Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again, you've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like, say our name, bitch, say it, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Andrew Coburn.
He is the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine and the author of five books, including Kill Chain, The Rise of the High Tech Assassins.
And here he is writing for the American Conservative Magazine.
Oh, and yes, if you're wondering, it's Patrick's brother.
Just How Swampy Are U.S.-Saudi Arms Deals?
is the piece.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing, Andrew?
Very good.
Very good.
Glad to be with you.
Good.
Very happy to have you here again.
Just talked with Patrick the other day.
Nice to catch up with the Coburns.
And boy, you have a good one here about, well, dollar amounts.
And not just that, but the real relationships that tie and bind here.
So, you know, where do we start in the pyramid of power here?
You got Saudi, you got Washington, D.C., or I guess I should say you got Riyadh, you got Washington, D.C., and you have Lockheed Martin headquarters in, where's that, Fort Worth?
Or in D.C., too?
No, they're headquartered in St. Louis.
No, in D.C., I think they are.
Yeah, they're in St. Louis.
Their headquarters is in the D.C. suburbs, but they're all over the place.
Fort Worth, St. Louis, God, you name it.
All right.
So, what's the name of the game here?
I think the real name of the game is basically what's being created with Lockheed in the forefront, but they're all in it, is a global military-industrial complex.
I mean, what I say in this piece is, so people from Raytheon, which is another big defense contractor, they were negotiating a deal, well, they're part of a Lockheed, together with Lockheed, which is an anti-missile system, and they were negotiating with the Saudis on the deal.
They've already agreed a $15 billion deal with the Saudis.
But a team from Raytheon went over to negotiate their bit, and what did they find facing them across the table but a group of people, of Americans just like them.
And they were from this giant consulting firm called the Boston Consulting Group, which is advising governments around the world, and particularly Saudi Arabia, on arms deals.
So, it's basically, what you really have is the military-industrial complex negotiating with itself.
This happened to be in Riyadh, but it's just like turning the whole world into a military-industrial complex, as far as I can see.
So, I mean, what's funny about this current time is, I mean, I don't know to what degree this is just always sort of common knowledge.
I think it's sort of the common accusation, but it's just above board more than ever before, especially, I guess, because Trump himself says, hey, look, these Saudis buy our weapons, and that's really important, which is really not important for the economy of the United States, but it is important for the economy of the special interests that finance the political parties and the think tanks and all those things.
But he's not shy about it.
He goes, that's what we're doing here, man, money.
Yeah, and I think one of the sort of reasons that the establishment is so disgusted with Trump is he's so crude.
He like says it.
They all think it.
Why else?
I mean, it's not like Trump was the one to discover Saudi Arabia, arms deals to Saudi Arabia.
Obama really, really pushed arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
You know, Hillary Clinton celebrated when they made a big sale in 2009.
It's just that Trump is so sort of crass and, you know, vulgar that he actually boasts about it.
I mean, you know, he said the other day, he said the great thing about the Saudis is they always pay cash.
Well, you know, they all think that, but they're not meant to say so in public.
Right.
In fact, Hillary Clinton was just the other day on TV saying, oh, it's just terrible that someone would personally profit from their political actions.
It's just unbelievable.
I know.
I mean, I guess.
What do you want to say about that?
You know what?
It's she's kind of right in the sense of just he's so blatant.
She's kind of right in any truthful way, but just in terms of the narrative, he's so blatant about it that none of the rest of them are like that, essentially.
So they can deny the policy, too, because they just, you know what I mean?
Hide behind the what you call it.
I saw a funny thing in.
I'm sorry.
I forget if it was the New Republic or what by Sarah Chayes, the former NPR reporter who moved Afghanistan for all those years and all those things.
And she was talking about how, you know what, Trump impeachment or not or whatever, what's going on here with the Bidens?
This is crazy.
And then she says, did you know that Madeleine Albright is the founder of a hedge fund?
And that she invests in sub-Saharan African mining operations.
I mean, this is for people to pretend like this is OK, just because Trump made a faux pas in asking these countries to investigate these things.
To pretend like this is the way business is supposed to be in the world, that American, you know, political figures get to go and exercise this kind of corporate influence and be influenced in such a blatant way like this.
It's crazy.
The fact that everyone thinks it's normal.
