you know this there's a pretty dark background there with him with all kinds of things women and business dealings we know that his family is making a lot of money off deals that they're cutting, they think can cut because he's president. And so to kind of speculate that there is something a lot darker behind the scenes makes a certain amount of sense to us and again I would say

51:07 I'm sure that was true of, basically that would be true probably most politicians. That they do have stuff like that. Well the speculation is that politicians can't even rise past the middle unless they're compromised by the real power. I mean that's always been kind of talked about at least in the last few decades We talked about George Bush Jr. He liked to have fun, clearly he was a little fast and loose Clinton seemed to like to have fun too there's a lot of stuff about Clinton you know the Lewinsky thing I've learned more about that in recent years that it seems like they're saying that she was connected to Misa she was planted in the office to get him to make a mistake

51:48 And then that was leveraged, you know in the same way you leverage things. But you don't have to sniff around in two darker corners of the internet to hear that Obama's got some secrets? It just seems like you really can't rise to the top unless the people in real power can get you to do whatever they need you to do. Yeah incidentally my cat is quite interested in this conversation I love it a bangle it looks like Don't mind that he joins us. He's a little tabby, I've got two and this is the male. It's a good looking cat! So i read that you began writing Confessions of an Economic Hitman in the 1980s but quote threats or bribes always convinced you to stop? I'm curious about that can can you talk to us about that at all because there has to have been thousands of people doing the kind of work you do but I only know of one book about it

52:43 Well, one author. One author I should say you've written many books but I only know one guy who turned tail and told the rest of us what was going on You know that's an interesting comment because there have been quite a few Joe Stiglitz who won the Nobel Prize in economics as chief economist at the World Bank He has written many of the same things that i have he said for example The World Bank their models were biased to justify policy not just come up with the right truth Statistics were used that way and he goes into a lot more detail, but he writes in a boring way honestly You know it's essays. It's very academic can't all be you John well

53:23 Well, I decided when i wrote this book that i wanted to reach a larger audience so i wrote it like a novel. It's not a novel its non-fiction but rather than trying to have it build up in sales and all the academic institutions around the world which is a huge market incidentally. I think Stiglitz may have been wise enough to do that but uh...i want to reach the general public And so, but there's been a number of other books that come out. David Corton wrote When Corporations Rule the World. There's many but where were we? What was the real... Oh why what happened when I yeah right so

54:01 When I quit being an economic hitman, and remember my real title was chief economist. But I started writing this book and decided that I would reach out to a lot of other people who had jobs like mine into the jackals those who overthrow governments or assassinate their leaders and get their stories As soon as I started making those telephone calls, I got anonymous calls from strange muffled voices threatening my life and that of my infant daughter. And I took these calls very seriously because I knew what those people can do. I'd seen what they did to Allende in Chile and Arbenz in Guatemala and Mosaddegh in Iran

54:47 add a little bit of it on and i knew what the possibilities were here news in danger situation, edit the same time get taken out to dinner by the president of stone webster engineering corporation big boston based engineering consulting firm. that have been a competitor of my companies and it takes me out to dinner he says you know john you have a great resume your chief economist at our competitor, i have tremendous networking ability with the world bank and other organizations we would like to use your resume in our proposals

55:26 You won't have to do any work for us. We might ask you to take the private jet down to Rio de Janeiro once in a while and have dinner with the rich people there, but you won't have to do much for us." And just he said, and I'm prepared tomorrow morning to write you a check for $500000 half a million dollars. This is in the 1980s Greg. I mean half a million's nothing to sneeze at now but it was a lot more back then and I'm without a job. I've quit so it was attractive but also my life being threatened and he says just don't write the book

56:03 You can't work for us and have that book out there that we know you're writing and so you know it's funny because i was getting the same strategy used against me that i've been using against presidents and ministers of finance and so on. For ten years when that is like in this hand i got a lot of money, for you and your families because when you build these infrastructure projects as i said that they really help the rich people who usually run the governments, the ones who own businesses the ones in the industry so they benefit from stable electricity growing electricity highways and ports and airports. So he says now this hand john you know in this hand I've got a lot of money to offer you or in this hand if you don't accept my deal I gotta gun

