About the ten percent. Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, is a great guy, friend of mine, supporter of mine. I'm a supporter of his too, And he wrote a pretty nasty story about the head of Intel, and I said, well, if that's right, he should resign. And he came in, he saw me, we talked for a while. I liked him a lot. I thought he was very good. I thought he was somewhat a victim, but you know, nobody's
a total victim, I guess. And I said, you know what, I think the United States should be given ten percent of Intel. And he said I would consider that. I said, well, I'd like you to do that.
Welcome to Libery Lockdowns, Clinton Russell. It's been a while. I apologize. Took a little break. Internet connection issues, weather issues, running Errand's travel, you know, live in life. But the good news is while I was away, you and I became ten percent owners of Intel. Who would have thought didn't even have to buy it. Nope, that's actually not true.
That's not what happened. So I did a little digging because at first glance, I was like, well, this is concerning odd unusual for those that are not familiar with recent history of crises and government interaction in the private market. Probably the best case study on what we're describing here was two thousand and eight, which is really where I
cut my teeth. I just came out of college. I had entered the mortgage industry, and I was right in the heart of basically the Great Recession, and it was not fun. But what we saw happen as a consequence of the Great Recession was the federal government acquired multiple
large institutions. I think they took on like GM for a time, bunch of liquidations, Washington Mutual got liquidated, well, I mean Bear Stearns, all of these companies that were going bust and then others that were being bailed out and being kind of technically acquired for a time by the United States federal government. And I opposed all of it. And you shouldn't be surprised. I am a free market capitalist.
I believe in creative destruction. I believe that if you make bad business decisions as they did which led to that crisis, they ought to go bust, but they did not. George Bush and then Barack Obama, they continued this process of bailing out these very large many of the more fortune five hundred corporations at the time, and this was done as a like last resort. Basically, the catastrophe was
going to be so significant they had no choice. That was the argument that we were being told, right, Well, this is an interesting situation and quite different from two thousand and eight, which was indeed a crisis.
Let's take a look back in history. October third, two thousand and eight. That was the day President George W. Bush signed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the sweeping piece of legislation designed to inject capital into a reeling US financial system. Now, the legislation's centerpiece was the seven hundred billion dollar Troubled Asset Relief Program TARP, the youth taxpayer money to hoover up billions of toxic debt held by banks.
A clean sweep, a clean wipe of balance sheets that in theory, would keep the banks solvent and encourage them to continue lending to consumers and businesses. It would be the biggest government intervention in markets since the Great Depression.
The banking institutions across the world were in danger of completely going bust. You had all of the collateralized debt obligations, the CEOs that were essentially sitting on the books of insurance companies and banking institutions and hedge funds and everybody else, and had they defaulted, the durative's contracts would have just blown up the entire economy, the global economy. I was
fine with that. I know that's an unpopular opinion amongst many people, but I believe that if there are people that are making bad bets, they ought to go bust. I should never, as a taxpayer, be obligated to bail
you out. Also, as a consequence of those bailouts, we didn't have a real reset when it came to the real estate market, and therefore the real estate bust, which was significant, would have been catastrophic, and all of the young people that are now watching this that are renting into their thirties or maybe even the forties would have been able to buy homes, and home prices would be much lower today than they are now as a consequence
of those billouts that they did. So long story short, there are a lot of unintended consequences when the federal government gets involved in the free market, which makes it not a free market, it makes it a hybrid economy. Which is ironic here because the argument that's being made by President Trump is that you have to intervene on behalf of Intel because they are one of our top microprocessor manufacturers.
Intel is the biggest, most powerful chip company in the world. And then they started leaving it and they started going to foreign countries, in particular Taiwan. And if we had a president would have said, Okay, you can go to Taiwan, but we're going to put a one hundred percent tariff for a two hundred or three hundred or five hundred percent tariff. Anybody that sells into the United States as to pay, they wouldn't have left.