The fact that the Democrats think they can use the Biden scandal to hurt Trump and don't think it affects them at all is amazing.
And they're probably right.
You know.
But they're probably right.
In fact, you know, until this, you know, Trump came along, you know, people would have been asking a lot of questions about Biden and his son, you know, his son, you know, this deal in Ukraine.
But because they all hate Trump so much now, it's sort of legitimized.
You know, I mean, remember, we used to be shocked.
Remember Billy Carter?
That was Nixon's brother when they were doing exactly what Hunter Biden has been doing, as far as I can see.
You know, that was considered shocking.
Now it's OK.
You know, now, you know, as Sarah Chase said, you know, this is considered a legitimate business model to trade on your name or your relative's name.
I've heard liberals saying, too, that, hey, look, whatever Hunter Biden did, that's no different than Jared Kushner.
And it's like, yeah, that's no different than Jared Kushner.
That's not a defense.
That's an accusation, dude.
Exactly.
Exactly.
You know, no, no.
I mean, they're so sort of morally confused, I guess is the word, the polite word that they they're not they're not really thinking about what they're saying.
You know, it's no different from Jared Kushner.
Can you believe it?
And, you know, it's.
And, you know, there's another aspect of all this, which is, you know, Trump, the terrible, you know, Trump has done terrible things.
You know, we know.
I mean, you know, I think, you know, what he does on the border is probably the most disgraceful of all the concentration camps and so forth.
But many other things, the greed, the crooked deals and everything.
But the thing that got him into real trouble was holding up an arms deal.
You know that.
Oh, my God.
He made military aid to Ukraine conditional on investigating Biden.
I mean, that's what's got everyone.
That's what's brought us to impeachment.
Right.
Right.
And no one wants to talk about Biden's role in the coup.
And we have Robert Kagan's wife on tape.
Thanks, Russia.
If you're listening, any more leaks like that, you have a Victoria Nuland.
We'd be happy to hear him on YouTube there.
The famous F the EU leak where, in fact, the unfortunate fact that she used a bad word meant that that got all the coverage that, oh, no.
A diplomat used a bad word when the actual recording is her plotting a coup and saying we're going to get Vice President Biden to help glue this thing together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And the other aspect of all this is what an incredible sort of doofus Biden is.
You know, I think, you know, the fact that he and Hunter went wading into sort of Ukrainian by getting themselves involved in Ukraine, which is like is, you know, is a really, really swampy swamp.
And they didn't, you know, that there was going to be a don't think, you know, like we're discussing now, I don't think that they are going to be a steady flow of, you know, disclosures and accusations and all the rest about the Biden.
They should, you know, they should just as stupid to get themselves to get themselves involved in that.
Yeah, I mean, and seriously, you know, well, not seriously, but half seriously joking around.
I was kind of thinking, you know what, maybe this whole thing was a Roger Stone dirty trick where the Republicans were wondering, how can we get the Democrats to make Joe Biden the center of their effort against Trump and destroy their own front runner in the name of getting him?
Hey, Joey, come here.
You want to be a whistleblower?
But yeah, apparently it was more like the CIA decided to send another guy to try to bring this guy down again.
It's more like it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the deep state does it again.
Very effectively, I must say.
Well, you know, as long as we're on this topic, let me ask you, how outraged are you that Trump would say, hey, China, you ought to investigate Biden, too, and all these things, because.
I don't know, I guess my my outrage machine has been just completely worn out on the genocide in Yemen, and I'm trying to figure out exactly how upset I'm supposed to feel about this.
Wait, we're talking about real corruption by the previous vice president and his corrupt cokehead son and all of this stuff.
And then and Trump said that the officials in charge of those countries should look into that.
And I don't know, I don't want to prejudice your answer.
Maybe he should be impeached for this.
What do you think?
I think anything that gets them impeached is fine with me.
But that's a fair answer.
I agree.
You know, I mean, as I said a minute ago, you know, considering everything he's done, this is what got them all fired up.
You know, they, you know, slaughter in Yemen.
That's OK.
You know, concentration camps on the border.
No problem.
A little bit of a problem, not much of a problem.
You know, you know, coining, making money out of these hotels, you know, out of being president.
Fine.
You know, we won't make a fuss about that.
Oh, you know, he he asked the Chinese leader to investigate Biden.
