DO MEN REALLY THINK ABOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE ALL DAY? (And Other Fun Facts) | Jeremy Ryan Slate

[00:00:00] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. So Jeremy, first of all, I have to really apologize. I am so bad sometimes at returning emails and so on. Your book was excellent, you know, unremarkable to extraordinary.

[00:00:31] I really enjoyed reading it and I meant to do a recommendation and I just never got to it. So I really apologize. There's no worries, man. Life happens. I get it. You're doing so much, man. Like I just appreciate you have time to get back to me.

[00:00:49] That's all. No, I just...it was really bad because I told you I would do it and then I just...I got overwhelmed by a bunch of things and I really wanted to do a good job which

[00:00:58] sometimes...again, I think we all like to think we're not perfectionists but I think particularly with writing, this is...I have a big problem like returning emails or writing forwards or intros or recommendations because I feel like it's got to be...everything I

[00:01:15] write has to be like great and it's too much. Do you respond to emails the same way I do? Like I get a really long one. I look at it and I just go, oh dear God and I close it. Yeah.

[00:01:25] I'm like, the nicer the email is to me, the less likely I am to respond. Like I get a long email and I'm like, oh dear God, this could have been three bullet points, please. Yeah. I almost never respond to emails which is really bad.

[00:01:38] I have a huge list of people. I really want to return their emails and I keep telling myself, okay, this weekend I'm going to do it and then I don't do it and then it's Monday and everything's horrible again. What day is it today? It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday.

[00:01:52] I wake up every day and I have like 300 to 500 new ones. You've been doing this a lot longer than I have so I can't even imagine what your inbox looks like. So you're getting emails for your podcast or what do you get emails for?

[00:02:05] Part of it is like I end up in all these lists that I don't know how I got on so we go through this process of unsubscribing to stuff every day is kind of one thing. So I have a process my VA helps me with on that.

[00:02:15] The other thing is like since we've been doing a lot more on YouTube, my inbox has just exploded. So it's a lot of listener stuff and a lot of lists that I'd like, how did I get in this list? How did I get here?

[00:02:26] Is YouTube working for you? Are you getting a response on YouTube? We're getting a lot of traction on YouTube, man. I had last year we added an additional 1.2 million listeners to the show just on YouTube alone. I hadn't really done a ton on video.

[00:02:39] We had, I did an episode with Roger Stone about the JFK assassination and we got 350,000 views in the first 30 days. That's a great idea. Roger Stone. We're going to get to the Roman Empire stuff, but what did Roger Stone have to say about the JFK assassination? Listen.

[00:02:56] And I'll tell you what RFK Jr. had to say about it. He wrote a book about it. It's called, I'm trying to remember the name of the book off the top of my head,

[00:03:04] but anyway his idea is basically that Johnson is the guy that was kind of in the best position to do it. But if you look at it like it's kind of the CIA with the mafia with different forces and Johnson's kind of the force behind them.

[00:03:17] Because if you look at it like a lot of the stuff that happens doesn't make sense. Like, you know, why did Ruby get all weird and why did Ruby come in and kill Oswald? And Oswald wasn't exactly a great shot.

[00:03:29] So there's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense. And he said that, you know, maybe Johnson wasn't the guy like actually killing him, but he was kind of the one best set up to kind of benefit from all these different forces.

[00:03:39] Well, the Lee Harvey Oswald one, I feel you could kind of work around. Okay. But there were several shots and they kind of got, were scatter shot. They hit John Connelly. They hit JFK, but the Jack Ruby thing's weird.

[00:03:55] So probably everybody knows this story, but a day after Lee Harvey Oswald was caught for assassinating Kennedy, this random guy who was like, I don't know, he owned like some nightclub, like a porn club or a strip club or whatever.

[00:04:10] And he has some affiliation with the mafia we think or organized crime in Dallas. He comes out and just shoots Oswald national TV. Yeah. So like that one, how did how does the Warren commission explain that? Like that one I just don't understand.

[00:04:25] I don't think necessarily it was some kind of weird conspiracy, but why did Jack Ruby basically give up his life because he spent the rest of his life in jail then and he never said anything. Why did he do that? What's the official reason?

[00:04:39] It's once again, like the thing that the thing that that stone talks about is basically Ruby like owed money to the mafia and the mafia was one of the main forces that involved in this because the mafia helped to get

[00:04:55] Kennedy elected and he had promised a lot of different things, but then when he's actually president, his brother Bobby ends up going against the mafia. So then he upsets the mafia. So that ends up being why Ruby has to do that to me.

[00:05:09] It is kind of strange because once again happens on national TV and you're you're wondering like what why are they covering this and why are they showing it to everybody? Because to me, I think when you show something to people, there's an effect you're trying to create.

[00:05:21] But when you look at it, Johnson was totally unelectable because he was this crazy guy. He was he used to actually people he didn't like reporters. He would make them interview him while he was in the bathroom going to the bathroom.

[00:05:35] Like he was a really crazy, unelectable guy and he was the one that could best benefit from all these forces. And you know, you get the war in Vietnam not long after that which would benefits the military industrial complex.

[00:05:47] So not that I think it's a great conspiracy, but I think it all comes back down to money, man. And I think when you're looking at the people that have the most economic benefit, I think that's what you got to look at.

[00:05:57] But also here's the thing about all conspiracies is that a lot of people have to keep a secret. So like Jack Ruby's descendants or anybody who was in the month, like let's say you kept it as small as possible.

[00:06:12] Let's say only like Sam Giancana was kind of the head of the mafia then and his closest allies were in on the whole thing because someone had to reach out to Jack Ruby and convince him to do this or Lee Harvey Oswald or whatever.