56:54 And, you know that was exactly what I would say to presidents. Lot of money or gun? Now i didn't actually carry a gun but they knew as I knew that there were people behind me that did carry guns or worse and so what would you do what is it you get guys call you on the phone threatening your infant daughter's life in your life are you being offered half a million dollars there would be no book out i know that. Exactly exactly was not a bug and so i don't have my own defense i have to say i took the money i didn't buy a yacht or a private plane or something. I guess you can't do that with half a million anyway, but I spent the money on going back to the Amazon where I had been a Peace Corps volunteer and knew now that the Amazons are being destroyed by oil companies and others. And I went back to the people I'd lived with as a Peace Corps volunteer, the Shuar indigenous people deep in the Amazon and said hey, I want to help you guys save your rainforests.

57:55 make a long story short, they welcomed me and I ended up forming a non-profit called Dream Change that worked with this. And I wrote five books on Indigenous people and shamanism—and you mentioned some of them at the beginning of the program which was fine with Stoner Webster that I wrote those books. They said they had no problem with that but i didn't write the book about economic hitmen. I kept my deal with Stoner Webster But by the year 2000 that deal was no longer, it was done. The new chairman of the board or CEO had taken over at Sonowebster he didn't want to keep this thing going and I didn't either

58:34 And 9-11, I was in Ecuador deep in the rainforest. I'd taken a group of people...I take groups that still do if any of your audience wants to go with me johnperkins.org it's all there and we were there on 9-11 and when I came home – I lived in Florida at the time like you – and when I came home I flew up to New York and went to ground zero. And as I looked at that pit, I knew I had to write about what I'd done. Not that there was any direct connection but it just triggered me to know that I had to expose what I had done but this time I decided I wouldn't tell anybody I was doing it. I wouldn't contact other people who have done it. I would not write an exposé that included other stories. I will write a very personal confession

59:29 And I wouldn't tell it, so if I didn't tell anybody nobody could threaten my life or offer me a bribe because nobody would know that i was doing this. And once I had in the hands of a good New York literary agent and he's distributing it to publishers, I figure its my best insurance policy that at that point anybody who might want to get rid of me or want to threaten me can't do it anymore because they know if something strange happens to me the book's going to sell a lot of copies and I become a martyr. And that is exactly opposite what they wanna have happen so, you know, I went ahead and wrote the book completely in private got in hands with very good literary agent

1:00:12 We got it out there and that's our insurance policy love it yes we are very thankful to have this book is so precious i mean now in its third edition just gets better every time, so i never really have heard you ask like because the book is pretty. Open it seems but how did you leave things out are there other major things you have never told i mean is there a there's stuff your old take to the grave that didn't make it into the box. Of course well i'm in here eighty let's let's rip the doors off, well i mean i can i can answer this quite simply i don't tell about all the hours i spent on the typewriter computer

1:00:57 That's boring. So I didn't tell you about that. Well, first of all… That's not what you're interested in! You're interested in what's going to be in the movie? Is there a movie?! There will be but I can't talk about that. Okay fair well... Not because the CIA doesn't want me talking about it but because I have an agreement with the producers of the movie I don't know whether the movie will come out in my lifetime or not, but Hollywood has a slow process. It does and they're struggling these days too to keep afloat So there are things that you've never disclosed that would be in the potential movie if it comes out. Yeah, and or another book which may coincide with the movie. Okay! And also I write some in my newsletter so this is my most recent newsletter

1:01:47 Contrast, two weeks ago I did a shamanic workshop for 200 people in San Francisco where there were three people. Two women and one man from the Amazon and we were beating drums and shaking rattles and taking people on this... And these are quite prominent supporters, donors to the Pachamama Alliance with quite a lot of money and influence and so on. They're all… We take them on this shamanic journey And then four days later, I'm speaking in Las Vegas to 5,000 people on the main stage of the Bitcoin conference. I'm following JD Vance and the two Trump sons that they've been speaking on the same stage and I'm speaking about economic hitmen

1:02:32 And, you know so this my newsletter which you can get on my website people go there johnperkins.org and sign up for future ones if you do you can put your name in the little box of your email address but anyway So this newsletters entitled Bitcoin shamanism in the bubble and it's really addressing how we all live in these bubbles So, the shaman people kind of a lot of them were saying well why would you speak at a Bitcoin conference? And the Bitcoin people and people I talked to in corporations say you didn't write those books on shamanism did you. We live in these bubbles and the bubbles as you alluded to earlier have gotten much smaller