That's the Ukrainian president.
That is just beyond words.
And we have to you know, you should be thrown out for that.
I think skewed values here.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I wonder how it's going to play out.
I think I think the Democrats don't really realize how mad they're going to make a lot of people with, you know, from their point of view.
And it's understandable because I've wanted every president impeached my entire lifetime.
I was too young for Carter, but I wanted Reagan impeached.
And I wanted Bush and Clinton and Bush and Obama and now Trump impeached.
I'm for removing all presidents.
None of them should get more than a couple of months before they're brought up on charges of war crimes or whatever and drummed out of office.
I think that's a very, very, very sensible, reasonable position to take.
But so for the Democrats, though, I mean, their idea is that this guy is so bad that it's totally right and good and justified to go fishing for anything we can get on him to try to get rid of him.
But they don't realize how bad that looks from the other side where you don't really have anything.
You got to trump up this kind of thing, this sort of son of Russiagate, which was two years of a giant hoax, falsely accusing him of high treason.
But anyway, never mind that.
It's all about Ukraine now and all of this.
I mean, I don't know.
I'm worried some right wingers are going to react really bad.
Well, I mean, the Republicans control the Senate, so it doesn't matter anyway, really, I guess.
But if they were to really be able to try to get, you know, to really get rid of him, they're going to cause a war, I think, you know.
Well, maybe, but do remember, you know, everyone points to the people who point to the Clinton impeachment, which was a load of, you know, nonsense, B.S.
Anyway, also or anyway, but they and people say, well, then the Republicans lost, you know, that cost them politically.
But actually, you know, really, I think it helped elect Bush in 2000 because it meant that Clinton couldn't campaign in 2000.
I mean, Gore wouldn't have him because Clinton was damaged goods.
So I think maybe the Democrats, I mean, we can criticize, you know, what they're doing and maybe the shabby grounds for doing it.
But politically, maybe they're not so dumb.
I think, you know, to have it, I think it will.
I mean, yes, a lot of people on the right, a lot of people on the right will be upset by this and get mad.
But I think whereas people didn't really believe in Russia, they might consider this an issue.
I mean, you know, we can agree is a pretty silly thing to get exercised about.
But still, I think it may it may hurt Trump.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's a good point.
Although then again, the way I remember the year 2000, Al Gore was a damn fool for not bringing Bill Clinton out on the campaign trail, because by then nobody cared at all about this Lewinsky crap.
He had had a great war in Kosovo, made America feel good about itself again for a minute there or whatever it was.
And by 2000, he would have knocked them dead and Gore would have won by four or five points.
You know, I think he you know, and I thought so at the time.
And I hate Bill Clinton, but I was just saying as a dispassionate analyst that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know.
Yeah.
But no, you make a good point.
Let's go back to arms deals for a second.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, go on.
No, go ahead.
Well, I want to say, I mean, just like I want to say just like it's important to understand the, you know, this Saudi deal I was talking about where we were selling, you know, yet more garbage to the Saudis.
And it was basically one American corporation negotiating with another.
And it was all what they were negotiating in that particular part of the deal was, you know, extending, setting up Raytheon plants in Saudi Arabia or partnership, you know, with with things owned by Princey.
So it seems to me it was an extension of the military industrial complex, and it's becoming money more deeply layered, you know, coordinated around the world.
Every big arms deal is done like this now with the so-called offsets.
And as I pointed out in the piece, it's a great way to get around the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
So you can basically still pay bribes that way.
But the other but that now put that put that alongside this thing we've been talking about with the, you know, the thing that's gotten Trump into so much trouble, which is holding up.
They keep talking about military aid to Ukraine unless they came across with dirt on Biden.
Well, you know, what that military aid consists of, I think it's roughly a $400 million, don't quote me, I may have got the figure wrong, arms deal.
But an arms deal paid for by you and me, because unlike the Saudis, the Ukrainians don't have any money.
So it's going to be basically funded by the U.S. taxpayer.
And it's a bunch of stuff that the Saudis, sorry, that the Ukrainians either don't need, like tanks, they've got plenty of tanks of their own, or can't afford to run, you know, like things that are very expensive to maintain and so forth.
So it's all kind of, you know, useless for the purposes of defending Ukraine, whether you want to defend Ukraine or not.