[00:06:25] And how did all the people involved keep it a secret for 60 years? That is a really good question. I don't have the answer to that. And that's a really good point, but also at the same time I'd love

[00:06:36] to see what's in the rest of those files that they keep locking up for years. Like what is it? Why do they say they don't release those files? When Stone said he'd actually talked to Trump about it since

[00:06:46] the two of them were pretty close and Trump had told him if you only knew what's in them, you'd understand why part of them are still hidden. Oh my God. Right? It's a great story, man. Just that alone is enough to make me crazy to want to

[00:07:01] get them. Eventually they'll be released, right? Like what's the date they're supposed to be released? So it was supposed to be like in the last few years, but then they locked them up again. I don't know what the future release date is.

[00:07:11] They keep kind of pushing it back and Biden had actually released a large percentage of them, but there's still a big, you know, there's still a good percentage they're holding up. So RFK Jr., when he was on my podcast, he basically said

[00:07:23] the FBI killed his uncle and his dad. It makes sense. Yeah. Because RFK really hated J. Edgar Hoover also. Well, and if you understand the relationship with Hoover and Bobby Kennedy, Hoover after his, I'm trying to make it,

[00:07:44] one of them had a button on their desk that would actually make the other guy show up. And after the... Certainly RFK was technically Hoover's boss when he was the attorney general. So probably RFK had that button. Yeah.

[00:07:57] So after, but after that period of time, the two men never had a conversation again after the actual assassination because, because Hoover was just basically like, you know, we got our way. So if you look at logistically what happens, it makes a ton of sense. Gosh man.

[00:08:10] All right. Well, and you know, I do think, you know, one thing about conspiracy theories is that one common factor that all conspiracy theorists have in common is that they believe in other conspiracy theories. And so you can see with RFK, like him or not, he basically

[00:08:26] every conspiracy theory out there from JFK assassination to 9-11 to all sorts of stuff with COVID. I'm not saying he's right or wrong. It's just that he has signed up for all the conspiracy theories. He kind of fits the psychological model of someone who believes area conspiracy theories.

[00:08:42] Now, just because something's a conspiracy theory doesn't mean it's wrong, but I think there's probably half truths to whole truths for most of these, except for maybe 9-11. But it is interesting that RFK Jr. basically believes in every conspiracy theory.

[00:08:59] Well, I think the thing is too, is at a certain point like the media narrative's gotten so weird that you start questioning things because you're looking at it like, well, that doesn't add up and that doesn't add up and that doesn't add up.

[00:09:09] Now that doesn't mean you need to go down every rabbit hole because dude, I've got some friends that think there's a boogeyman under every bed and I'm like, no, no, that's a little too much for me. But I think you do need to question a lot more, right?

[00:09:19] Like one of my favorite courses I took in college was logic. And I think often we take things at face value and we're like, yes, that makes a ton of sense to me. But I think you have to look at,

[00:09:28] you have to look at things and question them and say this just makes sense. Now that doesn't mean you need to believe every conspiracy theory, but I think questioning there's nothing wrong with that. I agree. So we're going to talk about the fall

[00:09:38] of the Roman Republic and you reached out. I'm just curious, you reached out because I think on the podcast, I was talking a little bit about how it's become this meme that men think about the Roman Empire a lot.

[00:09:54] I don't think about the Roman Empire at all basically. Other than when I watched the TV series, series Rome on HBO, which was one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. I hardly ever think about the Roman Empire.

[00:10:06] But is it the case that most men spend a good part of the day thinking about the Roman Empire? I don't know if most men do. For me, I've always been interested in that stuff and it's always kind of felt like,

[00:10:17] for me it's always just kind of pulled me. For me, it started with interest in Alexander the Great first and foremost and just a very, very interesting character. He's more of a philosopher king until he decides he's God, goes a little bit crazy and starts killing

[00:10:29] all the people around him. Oh, I didn't know that about him. So Alexander the Great was around 300 BC or 400 BC. Aristotle was his teacher. So I'm just trying to think when Aristotle was around. So he dies in 323 and he's 33 years old.

[00:10:44] So if you had backtrack at somewhere around there is when he's born. And the interesting thing about his life is he does have the Aristotle as a teacher. So he's kind of this philosopher king and he has this idea of uniting the whole world.

[00:11:00] And there's this legend that he slept with the copy of the Iliad under his pillow because he wanted to be like a Greek hero. And once his father Philip II dies, he takes control of the army after the Battle of Chironia which is in 338.

[00:11:15] And he goes and then conquers the east and he conquers Babylon and he conquers all these things and he was basically going to conquer Europe and Africa and Asia and he was going to unite the world. But things get a little bit weird for him

[00:11:26] because he has this whole idea of wanting to be Hercules. So he starts positioning himself as that doing things Hercules would have done to kind of look like that. And then there's these two things that really happen to him in his life.

[00:11:39] The first is when he conquers Babylon, the Babylonians were already doing ruler worship and they had this process called proskinesis. And what that actually means is like you lay on the ground in front of your ruler, like we are not worthy. I can't even look at you.

[00:11:53] You lay your full body on the ground. So once he conquers Babylon, he conquers Darius III and he starts making people do this. And the people around him are like, well, this is kind of weird. I grew up with you. We wrestled together.

[00:12:07] Like why am I laying in the ground and worship of you? And in Egypt, one of the places that he goes to is this Oracle at Zeus Amon. Amon is a city in Egypt. And when you conquer Egypt, you become its pharaoh.

[00:12:19] So the way the pharaoh was always greeted was son of God, right? Because they had seen him as a royalty. So he enters the Oracle and they say, greeting son of God. And he's like, son of God, I like the sound of that.