1:03:12 because of social networking and the algorithms that we all operate under. But I think the challenge for us now in the future is to keep expanding those bubbles, and one of the reasons i really like your show is because that's what you're doing. You're helping people expand their bubbles, and this is an incredibly important process, and it's why I write It's why I hope there will be a movie because that'll reach people that never read books and it's why I wrote a novel instead of, you know all my other books are nonfiction. Because I know some people don't read nonfiction so I wanted to get that similar message out in a way that is really fun and in the novel but

1:03:50 This restricted bubbles that we live in and the importance of expanding them. And we've got to move from this, what we call a death economy, the kind of economic system I created that's based on maximizing short-term profits for corporations and materialistic consumption for everybody else. And it is consuming and polluting itself toward extinction We need to move into a life economy that pays people to clean up pollution, that pays people you know to regenerate destroyed environments. To come up with new technologies that create energy out of the air and water. You know we can do this! There's so much that we can do. The life economy which instead of maximizing short-term profits and materialism maximizes long term benefits for all life

1:04:39 So, you know that's my goal at this point in my life is to move in that direction. I wanted to make sure we get that end before the show over so I apologize for just kind of leaping it and doing that but... All good! Yes and in fact I actually was gonna end on The New Book, The Message from Pleiades novel and I'm kinda opposite mainly probably because of what I do for work. I read a lot more nonfiction and I know that I have guests who will write novels and stuff, but it's just hard for me to cut around like what is the real stuff peppered into the story? Cause it's all kind of intermixed so I tend to stick to the non-fiction but I am interested in this book and when I initially reached out and saw you wrote it, I was like wow! What

1:05:24 interesting book for the economic hitman guy to write and of course you have these kind of books peppered throughout your book writing career but no that's the only one that's the only non-fiction well fair but i'm talking about like you know touch the jaguar and the stress free toolbox like there are some things that touch along these themes, I've heard you say it's somewhat channeled, but it's about a disillusioned Congresswoman who travels to Tikal and quote on the first night perched high atop a 2000 year old pyramid she hears a voice otherworldly haunting that takes her on a journey through the mysteries of human history. Can it truly be a voice from the Pleiades as Mayan legend foretells? And so I just think that it's an interesting subject matter for you to write about

1:06:12 Is there an underlying current of truth or personal experience peppered into this? Is there some kind of connection you think between pyramids, rituals and messages from the stars that does have a realness to it. Let me just say that I've spent a lot of time in Tikal, in Mayan sacred site in Guatemala. And I take groups there and yes most of all the experiences described in I've experienced. And the Mayans believe they came from Pleiades and they believe that these thoughts we have, that's where they come from. They're channeled in from here. You know other people would call it God or Jesus or you know Muhammad or whatever but it's a fascinating subject and I have to say I loved writing this book! It was so fun to explore these things. Only 75 pages long...you can read it in an hour or two

1:07:07 I love it. I'm probably going to have to check it out because, I just always want to know where the poetic license takes off in the facts and so sometimes its just like... you know cause ill believe at all that's what happens to me So it needs to be clearly marked non-fiction but amazing! This has been really great Im glad we could get past the John Perkins 101 stuff and get into some weird areas as were wrapping this thing up I wanted to save a little more room for the tours. I'm obviously really interested in the tours, and probably won't get to go on one because these stages of our lives aren't in sync very well but do you have any upcoming ones that you'd like to plug? Yeah! I've got a great one to Tikal, to the Mayan cities and we'll be with shamans there all time. We do amazing fire ceremonies

1:07:54 It's next March. I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I try to schedule all my overseas trips during that time of the year which isn't quite so pleasant here when there is a lot of rain and so on. So this is in March but it's March 2026 and its available now In the meantime, I'm going to be speaking at events in the Republic of Georgia and Istanbul, and I do a lot of traveling also in the meantime. But the trips are usually in January and February and March But, Phil it's all on my website including the day-by-day itinerary that people can really get a good feeling for it. And they do fill up pretty quickly I don't take more than 15 people in general unless there are couple of families that make they get up to 18 maybe but It is small and I've got an amazing partner guy who have done this with for many many years since the 80s he's from Ecuador