But it's, you know, very profitable to, you know, to General Dynamics, that's the tank to, I don't know, whichever other vehicles.
Yeah, General Dynamics, it's particularly good for General Dynamics all around.
It's good for Raytheon, good for Lockheed.
Yeah, Lockheed makes those Javelin missiles they're always talking about.
Well, it's Raytheon.
Oh, okay.
But, you know, same difference.
So it's just another example of how, you know, everything comes down to arms deal.
You know, that's what we do.
You know, I always like to quote what a friend of mine, a former Pentagon person, used to say, which was the true function of the U.S. government is to buy arms at home and sell arms abroad.
And that's what the government does.
You know, it's its main responsibility.
And here we go, you know, here are two cases.
And, you know, Biden's been really in trouble for getting in the way of that.
Oh, my God.
You know, sorry, Trump is in trouble.
I beg your pardon.
Trump is in trouble for getting in the way of that.
You know, he held up a Ukrainian arms deal.
You know, you've got Adam Schiff.
He imperiled national security, the national security of the United States.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian, Mr. Zelensky, is busy, you know, making peace with Putin.
You know, he doesn't need these weapons.
I mean, he's actually making deals.
You know, now, you know, Ukraine is importing Russian electricity again.
Haven't done that for four years.
You know, things are quieting down there.
But we want to keep it amped up so, you know, we can send more arms over there and stick the U.S. taxpayer with the tab.
Yeah.
So let me ask you this.
Which, you know, real power factions are against Trump?
Because, you know, I know it wasn't supposed to be him.
You know, he pulled this off through a mixture of some things.
He became the president.
But at the same time, it's not like Netanyahu wants him out.
And I understand what you're saying here about he held up this arms deal.
But in the scheme of things, it seems like he's perfectly happy to, you know, to make sure that he's pleasing these different companies that you name.
And they must know that they like this guy.
Whatever anti-war stuff he says, all he does is escalate everywhere.
They can't really be concerned.
So is it the bankers?
Is it just the Democrats, quote unquote?
Or what, the health care industry is out to get him?
Or who is it?
That's like behind all of this.
Yeah, that's a great question.
Well, you know, it's certainly the Democrats.
I would say, you know, the intelligence agencies, you know.
It always seems to me the CIA operates on grudges.
You know, they had a grudge.
You know, why were they after Castro all those years?
Because they had a grudge against him.
Why were they after, you know, because he'd been one of their guys originally and then he'd come off the reservation.
Ditto with Qaddafi.
You know, we think people never like to talk about the role of the U.S. military in helping Qaddafi get power.
Nasser, if any of your audience remember him in Egypt, another guy who'd been one of ours, then got off the reservation.
We were after him for years.
And I think it's a grudge against Trump there.
I agree, you know, the military.
You know, it's interesting with the military and Trump.
Trump has most of the time been getting what he wants, except when he wants to do something that runs contrary to what the military wants.
And, you know, the two examples I always cite are, you know, last year in his forward budget plan for 2020, he said he wanted to cut the military budget back to $700 billion, only $700 billion.
And there was immediate screams of outrage from the, you know, from the military and from the, you know, the water carriers in Congress, you know, the industry.
This is, oh, my God, this is terrible.
You know, we're going to be disarmed.
So he caved.
And, you know, next thing you heard, he opted for $750 billion.
And the Democrats came hanging with $733 billion, and they settled on that.
The other example is Syria.
He wanted to, he announced, you know, a year ago, just almost a year ago in December last year, that he was going to pull out of Syria.
Again, screams of outrage from the military and from the water carriers in Congress, bipartisan, you know, Lindsey Graham and the Democrats.
How could he do this?
And he, you know, as you may have noticed, we're still in Syria.
So, you know, it's interesting.
When he runs up against the military, the military always wins.
So I don't think they have too much of a problem with him.
You know, again, I think all these people, you know, if they get Biden in, you know, they know they don't have too much to worry about from him.
You know, the military wouldn't.
The bankers wouldn't, certainly.
The health care industry wouldn't.
You know, he keeps repeating their talking points.
So Biden would be OK.
Now, he'd be less embarrassing.
I think what the problem with Trump is he, you know, he's made his calls like he's so, you know, outrageous.
You know, he talks about the Saudis paying cash and all that.