[00:12:29] So then he's already has people worshiping him. Now he thinks he's the son of God. And there's this... After that worship, there's this one situation where he's having dinner with all his friends and his most trusted soldier is this guy. His name is Cletus the Black.

[00:12:45] And he was his father, Philip II, right hand man. And basically they've had a little bit too much to drink. And Cletus says, no, you're not the son of God. I know your father. I worked with your father. I was his right hand man.

[00:12:57] So then Alexander basically kills him in front of everybody. And that was like the breaking moment of like, he's crazy. He thinks he's God. And that was when the philosopher king thing ends. And he goes on this kind of never ending thing

[00:13:10] of like the thing that actually kills him is the fact that he won't stop. He's trying to conquer... He's trying to go through India. He keeps going through India into Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is actually what ends up killing him. He marries a...

[00:13:22] Afghanistan was known as Bakhtri in that time period. And he marries a Bakhtrian woman named Roxanna. And that kind of ends up being like the end of him. He gets sick and then all his men fight over him. That there's thoughts that maybe he was poisoned.

[00:13:35] And then the next kind of few hundred years before Rome is what kind of leads up to that time period. A couple of questions about Alexander the Great before we get to Rome. He was in charge at first of the Greek Empire? Is this where the Greek...

[00:13:48] Macedonians, so the Macedonians weren't exactly Greek. They were kind of like... Not exactly barbarians, but not like, you know, not like, you know, we're ancient Greeks. We're very proper. So they were kind of like Greek light. And they had actually... Where was the Greek Empire at this time?

[00:14:06] Like what was going on? Was it already gone? It was already fading at that point in time, because this is after Athens had already fallen. This is after, you know, Sparta doesn't really matter as much, because Alexander the father, Philip II,

[00:14:18] was actually the Macedonian that goes and conquers all of Greece. So that's how the Macedonians actually gain control of Greece is actually Alexander's father. He goes through and conquers everything. He conquers Thebes. He conquers Athens. He conquers these different areas.

[00:14:33] And Alexander basically inherits that when his father dies. And it's not really sure, like, how his father died, but he was stabbed. And it's their thoughts that Alexander the great's mother, Olympius, may or may not have had him killed. We don't know. But then Alexander basically inherits that.

[00:14:50] So that's how his father had done all this conquering and taken over the territory. And why didn't Alexander turn to the West instead of going to the East? Why didn't he go after the then existing Roman Republic? Did the Roman Republic not have as much wealth or resources?

[00:15:06] During that time period, it was the Persians that were really big because the Persians had had were and that he, him conquering Persia basically ends their empire. Because what happens is they, the East is seen as this picture of wealth, this picture of money,

[00:15:20] because there's all these different resources in the East that aren't in the West because if you look at Rome, Rome expanded to the East and it was actually Constantinople that ends up lasting till 1453. So there's always historically this idea that there's more wealth

[00:15:35] and more money and more things in the East and that's why they keep going towards that. Interesting. I didn't know that because I guess, I guess yeah, what is in the West? Well, first of all, what were the resources in the East?

[00:15:47] Were their goal, like what did people conquer for? What did they take with them when they left the country that they conquered back then? Well, it would be, first part would be women. They would also wanted to expand their society. The second thing would be wealth.

[00:16:02] There was a lot of gold and silver and things like that in the East and then also there was a lot of fabrics and things that you couldn't get in the West. So like, silk and things like that.

[00:16:09] That's why it was called the Silk Road of what came from Asia. So that was, it was really a resource battle and getting those different things. And then when, when let's say he conquers Persia, he goes back to Macedonia. Does Persia every month, you know, year send taxes

[00:16:26] or how do they keep control over what's happening? I assume they install a governor. How does they keep part of their army there to maintain law and order? Like, how do they control the areas they conquer? So he never actually went back to Macedonia.

[00:16:39] Like he leaves in this campaign and he just goes basically from 338 to 323 where he dies. And what happened is the Persian Empire was really interesting to control because they had these governors, they were called Satraps and Satraps were like their type of governors

[00:16:54] and they would cover a parcel of land called the Satrape. And when he became the guy conquering the King of Babylon which was the King of Persia at that point in time, Darius III, he basically just took his job. So now all the governors then answered to Alexander

[00:17:11] because he was the guy with the power. So there wasn't a lot he had to do in order to do that. But then as he kept going through land, if there were kind of things that were come up against him,

[00:17:19] he conquered those people and put some military men there. But that was the number one way he did it was just by taking the government that was already there and saying, okay, so I'm the guy in charge now. You like power? You like money? Great. I'm your guy.

[00:17:30] So would the citizens like him? Like, did he rape and pillage or did he basically try to get everybody to like him? Because I feel like there's two different strategies that were used back then. Well, initially people really liked him because he was somebody that, you know,

[00:17:44] he kind of came at it, you know, once again, like a philosopher king. He allowed them to practice their religion the way they've been practicing it. He allowed them to operate the way they've been operating. And that was the number one reason they liked him.

[00:17:56] Now his generals that took over after him, they're called the Dea Dokoia, the successors of Alexander, they weren't so nice. They created their own kingdoms out of each one of these different areas. So he was actually very permissive and very powerful, so he was liked.

[00:18:14] Okay, so this was sort of like a side journey because I really want to talk about the Roman Empire, but I was just curious, like the Roman and Greek Empire always seem in my head to be kind of parallel in some way.

[00:18:37] Like with the Greeks, like a little bit earlier. Well, it's interesting because the Greeks, like they have power first, then you have all this period of Rome in the middle and then because they end up in Byzantium in the end, the Greeks kind of win in the end.