1:08:52 And we have shamans with us the whole time. They're phenomenal trips, I've been doing these since the 80s and I never get bored! Every trip is so different for me or I wouldn't keep doing it—I only do it because I love doing it." Yeah very very cool. I love being in new places but I hate travel...so that's just one of those things but But of course people can get the books anywhere they get books. They can follow the ongoing commentary and blog and get the newsletter at johnperkins.org, anything else to leave them with? I think all your listeners should feel really blessed to be alive at this time in history. We are on the cusp of redefining what it means to be human beings being human on this planet we're evolving

1:09:39 And, you know we have...we move up forward and then we take some steps back. I think we're in a little step back right now but we're going to continue moving forward This is an amazing time to be alive! Yes tremendous challenges, tremendous crises and also great opportunities for tremendous change and opening ourselves expanding our bubbles And I again, just want to express my appreciation for the work that you do of helping people expand the bubbles and bringing this information out because it's critical. Ah, too kind! Cheers to that. Yeah, I'm very thankful to be alive now. I really can't believe going back to my younger self and listening to The John Perkins Interview and Zeitgeist II and being a naive stoner college dropout now I'm 40 years old and you're giving me a compliment

1:10:28 What a life. What a life you are the man, so I've learned a lot about the inner workings of The Big Machine from you and i will be forever grateful thanks again and take care Serenity now right truly this time we could really use it Anyway, I will start with saying. I loved this interview. We had a good rhythm going and I felt like the vibe was high and it felt like a home run John said a couple of things in passing with some of the examples he chose to use that I don't agree with but that is fine You know we've had the vaccine conversation a thousand times at this point But I don't know how you can look at almost every other interaction and campaign from the West as exploitative

1:11:14 and not see vaccines in that same context or just the medical stuff in general. From what I read it looks more like the third world is regularly used as a medical testing ground and that they are likely the victims of a sterilization campaign under the guise of trying to provide help some researchers are looking at Zika under a new microscope Possibly vax damage for something experimental. Apparently the places that had the biggest outbreaks had recent visits from Western medicine and... That's interesting We also did that interview with Professor Daniel M. Muir about his book, How to Hide an Empire and that's about all the US territories that we control and what the government has done with them historically including the testing of various birth controls on women in the Philippines and all the fallout from that

1:12:07 Like everything else, it just seems like it's all exploitation and value extraction framed as a good thing. And I don't put vaccination campaigns in a special category outside of that overall motivation that seems to drive everything else maybe I'm wrong but...I think if there wasn't something in it for them they would just leave these people alone defend for themselves for better or worse Small disagreement and obviously far outside the scope of John's work, but it is an interview I truly enjoyed. I think that was obvious. I consider John's career to be one of the most elucidating careers to educate yourself on from his recruitment and training too

1:12:49 every one of his assignments and all the little insights he learned along the way. But this was good, it was a little bit different not only as my own first interview with him about his life story... Of course I guess 29 years old when that came out but i know a lot of you have either read the book or seen zeitgeist or at least heard another interview with John along the way so I didn't want to go that resume route. I almost tried to work backwards in But I think it's awesome that John has applied his knowledge to arranging trips and bringing people to these new environments, interacting with these cultures they wouldn't otherwise interact with and facilitating real healing. It's a beautiful thing! If John didn't have this shamanic side of his story then i don't know if we'd even have Confessions Of An Economic Hitman today

1:13:41 We might, that's just me speculating but I believe in the power of entheogens to make one reflect and transform ourselves in altruistic ways. I also need to say that I screwed up. I said the US is 60 trillion in debt but it's only 36 trillion so you can rest easy Though the thing I said about the interest on the debt being our second largest expense as a country dwarfed only by the military budget, that is true. And it is supposed to surpass the military budget in just a couple of years. That's what they say who knows maybe the military budgets going up too right?