But it's embarrassing.
So I think they'd much rather have someone who's a bit more presentable.
But, you know, I agree with you.
You know, who's he really offending?
Whose interest is he really countervailing?
I certainly would argue.
There must be some firms that have a lot of investments in China who are really being, you know, disrupted by the new tariffs and trade war and all that kind of stuff.
So maybe New York banks are having some problems with that.
Well, yes, you're true.
Certainly like the tech industry, you know, Apple, you know, the farmers, the big agribusiness is, you know, really hurting from this.
Let's see.
Well, Boeing and Boeing have shot themselves in the foot anyway.
But they were, you know, the Chinese, you know, the growth Boeing, all group, all Boeing's growth plans for their civilian side are based on China.
You know, I was talking to a major sort of broker at one of the big banks.
And I was saying, why is Boeing stock a bit lower?
You know, they got this disaster with the 737 on their hands.
And they were saying, well, you know, the market believes, you know, the one big area for growth.
You know, there's not many opportunities for growth anywhere in the world for manufacturing investment.
But China is going to have to buy, I forgot, they rattled off the number, but it was like a couple of thousand or more airliners.
And Boeing is going to get most of those.
So, you know, so bad trade wars with China are not good for manufacturers, even the steel industry on whose behalf all of this is supposed to be happening.
They don't sound so happy and they keep, you know, they're not doing well out of Trump.
So, yeah, you know, on the other hand, you know, Jamie Dimon, he said, I heard he was addressing a group of sort of people who was as rich as him not too long ago.
And he said, well, he said, I'm a Democrat.
Interestingly, he said, but I got to say, Trump's been doing a good job with the economy.
So, you know, you'd think they'd be complaining more, but they're not.
Yeah, well, I mean, it certainly makes good politics just on the most surface level for the Democrats to mercilessly attack him, you know, for themselves.
So that's certainly part of it as well.
But, you know, even a lot of the neocons, I mean, they get to morally posture against him, but they got to love his move in the embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing the annexation of Golan and all the rest of this.
The bogus deal of the century.
I mean, Bill Kristol's got to secretly think all that's great, right?
Yeah, I think it's because he I think, again, they find Trump embarrassing.
I mean, they were getting what they wanted most of the time.
Maybe I don't think Obama would have.
Would Obama have recognized the Golan thing?
Probably maybe.
I don't know.
Probably not that he would.
I don't think so.
Not that he would have told Israelis to give it back to Syria either.
No, no, he wouldn't have done that.
And he wouldn't when they took it over, he wouldn't have done anything to them.
Right.
You know, he did try the settlement freeze for a little while, but, you know, caved on that.
Now, I think I think a lot of it's the embarrassment factor.
Yeah.
You know, he is, you know, he does bring the whole thing into disrepute.
And look, look what he's done.
Look what Trump has done.
I mean, he has really set, you know, inflamed.
You know, we've got this big populist movement now.
You know, the whole Democratic Party has shifted to the left.
I mean, that was already we saw that with the Saunders campaign in 2016.
But, you know, now it's locked in place and you have them all.
Not just the presidential contenders, but really down ballot candidates.
You know, apart from a few of them.
I mean, you know, like the recent.
Oh, you've got things like there was a recent if you follow the recent DA district attorney election in Queens, New York, where, you know, you had this insurgent candidate, Stephanie Caban, excellent young lady, you know, public defender, very progressive platform.
But the machine candidate, you know, it was backed by the New York Democratic Party machine as entrenched and corrupt an organization, as you could find.
They had to, you know, their candidate had to run on a progressive platform, too.
So, you know, I think Trump has done a lot in moving politics to the left, which maybe maybe you libertarians out there wouldn't necessarily endorse.
But I think it's quite a good thing.
Well, he's moving the right to the right.
And I don't endorse that either.
Everybody's supposed to be believing more and more in freedom and less and less in government control of other people.
And instead, I think it's a terrible thing that everybody's moving.
It's a good thing that everybody's abandoning so-called moderate centrist neoconservatism and neoliberalism for the insane extremist, you know, national suicidal doctrine that it is.
But people should be coming more and more libertarian now, not more and more socialist and more and more nationalist, because that's just leads to, well, all sorts of problems.
But anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I don't know.