[00:18:50] Oh, that's interesting. All right. Well, so the Roman Republic, there was a Roman kingdom then a republic and then starting with Julius Caesar, the Roman Empire. So the Roman Republic started around... 753 BC is when that starts and there's traditionally seven kings of Rome, the first one being Romulus

[00:19:10] and the final king... Did he really exist, Romulus? Supposedly, you know? It's a long time ago, there's no way to prove it. I think starting around like 500 BC and earlier, it's hard to verify actual individuals. Yes, I agree. Unless there's money with their name on it.

[00:19:26] Was there money found with Romulus' name on it, like a coin? Not as far as I know. Once again, I haven't read everything out there so as far as I know there isn't any coinage with Romulus' name on it unless it was made by a later emperor.

[00:19:39] Because there were later emperors that would put a coin with Romulus' face on one side and theirs on the other be like, hey, I'm like that guy. I see. Yeah. So, Romulus was a social proof or authority. Like one of those copyrighting techniques theories.

[00:19:52] It's a blue check mark, man. Yeah, exactly. They were using these techniques all the way back then. So, OK, so the Roman kingdom started... What was it before it was a kingdom? Was it anything? It was just kind of like a wasteland.

[00:20:06] There was just not really much there and Rome is kind of this city and Romulus in that time period ends up, you know, there's this whole like legend of where Romulus and his brother Remus are living in Rome. Then Romulus gets jealous and he kills his brother Remus

[00:20:22] and he founds this city, Rome. And then Rome has this issue in the beginning that they... He built this city from basically a bunch of criminal men that he finds. So it's him and a bunch of criminal men. They don't really have any women.

[00:20:36] So they start this small city and they're like, well, we need women in order to grow. So then there's this... What's called the rape of the Sabine women. And during the dinner, the men kidnap all the women and that ends up being how Rome gets his first women.

[00:20:50] And that's how the city of Rome is founded. So then it goes for seven kings. Who were these Sabines? Like it was like a big family or it was another city? It was like a city or a culture near Rome because Rome didn't really have an established

[00:21:02] culture at that point in time. There was these small kind of like city states in that area. And given what happens back then, why would they agree to go to dinner and get a family and remiss and whoever? Because that's how history is written, man.

[00:21:16] We don't know if it actually even happened. I see. So then there were a bunch of kings. The kings were pretty totalitarian or authoritarian. And then finally a bunch of citizens or I don't know who somebody overthrows them in 509 BC. And it becomes the Roman Republic.

[00:21:34] It's one guy and this is actually important in Roman legend is they're killed by a guy named Brutus and Brutus kills the final king. Brutus. But that's why it's important because they attach that to the assassin of Caesar and they say, well, the Brutus is basically the protection

[00:21:52] of protecting us from having a monarch. So this guy named Brutus assassinated the final Roman king. There are seven of them. I don't remember them in order. I just remember the first one is Romulus. They have all these very strange names.

[00:22:06] But the final king, I think it was Tarquin's Superbus or Tarquin the Proud. I don't remember you can't quote me on that one. But I was going to quote you at a party but now I won't. Well, you can make one of those quote cards

[00:22:18] like Abraham Lincoln. Everything you say on the internet is not true. So the final one ends and then in 509 you have kind of the Roman Republic that starts and the Republic that as I had mentioned the Greeks and the Romans kind of fight about

[00:22:30] who had democracy first. So the Greeks say we had it in 508. The Romans say we had it in 509. And then you have the Republic that basically goes from 509 until 31, which is when Augustus basically creates the Empire. So almost 500 years that's pretty remarkable considering I'm sure at that time

[00:22:50] there was a lot of things in the Roman Republic. There was checks and balances. There are all these features of what the United States has today. I don't know if there were elections. Were there elections? So there were elections and there were but there were also like it

[00:23:06] depends on what class you could you were in depending on if you could vote or not. So like there was like there were two two consoles every year. Consoles were kind of like the guys in charge because they didn't want to have one guy in charge

[00:23:20] and those were named by election but then you also had tribunes. So tribunes were the guys in charge of protecting the city and originally there was not what's called a Tribune of the Ploebs. The Ploebs were the Ploelians or the poor people

[00:23:34] but eventually they got the ability to have themselves represented in government by having a Tribune of the Ploebs. So all the poor people could basically vote for this Tribune of the Ploebs but you had to be what's called a Knight or above. A Knight

[00:23:48] was one of the lowest parts of the patrician class in order to actually vote for who is going to control your Roman Government. But I feel like there was I don't want to say freedom of speech because I don't really know but there were times during the Republican

[00:24:00] the Roman Republic that the lower classes were demanding more political power. Yes, and that's the last like you're looking around the the second century BC. So like the year you know 100ish there's these two brothers the Gragai brothers, Gaius Gragas and Tiberius Gragas and

[00:24:22] they're basically pushing for more things for the people, more grain, more different things and their actual murder is one of the things that leads to kind of the 130 years of civil war or 100 years of civil war which leads to the end of Rome

[00:24:34] or the end of the Republic basically. Okay, so I always thought the Republic ended because basically Julius Caesar who was very popular in Rome from his military efforts he basically became a consul and then declared himself emperor or dictator or whatever and that's what ended the Republic.

