Mike Benz is clearly a crazy piece of shit who doesn't actually understand the nature of trade. When others get rich we get rich, destabilization never helps with anything unkess the goal is theft & authoritarian control. But this episode of Tucker is really interesting.
Discussion
Agreed that pod with Tucker is amazing. Why did you think Benz came off as crazy?
He’s new on my radar this week.
🧡👊🏻🍻
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He also acts as though we should be concerned about the NGOs & parts of the US economy which are built theft & the corrupt flow of money. Any part of the economy that is built on theft from the american people are only making everyone poorer. Killing the parasites makes us richer. It is insane to be so caught up in superficial indicators to not be able to see that.
Early on he admitted he’s going through the stages of grief over this (the price of empire). Maybe he’s at bargaining 🤷♂️
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I think he still deserves a lot of credit for all his work that leads to this moment. I cut him some slack because it’s bloody difficult, near impossible, to unwind the century of socialist economic propaganda without understanding Bitcoin first. He doesn’t claim to be astute at economics, I think he’s trying in good faith to figure it out.
Totally disagree with you on Benz. He’s not saying what he personally believes, he’s playing devil’s advocate, after hundreds of podcast appearances where he decries the villainy of what we do to other countries.
And his point is not that materials from all over the world wouldn’t be available to America in a free and open situation, he’s arguing that they might be a lot more expensive (I.e. America’s prosperity has been subsidized by cheap debt and aggressive foreign policy)
And he’s only arguing this, again, after sounding the alarm on hundreds of podcast about what USAID does and why it’s (mostly) not good for America
Success breeds copycats. If the US had simply been a beacon of freedom instead of actively working to destroy other free & prosperous countries trade & sound money would have made everything far cheaper. He is just plain wrong. The only thing that makes stuff more expensive is money printing & a lack of production due to destabilization. The US literally does one to fund the other.
I generally agree with everything you’re saying, and I suspect from listening to Mike Benz a lot, he would too. What you’re saying is totally compatible with what he’s saying.
I think what he is essentially suggesting is that American Foreign Policy has arguably been a form of theft, making things cheaper for Americans (and the West) for the last 80 years. In the long run, free markets and cooperation makes everything cheaper for everyone. In the short term, theft can make it a lot cheaper for some at the expense of others. And ending a theft program can make it more expensive in the short term for those accustomed to being beneficiaries of theft. He’s essentially warning there could be unexpected consequences to stopping the theft.
I don’t think he’s advocating for the foreign policy of the last 80 years, just suggesting that it may have benefitted Americans (albeit unjustly and certainly unequally). It’s still a violation of property rights and certainly democratic freedoms, so it’s wrong. And I think he would agree.
TLDR this subset of Mike Benz’s thinking is not fully representative of his views.
The fact that we are currently witnessing open heart surgery and a liver transplant being done on the US system by a group of flippant young autists (I am neurodivergent so... Card played lol) SHOULD be sobering. This is going to have all kinds of downstream.
But it is arguably the only way to save the patient.
I agree this guys soft, genteel support of hegemony is annoying. But he's also right about some things.
Few things are black and white. Hopefully the people doing the surgery realize this...
But there may slso be no baby left in this bath water.
How about the USA get out of the "dirty deeds" business? Get back to Jefferson's policy of "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none." The USA should not do to other countries what it does not want done to itself. Benz is lacking this kind of moral clarity. The word "smarmy" often came to mind listening to this. At one point he even said "The Blob is family," and lamented how devastating it would be economically to the region of Northern Virginia if USAID funding stops. Aren't those zip codes around the District of Corruption already the wealthiest in the nation? Apparently from grift...