And if they were to go bust, well, then we would be left with a bunch of Chinese corporations. And we can't be reliant on the CCP to produce microprocessors because what if we end up in a war over Taiwan. Well, that's an interesting problem, and I'll admit that the more interesting aspect of that is that why are we getting our lunch eaten by the communists? Like why is it that America, like the country that has dominated cutting edge big tech for my entire life much longer than that,
all the way back to the fifties. I'm sure, so seventy five years we've been dominating big tech, but just when it comes to this one industry, we can't compete. Maybe it's not just one industry. Maybe the whole idea that we are the leading class of all big tech is false now as a consequence of US becoming more and more like China, and China becoming more and more like the old version of US where they are freeing up their markets, we're going the opposite direction, as evidence
by the Wald Trump's decision yesterday. So for those that are unaware, Intel hit its high sometime around like it's all time high sometime in the year twenty twenty. Since then, it is down approximately sixty percent from its all time high,
So it is struggling. If you look at Nvidia and other microprocessing corporations which are traded on the American stock market, they are hitting their all time highs and some of them, like in Nvidia, are going absolutely just bonkers, I mean ten x. It's extraordinary what they have accomplished and what
they have done in terms of market value. So, based off of my reading, in Nvidia dominates because they are not in fact manufacturing the vast majority of their products, if not all of their products in America, but rather they are doing it in Taiwan, they are doing it overseas. Intel, being kind of the last bastion of American technology in this arena, has been getting destroyed by them and many other corporations. So Trump decided to buy ten percent of them.
I mean, the way he phrased it was essentially that it was like a gift.
I think the United States, she'd be given ten percent of Intel, And he said I would consider that.
That we weren't acquiring it. But that's not exactly true. And I did some research to understand exactly why the CEO of Intel would be like, sure, you can have ten percent of my corporation. Why not? Now, granted, most of this happened under the Biden administration, but it doesn't change the fact that, yes, you and I were taxed, or better put, our savings were inflated away into oblivion as a consequence of printing. Most likely is.
That tax money that the FED is spending. It's not tax money. The banks have accounts with the FED much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So to lend to a bank. We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the FED. So it's much more akin, although not exactly the same, but it's much more akin to printing money than it is to borrowing.
You've been printing money.
Well effectively, and we need to do that because our economy is very weak.
It was five point seven billion dollars which came from the twenty twenty two US Chips Act, which started as an investment into Intel. But that wasn't all. There was also a three point two billion dollars which came from Secure Enclave. Now what is Secure Enclave? Well, it happens to be a classified program that Congress authorized last year.
So I don't know what that's about because it's classified. Now, what we do know about it is that it was three point two billion additional dollars that was sent from you and I to Intel specifically to bolster domestic production of microprocessors, but namely specifically to assist with supply chains when it comes to the DoD the Department of Defense. So what do you call that? Boys and girls? What is it called? When the United States federal government starts
to acquire private corporations. Well, historically that would be described as fascism. Now, oftentimes when we see things like this, our knee jerk reaction is it's called socialism. That is, at least theoretically, where the workers control the means of production. Well, that's not exactly what this is now, is it. This is the federal government owning the means of production ten percent of it. So under a purely like Mussolini framework, that would be kind of textbook definition of fascism. So
why do I bring all this up. Well, one, it's very concerning the fact that this is happening not in a crisis a la two thousand and eight, but rather in an all time high stock market where you don't think that there would be in a necessitation for bailouts. And yet it's happening right in front of our faces brazenly. There's really no excuses being made. Even it's just like, yeah,
we decided to do that. If you get them pressed and they actually are forced to answer, it seems to be that they are very concerned about having access to the production of microprocessors because it goes into so much defense equipment.
They've had some bed management over the years and they got lost, and I said, I think you should pay as ten percent of your company and they said, yes, that's about ten billion dollars for the I don't get it. This comes to the United States of America, and I said, I think it would be good having the United States as you apartment. He agreed, and they've agreed to do it. And I think it's a great deal for them. And
I think it's a great deal. He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving US ten billion dollars with the United States, So we picked up ten.