[00:24:56] Not necessarily, so if you look at the last 100 years of Rome were kind of crazy. So you have around one, I think it's around 130 that the Gaius Gragas who's the last Gragas Gragai brother has killed then you have in that 100 years you have Gaius Marius

[00:25:12] actually raises an army and attacks Rome and basically declares himself in charge of the city then after that you have Lucchius Cornelius Sulla which then does the same thing and says, hey I'm in charge of Rome. And then you have 43 where Caesar crosses

[00:25:26] the Rubicon and then he comes in and says hey those guys did it so I'm going to do it too so now he's in charge of Rome and then he declares himself a dictator for life and the thing you have to understand is

[00:25:38] to do that is actually very offensive to the Romans because in Rome there was an office called Dictator and what dictator was is if there's a period of civil strife or military strife they had the idea that a bunch of people can't agree

[00:25:52] fast enough in order to solve a situation so you would name a dictator that could actually do that and a dictator would have power for six months and that's all and they would lay their power down and legend has it that there's this guy named Cincinnati

[00:26:04] and Cincinnati basically takes up the dictator solves the problem six months he lays it down and goes back to farming and that's why George Washington is always called the American Cincinnati basically because he laid down after the revolution he decided he didn't want to do things anymore

[00:26:18] it was elections that basically made him president but so to say I'm dictator for life was offensive to Romans and that's actually what leads to Bruce and Cassius later killing Caesar now we're still in kind of a civil war period and after that time period in his will

[00:26:40] Caesar names Gaius Octavius his adopted son and adoption was weird in that time period because you could take somebody that's a total adult and say I'm adopting you because it gave the person your name and title and money and then you have one of Caesar's military guys

[00:26:56] Mark Antony that is you know like well if Caesar dies then I'm the next in line so you have this battle that comes about between Gaius Octavius who later becomes Augustus and you have Mark Antony and the final battle of this in 31 is the battle of Actium

[00:27:14] and that's where in a naval battle Augustus who's not Augustus yet he's Gaius Octavius routes Mark Antony who's hanging out with Cleopatra at that point in time and they're routed and later kill Mark Antony is killed and then Augustus actually brings Cleopatra back to

[00:27:38] Rome as part of his triumph triumphs were like these parades that would happen after the military battles and where the general would bring in captured prisoners and all these different things and then historically she just kind of fades out at some point

[00:27:50] in time in that time period she dies he didn't kill her like what happened where did she live like what happens to her I don't really know what happens to Cleopatra I just know she's brought into the triumph I don't know what happens in the sources after that

[00:28:02] I haven't really paid much attention to what happens after that point in time but then so then Augustus comes in basically says okay I'm gonna lay down this dictator position because I've solved the situation and people were so freaked out by the 100 years of Civil War

[00:28:20] that they just experienced that basically they demand he stay in that office so then Augustus is actually the one to be the first person to control it but he doesn't want a title of king he doesn't want a title of emperor because those titles aren't acceptable to Romans

[00:28:34] so he names himself first citizen of Rome and that's actually what happens and then the Senate calls him Augustus so he becomes Augustus first citizen of Rome and then he kept the piece for a really long time like 60 70 years something like that he was the longest serving person

[00:28:52] and that was actually really important to why Rome was able to transition from a republic to an empire because basically by the time he dies there's nobody really living that remembers what it was like to live in a republic and

[00:29:04] correct me if I'm wrong because I really don't know anything but when he took power he basically killed off all his enemies like all the aristocrats in the Senate who could potentially oppose him just like they opposed Caesar and he took all their

[00:29:18] land and wealth and so on so he was by far the richest person in Rome and he used that to kind of give gifts and get people to like him yes but he also didn't live in opulence which was really important as well

[00:29:30] he had a very plain diet and he dressed in very normal clothing and the things after him were a lot more like wearing purple which was seen to be more of a connection to Jupiter, Optimus Maximus or the main god of Rome and so he was actually

[00:29:46] a very simple guy living as first citizen so it seemed like the republic was still operating but there was just kind of this first citizen in charge running a lot of things so he had a lot of money and he had a lot of power

[00:29:56] he was able to position it in such a way that he didn't look like a despot which really made things function well you know it's interesting because everyone says this was this reign of peace but he achieved that by killing all his enemies so he was a psychopath

[00:30:10] just like the rest of them probably he was but he was also brilliant from the perspective because this is actually what I wrote my grad thesis on is on why people worshipped Augustus because Augustus was the one that actually figured out how to use propaganda

[00:30:24] to create ruler worship and he looked at in this kind of whole ending of the republic there's this kind of it's not really a battle but it's like a kind of a popularity contest between Pompey the Great who conquers Asia, Africa and Europe

[00:30:41] and Julius Caesar who conquers all of Gaul which isn't as big as Africa Europe and Asia but he wrote a book about it so the fact that he wrote a book about it makes him look really smart and

[00:30:51] it's funny because then we talked about John F. Kennedy earlier John F. Kennedy quote unquote wrote Profiles and Courage which was one of the Pulitzer Prize and it really portrayed him as this intellectual that he wrote a book that won the Pulitzer Prize

[00:31:04] and it was about all these American heroes who spoke up in a time when you couldn't really speak up and just like now really and it's interesting that that's used throughout history as a technique it's a great technique because it's

[00:31:20] you know it's able to show the Caesar to this Caesar to that Caesar to this and because it's in writing you're able to look at that and that's one thing that's important but also like there's techniques both of them used to

[00:31:31] Pompey positions himself kind of as the new Alexander so he actually goes out and he finds the breastplate of Alexander the Great and he wears it and he would you know do these different things to make people think he was Alexander the Great

[00:31:44] he'd spend all these money on the people he would build a new building for them or do this or have a parade or give the money so people really loved Pompey because he did all these great things for him and people actually started praising Pompey

[00:31:56] for this. Caesar he was much more aggressive and he would be like well I'm related to the God Venus so of course I'm divine and then he would just be very aggressive in all of his actions so Augustus is kind of watching this whole thing

[00:32:09] and he's like well I can see why my step my adopted father is smart but I can also see why people love Pompey so then in after the battle of Actium Actium's actually where the sarcophagus because at that point in time he was mummified

[00:32:23] by Alexander the Great is held so he actually Augustus kneels down in prayer before the body of Alexander and then he spends the next you know 60 years of his life showing people how I'm just like Alexander the Great and using that positioning is how he was able

[00:32:38] to actually create the worship cult of Roman emperors. And during the Republic they were also doing military expansion invading other places like Egypt and so on. Did the emperors do a better job of expanding Rome or did the Republic do a better job of expanding Rome?