1:14:26 But this is why I say, sorry we just can't afford anything right now. Our cities are full of tents and drug-addled zombie people until we sort that out on top of the debt we have to rein in all spending businesses can operate on blocks that are now campgrounds for unstable people kind of going to be in a death spiral for our cities if we aren't already And as he said, minimum wage hasn't really gone up since the 70s. Everyone feels squeezed we have some budgeting to do before we spend anything else I mean i get it the popular sentiment out there right now is simply what about us you take our money and then what do we get for it Israel clearly has compromised our government or some say we are the ones who run the show and that we funnel the money

1:15:19 buy back our own military weaponry like a big money laundering scheme that benefits U.S elite more than anyone again Ben Shapiro I think has called Israel an aircraft carrier for the US military on land and i've been hearing that Netanyahu grew up way more American than Israeli before he was in the government but, I really don't care who's the top and who's the bottom I just want us to get out of bed together you know it's been far too much And when you see all the presidents go into the wailing wall, though it just really makes you wonder who is in charge or actually maybe it answers that question. But either way this all leads me to the fact that as you heard me say we recorded this just a couple of days into the two week window that Trump was going to use to think about what the U S would do with Iran and I think it only took three days to wake up to the news that we bombed them so A lot of this interview

1:16:15 I wouldn't say it's outdated. It's actually good context for Iran in general and historically, and like Ted Cruz we should all learn a little bit more about Iran if it is going to be such an important part of where we go from here but yeah clearly that hadn't happened yet you can tell that from the way we talk about it It's all just super disappointing and I'm really glad that i've stuck with saying both parties are corrupt and never getting pulled into one side of the other. Really there's only one side a lot of my colleagues are being pulled Of course, I have wanted to be optimistic And hopeful about RFK Jr particularly you know domestically more than anything else

1:16:58 But there's just no way to vote or have influence over about 80% of what goes on and they hype up that last 20% to make it feel like you did something. What do we really think will happen next? It's all probability but the numbers just went up for the false flag that draws us deeper into all this stuff actually happening, or real retaliatory strikes though I assume a lot of that would happen at the bases in the Middle East first again Bring it the fuck home boys, it's time. Who really knows? I try not to give into fear or worry too much about hypotheticals but It's not a great week for going down geopolitical conspiracy rabbit holes on the internet right?

1:21:53 And the other thing we like to do is review the last episode. This would be the one with Alex Fulton about crypto Kuberology, it got a 4.6 and that is not bad. I would have put it a notch or two higher but I know that synchromystic numerological pattern recognition six degrees of who's who in Hollywood isn't everyone's thing so I'm just happy with the four point six And the other thing we like to do around here is look at the meetup calendar and call out the upcoming events. We have one June 28th in St Charles, Illinois at The Global Brew Taphouse for the THC slash FE MeetUp Synergy Hang and also on June 28th The Magic in Orlando at Blue Jacket Park in Orlando Florida

1:22:44 Was gonna try to go to that don't think I'm gonna make it and then July 2nd We have the UTM shoplifters and truthers of the world Unite So if you want to get together with other looters, you know This is a good way to coordinate joking. Of course But then also July 5th we have the random Roswell meetup in Roswell New Mexico at the Black Cock Brewery Okay Keeping it classy and then July 16th, New Haven Connecticut at no low. July 21st Eden Terrence Auckland New Zealand you know where it is Gail Brath's ale house so

1:23:21 Looks like there's a good amount of events coming up in the next month and a half. If you're interested, you know where to go higher side meetups.com get more details about any of these events if you heard about one in the city near you or make your own it's a beautiful thing and with that I'm going to get going let John know if he had a good time and appreciate his candidness. I know I do take care of you and yours these are troubled times. I'm getting out of here. I've done my part Your move, industrialist wealth extractors globalists profit pillagers and of course economic hitmen. Your fucking move We are in a lot of trouble across every industry Food water and medicine computer tech and energy But people aren't paying attention Not much is getting through

1:24:26 Gains in the information war are getting long overdue What's left for the big old octopus to get its tentacles around? Sure, it's got a grip on everything but it's along digits on Earthis But we need you to make a bet facts over properties

1:25:34 Justice over Kool Zera Sure it's God, but it's alone Tell it like it is Deconstruct the plan Wake em up They can't continue to win The history of the future's changing Lead us not into temptation By parasitic psychopticles Are at sure its god