Billion more importantly in my opinion, and what kind of ties all of this together, and really what ties the entire Trump administration together all the way to Elon Musk in the Doge Department. The AI race, it's the big tech AI race, And that's what it really looks like to me, is that these micro scissors are going to dictate who wins the artificial intelligence race, the race for AGI, and whoever gets there will be the dominant nation for
the next century. At least that's the way they're behaving. It's as if they believe that whether or not it's true, I'm not sure, but they certainly are behaving as if they are very anxious, very concerned that we are headed for a war against China. So that in its own regard is super concerning. But that's not all, and that's certainly not the biggest reason that I'm concerned, because I still think that the odds of a hot war between America and China are low, at least for now, and
I hope they stay there. But what really concerns me about it is that if you recall, under the Biden administration, even without ownership, because they didn't have real ownership in Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and just the whole meta world landscape, they still applied extraordinary pressure, dragging the CEOs of these big corporations up on Capitol Hill and forcing them to testify and clarify as to how they were dealing with myths and disinformation.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pointing fingers of the Biden administration over COVID nineteen. The head of Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta says in twenty twenty one he was pressured to censor social media content about the pandemic. The comments came in a letter that Zuckerberg sent to the House Judiciary Committee. Zuckerberg specifically mentions posts that Meta classifies as humor and satire. He says he regrets censoring content and that he would push back if he was asked.
To do it again, and they caved as a consequence of that. If you're like me, you were probably banned by a bunch of these platforms what I think were censorious coercive measures that were taken by the Biden administration. So what do you think is going to happen? Like, just for a second, assume that you love Trump and you trust him to the end of the earth, which I'm sure some of you do. Well, what about when
President Alexandrio Casio Catz owns ten percent of Intel? Because you and I don't actually own this Yes it was bought with our money, but we don't own it, and we're certainly not going to be able to dictate terms. And now the Trump administration, Howard Lutnick and Trump are both saying, well, we're not going to have you voting shares and will only intervene in certain extraordinary circumstances. But do you believe in Maybe you do. Do you believe
the next administration? I would say absolutely not. Now, this is not a really novel thing. This is the first time it's happened out in the open, But this has been happening for decades through q Tel, which provides seed capital, as they did. If you've watched my episode of the deep dive that I did on Palanteer, they were involved in that too, to a very significant sum of money. So I think that's really what we're looking at here, is that this is just a more overt avenue of
what has been happening for quite some time. In fact, our entire lives that the intel agencies, the intelligence community is not just putting back doors into most of the tech companies in America, if not the rest of the world. I'm sure they have back doors and a lot of those as well, but now they're not just doing it secretly.
They're not just doing it through inq tel. The federal government is actually like out in the open, having press conferences where they brag about it that they are acquiring ten percent of what used to be one of the most successful companies in America. Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound awesome to me. It sounds really concerning, It sounds really un American it sounds like something that
we should not be doing now. I will be the first to admit I do think that if we can have better supply chains that are produced more domestically and not be reliant on China, it may be advantageous and may prevent a war with China. But on the inverse of that, and this is an argument that a lot of these people that are more protectionists don't ever look at, is that because of trade deals oftentimes that prevents wars. Let me explain China, Japan, a bunch of nations. They
own a bunch of our treasuries. Right they want to go to war with us when they know that we'll default on our payments to them? The answer is no, So they buy our debt, we buy their goods. So does China want to go to war with us because we didn't stop buying their goods? The answer is also no. So does that mean that China will probably treat us better as a consequence of them not wanting to go to war with us? The answer is yes. So historically this is the wrong Paul quote. I don't know if
he originated. It may have been Voltaire or something long long ago, but when goods cross borders, armies don't. I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially the quote. Well, it could be argued that maybe it's a good thing that we have. We are reliant on them when it comes to certain industries, and they're reliant on us when it comes to others. Now, all that being said, I still would prefer not to be reliant on China or any quasi adversarial nation to us when it comes to things that are vital. So
why are we not able to produce these domestically? And I think that's the question that's kind of the untold story beneath the headline that people are not talking about. And I opened a couple minutes into this episode detailing out why this is so concerning. Is that dominated We've dominated big tech for decades and decades, basically a century now, and now we can't compete with them on the most
important aspect of the next wave of technology. Why, Well, I would argue, the answer is not to become more like China, which is what we've been doing for decades, but to become less like China, to become more like the America of the late eighteen hundreds or early nineteen hundreds, where we have less regulations, less impetible to growth, less inflation, which would allow for domestic production and domestic wages to
compete in a global marketplace. Those would be things that would actually free up our economy and allow us to compete with a country like China. Now does that mean that we will be able to immediately defeat them in this you know, technology arms race so to speak. No, it doesn't. But does it give us a better chance? Absolutely? And if you're going to make the argument that these are critical industries that we cannot afford to lose this race, well then I would argue, you cannot afford to keep
these impediments to growth on the domestic economy. You have to liberate us. You must free us. And if you argue against this argument, well then what you are in fact arguing for is to be more like the CCP, to be more like the communists. And that's an interesting argument for someone like Donald Trump to have to make, and I doubt he would, at least not explicitly. So this is kind of a put up or shut up moment. Are we able to compete against China? Or aren't we?