[00:32:58] Well in the Republic it was more of a citizen army so they kind of just took up things that looked like they were the problem. It was more of an established army under the under the Empire and that's what made

[00:33:08] conquest a lot better and a lot more efficient but they only really had conquest till about 130 which is when Emperor Hadrian builds the Wall of Hadrian which is in Britain and basically they said they didn't want to expand any further

[00:33:22] and that's actually one of the things that will cause the future, I know it's hundreds of years but one of the things that actually causes the fall of Rome because the more expansion, the more conquering is the more wealth that comes in the more you can fund everything.

[00:33:33] So once you kind of cut off that funding you've cut off the flow of money. So you're saying Hadrian because he was it was a big source of revenues for them conquering other places. Yes. And so because Hadrian basically why did Hadrian shut the door on that?

[00:33:49] Because it just became too hard. The barbarian tribes would just again and again and again and if you look at kind of future emperors, markets are really us. Most of his writing was actually written while he was serving in the military trying to stop the barbarian tribes

[00:34:05] and that becomes one of the major things that causes the fall of the western empires which is just barbarian invasion, barbarian invasion, barbarian invasion. So it becomes hard and Hadrian basically says we're going to build a wall and we're going to hold this position

[00:34:17] and we're going to stop things. Now, right or wrong, it's still lasted another we're 130 it fell in 476 so like it's still a long time, right? Yeah, so I mean altogether and we were talking earlier the Roman Republic slash empire the Rome as a country or whatever

[00:34:38] a civilization they lasted about a thousand years. Yeah. And the U.S. in contrast right now is about I don't know, 250 years? Somewhere around that. 1976 was the bicentennial so whatever it's been since 76. Well, I always wonder about that. 1776 is when they always say the U.S. was created

[00:34:59] but George Washington didn't become president until 16 or 17 years later. Yes. Like what was, they never really teach us in school when I was an undergrad, not an undergrad, when I was in high school or elementary school they never really teach us what happened in these mysterious years

[00:35:15] between 1776 and 1792. A lot of failed forms of government man there was the Articles of Confederation that it's they were basically trying to figure out like how do you manage this thing? And I think we do a really bad job teaching history in schools.

[00:35:28] We do a really bad job and I'm a I got in a disagreement with one of my college professors about this. I think that when you look at history it's more important to learn it as a narrative but I think the way we like to teach it

[00:35:40] is kind of this great man's theory of history like this guy did this, this guy did this, this guy did this and it's really hard to remember it that way but you can kind of remember like the motions of things

[00:35:49] it's easier to kind of put the people in place. What similarities, I mean everybody's talking about and this is not a new thing. I feel like every decade this happens but everyone's kind of talking that the U.S. is in decline but the U.S.

[00:36:17] always sort of pulls success out of a hat and I think that's because of technological innovation. I mean we, of course you could say you could argue U.S. is going around trying to conquer countries but U.S. doesn't really,

[00:36:30] it's not like how the Roman Empire would conquer a country where they would take all the wealth and install a governor. There's not really a lot of instances of that in the world in general. I mean there's isolated cases.

[00:36:42] You could make a case for South America in a lot of ways. Actually that's true. I mean theater roles, you know, if you've ever read Confessions of an Economic Hitman like you know look what we've done to South America. Right well basically I guess you could say

[00:36:54] the dollar is our weapon. So we would lend countries money and by the way this is what China's now doing with Africa. You would lend countries money and we lent all of South America. We didn't want South America to be dependent

[00:37:06] on any other country like the Soviet Union for instance. So we lent South America a lot of money. They of course never were able to pay it back. So we essentially nationalized South America and took over everything and all their resources belong to U.S. corporations

[00:37:22] more or less. Not completely, I've oversimplified it but you're right. So South America in some sense is a weird kind of a vassal of the U.S. But what similarities do you see in terms of the decline of the Roman Empire with the U.S. right now?

[00:37:39] And I'm not saying the U.S. is declining. I don't really think it is. But there's a lot of similarities. I agree with you. I think you're right there. And actually so I was, I'm still really good to one of my good friends

[00:37:49] and one of my college professors is actually my thesis advisor. So I was talking about this yesterday. I think there's actually two comparisons you could make because there's no real direct comparison because history is different how the U.S. operate and how Rome is operated is different.

[00:38:01] It's not a direct comparison. You could say that one part of it is we're very similar to how the Republic fell in the Empire rose. Like you could say that because things have been very tumultuous. There's been kind of more of a populist rising

[00:38:16] in ways where the right power vacuum could bring somebody and there could be control. But I actually think as well, we're very similar to Rome's crisis of the third century. And to me, I think that's the greater similarity of where we are. So the third century

[00:38:31] and how we got there is kind of a little funny. So you have Marcus Aurelius' son, Cometus, who's absolutely crazy. And he does a lot of strange stuff. So they get the, the guard actually ends up getting so mad they end up killing him.

[00:38:46] So he reigns for a long period of time, but then they end up killing him. And you have a lot of upheaval for this period of time. There's another crazy emperor in there, which is Emperor Caracalla. It's another like, hey, I'm a really good emperor.