At the beginning, you were talking about you writing for the American conservative, an excellent libertarian organ, which must be excellent because, you know, they run a lot of my stuff and Gareth Porter.
Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I'm glad you brought that up.
I mean, the American conservative to me is the model.
Absolutely.
You know, this is all these are all principled people of the right and the left writing for the American conservative, obviously mostly from the right.
But they publish lots of good leftists and progressives who write great stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, like you and Gareth Porter and people like that, because, you know, well, because they got their priorities straight.
Right.
What are we against the most?
Well, the worst things the government's doing, like stealing lots of money and using it to kill people and stuff like that.
So focus on that.
And that's something that.
Exactly.
You know, I think this could be a very centrist position, right, against imperialism, against bailouts and corporate welfare, against the drug war, which has done so much to, well, make everyone the victims of the state.
But and especially make minorities feel like the victims of the majority for all these years.
And with these, you know, ruthless police killings all the time.
And, you know, like that's something that you shouldn't have to be left or right or anything.
You could be anything and agree with that kind of stuff.
If you're a banker and your bank goes out of business, tough.
How about that?
I think everyone agrees with that except bankers and a few professors, you know.
But, you know, that kind of thing, that should be the kind of deal to unite us all rather than, you know, everybody arguing over pronouns and over, you know, whatever garbage that they want to fight about instead.
Oh, don't you think?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And I couldn't agree more.
Well, we're going to have another crash and some more bailouts here pretty soon and we can try out our theory and see who rallies to what.
Oh, yeah.
You know, it's interesting.
Things are not looking good, are they?
You know, that they let me commend a website to everyone.
There's an excellent blog called The Wolf Report.
You know, the Wolf Rickshaw.
And he does the Wolf Report.
And if you want to sort of, you know, get ahead of the news on the coming crash, I heartily recommend it.
And he's been pointing out for a while, you know, how car sales are collapsing.
It's called Wolf Street.
Wolf Street.
OK, I'll look at that.
Yeah, have a look.
He's been following, like, truck sale.
You know, the heavy truck market and heavy trucks are like.
Yeah, I saw a thing about that.
At the core of the core of the economy and they're collapsing.
You know, you've got these, you know, heavily you've got these fiascos like this crooked company that just had to withdraw its IPO.
We work, you know, more and more for the more and more.
It's just like 2008.
More and more.
The froth is sort of evaporating.
You know, the Uber.
You've got these giant companies like, I mean, giantly indebted companies like Uber and Tesla and Lyft, you know, that the market has sort of valued hugely, which turned out to be money things.
In fact, you know, it's quite a I think it was actually Mr. Wolf of Wolf Street.
He pointed out, he said, you know, Warren is talking about a wealth tax and we already have a wealth tax because, you know, rich people, rich investors keep pouring money into companies like Uber and Tesla.
You know, and it's all evaporating.
They're never going to get it back.
He said, you don't have to institute a wealth tax.
We already have one, which is all these stupid investors pouring money into these into these scams, which is an attractive thought.
You know, it's such a bummer because Mises explained all of this back 100 years ago that the boom and bust isn't caused by the fevers of businessmen.
It's caused by artificially low interest rates and the expansion of bank credit.
And so when you expand the currency and you're pouring, you know, all this money into the pockets of all these investors for free, of course, they're going to invest it in bubble activity.
They've got nowhere else to put it.
You know, so it's not new wealth.
It's just money.
And it goes, it creates all these distortions.
And then here comes the very real crash after the artificial prosperity of the inflation.
It's as simple as that.
The Austrians have had this right for 100 years in a row.
But anyway, that's just don't get me started.
I already got started.
I'm sorry.
And listen, you know what?
I'm sorry.
I just realized how late I am for my next one.
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Andrew.
I really appreciate it.
Anytime.
Anytime.
Great.
Great to talk to you.
All right, you guys.
That is Andrew Coburn.
He wrote Kill Chain and The Threat.
That's back in the 80s about the bogus Soviet threat in Eastern Europe.
He's a Washington editor of Harper's Magazine.
And here he is at the American Conservative.
Just how swampy are U.S.-Saudi arms deals?
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
You can find me at libertarianinstitute.org, at scotthorton.org, antiwar.com, and reddit.com slash scotthortonshow.
Oh, yeah, and read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