And if the answer is No, then I think we need to have a good, long, hard look in the mirror and establish why is it because we've brain drained ourselves with woke DEI nonsense? Yeah? Probably? Is it because of the inflation, because of the printing press that we've just worred on for decades? Yeah? Probably because we can't afford to live on the wages that we get and therefore we basically have outsourced all of the production of
the highest technologies. Yeah, kind of, that's happened too, So maybe we should stop doing some of those things.
Huh.
Maybe instead of putting a band aid on this hemorrhaging bullet wound, we ought to get to the core issues that have put us in this position to begin with. And until we do that, well, then I think we are only going to exasperate the issue further. And I think that's the direction we're headed. And this is why I want to do a full deep dive on it, is that I think it's a problem. I think it's a significant problem and one that needs to be taken seriously. And this is not the answer. This is not how
you solve this issue. If you thought it was bad out of the Biden administration, the censorious nonsense that we dealt with from twenty twenty through twenty twenty two and three still happening to a certain extent today. Just imagine how much worse it can get if they're actually starting to acquire major tech companies. What's next? Does the federal government acquire twenty five percent of Apple? They have access
to unlimited money, they have the printing press. Is this the direction that we're headed, that they're just going to use what little is left of the purchasing power of the dollar to acquire corporations? And is that to the benefit of the American people for the federal government to acquire private corporations. Would argue absolutely not. And again, even if you love and trust Donald Trump, just imagine what
these assets will be utilized for in the future. Say Donald Trump steps down and it becomes I don't know, some even some benign politician. Do you want the Intel agencies to actually have ownership rights, backdoor access to some of the most vital corporations that produce the most vital goods that you're using right now to watch this or listen to this. This is a bad, bad pathway forward.
This is about as Unamerican as it gets. And while I do want to improve our domestic production when it comes to these vital industries, I do not want to go this path in order to accomplish that task, and in fact, I don't think it will. How many examples are there of the federal government getting involved with anything
and the production improving, The answer is virtually none. So while Donald Trump is going to spend this as well, we had already given them nine point seven billion dollars, Clint, So would you rather us just let them keep that money and take no ownership for you and your family and your progeny moving forward. No, No, that's not what I'm arguing. The argument that I'm making is that we should not be granting nine point six billion dollars to
any American corporation's period. Why are you doing that. It's not as if this industry isn't profitable. If you look at the profit margins for many of their competitors, they're crushing. So the real issue is that this is an industry that is profitable, and yet we still can't outcompete the communists. Really maul that over. Why can't we beat the communists
in a fucking free market, capitalist race? And if we can't beat them because they are using their printing press and their influence via the government to give them an advantage, well, then that throws a wrench into the arguments of Milton Freeman and every free marketer that has ever walked the earth. Now, I believe strongly that we can and will win this race on our merits, because we still, despite all of our flaws, have a much freer economic model than the
Chinese do. But we are getting perilously close to not having that advantage. And if we are already losing in this race despite having those advantages, well, then we need to lean into our advantages, not lean away from them. We need to lean into being more American, not become more like the Chinese. And if we do that, well, then we might win the race, as vital as it is.
And if we can't win this race through the free market and through legitimate competition and innovation and lowering regulatory bodies, lowering taxes, lowering inflation, well then we need to have a real come to Jesus moment and really understand what's gone so off the rails when it comes to our economy, because that's a problem that you're not going to fix by looking to the federal government to bail you out.