[00:38:58] I'm going to name my kid emperor too, which doesn't really seem to turn out well in history. So Caracalla is crazy in that time period. And then you have a lot of like emperors that really don't last long. The final of which is this guy named Elagabalus.

[00:39:10] And Elagabalus was nuts. He goes, so I'm in this worship cult where we all worship a rock. So my rock is going to get married to this other rock and you all have to watch it. We're all going to go to this wedding

[00:39:22] and he would dress in women's dresses and do all these weird things like Elagabalus was nuts. So eventually you have kind of him leading to a series of basic military emperors because the military realized, okay, things aren't really going so well.

[00:39:37] If I attack the city and name my general in charge, we have what's called the year of five emperors. So there's basically five emperors in a year. There's a lot of upheaval. So we're going from like this is, this starts around 200. This goes till 284.

[00:39:51] And we have Diocletian actually come in and Diocletian comes in and he says, okay, things are not going so hot. We're going to do some reforms. So he actually comes in and he creates a standard coin, which is called the Solius. It's the gold coin that's created.

[00:40:03] He creates a standard silver coin as well. I can't remember the name of it is off top hand. So he really standardized his money. Another thing he does is he creates something called a tetrarchy because he looks at it and he says, Rome is just way too big.

[00:40:15] It's too big. How do you manage the stamp thing? So he creates a senior... Yeah, by the way, I was reading that the Rome at this time had around 140 million people altogether across its east and west across all of its like, you know,

[00:40:28] whatever you call it, sub countries. It's huge. It's you have Rome and then you have everything else is called the Roman provinces. So he names a senior emperor in the west and a senior emperor in the east and they call the senior emperors Augustus

[00:40:42] and they have each has a junior emperor and they're called Caesars. So now there's basically four emperors. So that's the thing he tries to do to manage it because it's just too big. You can't manage it. And the other thing as well is under one of the other

[00:40:55] crazier emperors, Caracalla in 212. He does what's called the Edict of Caracalla and he names everyone living in the province as a citizen. So now like citizenship doesn't have any real value anymore. So then Diocletian looks at that too and he actually does some military reforms

[00:41:11] to try and handle that because a lot of these guys had the benefits of citizenship, but you used to have to serve in what's called the Roman Auxiliary if you weren't Roman to get Roman citizenship and after you served for like 20 years, you could be a Roman.

[00:41:22] What was the benefits of citizenship? Like why was this a problem? Because number one, you got more ability to have grain and things like that. You could actually vote. You could actually control an area. You could get political power, but if you didn't have Roman citizenship,

[00:41:38] you couldn't do any of those things. And to actually have like what would end up happening is these guys would be in the Roman Auxiliary. Auxiliary was like military, but just not for people that weren't Roman. They would serve for 10, 20, 30 years, whatever it is.

[00:41:52] Over time that went up and by the time the Auxiliary was gone, you had to serve for 30 years. At the end of it, they would be named a Roman citizen and now they could go serve in government.

[00:42:00] And the thing that was nice about that is you could take that citizenship, you could be like, my son is a citizen now. His whole family is a citizen now. So there was a lot of value in that and you had to earn it.

[00:42:09] But after 212 and the Edict of Caricala, so now Rome supporting all these different people and all these different tribes and things like that that didn't have to actually earn that citizenship. So it loses a lot of value. So Diocletian does all these reforms

[00:42:23] and it actually stabilizes the empire in 284. And that's actually the thing that makes it last till 476. But ultimately what happens? Did their army fall apart? What we learn again in grade school, like the average person knows what I know, is too many barbarian invasions

[00:42:44] and finally they couldn't handle it anymore and they collapsed. Well, that's that and also like weak rulers after that time period because there was a couple different ways that rulers were done. So in early Rome you have, Augustus was the first emperor,

[00:42:59] then he names his adopted son who names his adopted son. So you have this kind of way that it's named through families. After Commodus because he was so crazy, Commodus was Marcus Aurelius' son, you have military commanders that start being named emperor. And then...

[00:43:15] By the way, why did Marcus Aurelius, like given how he was smart he was and how wise he was, and I do believe this was a wise person and his meditations of Marcus Aurelius must read. But why did he basically then name his son

[00:43:32] who became one of the worst emperors in history? So he names him as co-emperor, so they actually served together as emperor for a bit. So I think he was hoping maybe junior can shape up and do a good job.

[00:43:43] And I think the thing you have to look at modernly too is like, I'm sure you know people that have money and things like that that spoil their kids. Right? Like, and it's just you have to... I think also making people earn something

[00:43:55] makes them kind of come up to the level they need to be to get it done. And Commodus is just a spoiled kid that becomes an adult. So he does all these weird things where he decides he wants to be a gladiator

[00:44:06] and he's gonna kill animals in gladiatorial games. But he does them from a stand high above them because he doesn't want them to actually hurt him. So he does a lot of this like crazy stuff. He starts killing people that threaten him.

[00:44:20] So to me, I just think that's what happens when the spoil kid gets in charge. I think Marcus Aurelius should have made him earn that more and he didn't really do that. Now did Marcus Aurelius, did he do anything bad or evil?

[00:44:31] No, he was actually the last of what's considered the five good emperors because they had all served for a long period of time like 10 to 20 years or longer. And they created a lot of Roman stability but he's the last of the five good emperors

[00:44:45] and then gives birth to Commodus who's nuts. And so Hadrian or Diocletian splits apart the empire, right? Yes. Into Westemis. And then he actually moves to the east. Why does he do that? Did he retire or did he become the emperor of the eastern side?