I promise you that. So on top of all of that, over the past week, Trump federalized the DC Police Force to deal with crime. Now an an interesting case because it's under the purview of Congress anyway, So this is not really a state's rights issue. It's not a ten A issue because it's not an infringement on the rights of a legitimate state. Like if they were to send in the National Guard to deal with crime in Florida, well,
that's a totally different story. So I didn't have much to say when it came to the National Guard rolling in on DC because DC's this freakish, weird place, and honestly, I hope the worst for it anyways, so I don't really care what happens there. But it's getting a lot more serious now because after his alleged successes in doing so,
they have now promised. Trump came out just yesterday and said that there would be seventeen hundred National Guard troops mobilized to move into nineteen additional states to deal with these same issues, to deal with crime. Now, maybe that's good, and maybe that'll be a success and maybe crime will go down, and maybe people will be happier, and the cities will be walkable and livable again, and all these other things. Maybe I hope, I don't know. That's really
not the angle that I analyze these things from. Is not so much an outcome, but rather a principal perspective on this one, because it is so dangerous to have the United States president dictating law and order in every state in the Union, which is essentially what he's taking on.
I really am honored that the National Guard has done such an incredible job working with the police, and we haven't had to bring in the regular military, which we're willing to do we have to, and after we do this, we'll go to another location and we'll make it safe. Also, we're going to make our country very safe. We're going to make our cities very very safe.
On top of the fact that he is doing really kind of dictionary definition of fascism when it comes to well, granted, most fascists they don't actually buy at the corporation from the former owners. They just take it, so I guess it's different in that regard. On top of this kind of hybrid alliance with Intel, rolling out national policeing essentially
into many states. According to them, there will be nineteen states that have National Guard troops deployed to them to deal with law and order issues in these areas well. Just take a step back. As I keep saying, if you love and trust Trump to the end of the earth, fine, not the point. The point is this is crazy, dangerous.
Imagine if Joe Biden were using your tax dollars to acquire a bunch of failing corporations while simultaneously rolling out the National Guard or the US military into your town. How you would feel, how you would react. Well, if you're a patriotic, bread blooded American, you would you would act or react with fury, and rightfully so. But Trump
does it and it's crickets or worse applause. This is crazy. Now, It's not to say that I'm rooting for the battlum and chaos that has existed within the Democrat ran hell holes of San Francisco and Los Angeles. I fled California as a consequence of their policies and what they did to destroy my home state. So I am not at all endorsing it. I'm just saying, just consider the hypothetical
once again, President AOC. She sees governor, Well, it probably won't be a satisfy then, but say there's some great governor that's running Florida, and she just goes, yeah, we don't like the way that they're handling it. They're not dealing with trans issues rights properly, and they're not dealing with immigration issues properly. They're deporting people. We don't do that.
So I'm going to send in the National Guard. I'm going to send in the eighty second Airborne into Miami or Fort Lauderdale and start to you know, take over
policing powers. Like that's crazy, dangerous. So you take all of that, and then you add on to it the fact that Palenteer was used as a backdoor conduit in DOGE, the Department of Governmental Efficiency, where Palenteer was essentially taking all of your data from all of the federal departments and putting it into their databases, and then it was just being you to expedite processing and understanding and just
make the government were more efficient. Sure it was or it was being used to create a spying framework that they could then utilize to profit and ultimately just destroy your liberties. All I'm saying is that if all of this shit was happening under anybody other than Trump, everybody in America would be like, what the fuck is happening? But instead people are loving it, at least a lot of people are, And I just really want to encourage
people to think these things through long term. This is the reason our constitution was structured the way it was. This is the reason that they tried to make things like this impossible, and they are quickly becoming less and less impossible, and really, at the end of the day, is only worth the paper it's written on. It comes down to what you are willing to accept, and what I'm encouraging in you is to not accept this. This is not good. If you enjoy this episode, please do
with the like button, subscribe, and share it around. I really do appreciate you guys. Thank you for letting me take a week off, and I hope you enjoyed it.