[00:45:00] So he becomes the emperor in the east in a place called Nicomedia. We haven't gotten to Constantinople yet. We don't get there till Constantine which is well after this. But he becomes the emperor in the east because once again, you know, they liked the east

[00:45:14] like there was more worship culture. There was more money. He was seen as more wealth. So he wanted to be in the east. That was just where it was where it seemed to be. And he actually retires. He doesn't, he's one of the few Roman emperors to

[00:45:27] at that time period not be killed or not die. He actually retires and names his successor. So he looks at him and creates some stability. Things are going pretty good. I think we're going to retire now. And he wasn't worried about being killed by the new emperor?

[00:45:43] I guess not. You know, he ends up naming Constantine's father Constantius to actually be in charge. And then he later leads to Constantine who's the first guy to kind of bring Christianity as the Roman religion. And why do you think the eastern part

[00:45:58] that the Byzantine empire became called? Why do you think that lasted another thousand years? I mean that lasted basically until 1453 AD. I think you have Justinian to thank for that. He has a lot more structure. He's the Justinian law code is what we still use today.

[00:46:13] So I think the fact that he put so much more of structure and also frankly, they didn't have as much threat from barbarians, you know, like mainland Europe was just getting hammered. I think was the east to get hammered as hard as the west got hammered.

[00:46:28] I think they would have had a harder time because if you look at it, what once in 1453 when they get attacked by Oh gosh, what was the name of the empire that ended up taking them down? I'm trying to remember what's on my head. Do you remember?

[00:46:41] I'm looking here. I'm trying to remember top of top hand Germanic. No, no, it's 1453. Oh, 1453. It's a Muslim empire. Oh gosh, not the Ottoman Empire. It was the Ottoman Empire. There we go. So it's the Ottomans that I'm taking them down.

[00:47:00] And you know, by that point in time, like, you know, the money is gone, the wealth is gone, the city isn't really doing so well. And why wouldn't the barbarians go after them? Given that every other like the barbarians were basically from, you know, all over Europe,

[00:47:16] but Eastern Europe as well. So why didn't they do what all the other like what Alex into the great did with what the Romans did? Why did they go for the east? So there's different viewpoints on this. There's kind of the traditional viewpoint of Edward Gibbon

[00:47:31] who wrote the decline and fall of the empire in 1776. And he looks at it as, you know, basically the barbarians were kind of happy where they were and they didn't want to go further. But there's a kind of a modern, more modern historian

[00:47:44] that writes about this and his name is Dr. Brian Ward Perkins. And his, he has a different idea on it. So after Alaric sacks Rome in 410, the Romans actually pay tribute. So tribute is an amount of money that's paid to a group every single year.

[00:47:58] So because of that, the east never paid tribute to the barbarian tribes. The west paid tribute. So basically like, oh, well, we control these guys now. So the last kind of 60 years of Rome, they're actually paying money to barbarians every year to just stop attacking them. I see.

[00:48:13] So then the barbarians were just happy like, they got money. Why do they care? Yeah. But you also, you also in the east too, you had the Mongols in that time period too. And the Mongols kind of just left, left Byzantium alone.

[00:48:23] And they were kind of coming across the steps through Russia and attacking Europe. Yeah, why did they leave again since the Byzantine Empire was so wealthy? Why did they leave it alone? Maybe because the Byzantine Empire had the one army that could potentially defeat them

[00:48:37] or cause a challenge. They were actually one of the best established trading posts in that area. So I think trade through Byzantium was a big part of it. It created a lot of wealth for other parts of the world. So it kind of was,

[00:48:48] it was more valuable to them to have the trade there and have the ability to get these different things. So interesting. Like I really didn't know anything. So again, why do you think that it's become a meme? How much do you think about the Roman,

[00:49:02] men think about the Roman Empire like seven hours a day. So there's two different viewpoints on this. There's, there's, so my favorite Roman historian is a woman named Dr. Mary Beard. She actually has a great series on Prime right now about Roman Emperors, about the Roman Empire,

[00:49:16] if you get a chance to watch it. Oh yeah. But she, she has two of you point on it and mine's a little bit different. But what she says is basically that Rome, they people had this idea that men could be macho,

[00:49:27] which actually wasn't really a hundred percent true because most Roman Emperors weren't going and fighting battles and things like that. So like the way people look at history and the way it was are actually very different.

[00:49:38] To me, I look at it as it's kind of more of a late stage empire thing. People look at it like, well things aren't really going so well right now. You know, remember, remember how great things were going in Rome? Imagine if we could be like Rome.

[00:49:49] So to me, I think it's more of people looking at, you know, is America a late stage empire? To me, I look at it, you know, once again, I think this is our crisis of the third century. I think with the right repairs,

[00:49:59] we got another couple hundred years and we can kind of keep doing this. But you know, her viewpoint is like, you know, men feel like they're not macho. They're sucking these corporate jobs. They're not really doing things that matter,

[00:50:08] which I think is also a big part as well. Oh, so you think, you think basically jobs like the modern economy has demasculated men? Yeah, because if you look at it like, you know, it's you're going to go to school for a bunch of years

[00:50:23] and then you're going to go into a job where life doesn't really matter. And you want to kind of feel like, you know, you have an effect on things. And, you know, in Rome, you could have, you could even look at a lot of the Roman emperors.

[00:50:33] Like there were people that were born, you know, not as slaves, but as very poor people that would end up being emperor. And that had happened. That happened with Emperor Hadrian. He was the guy that was born in the provinces. He was born to a poor family

[00:50:46] and he ends up becoming emperor because he's put in the right political position. And I think people look at that and they're like, well, I don't really see how there's a path for me. I don't really see how there's a future for me. And it's, you know,

[00:50:57] you wrote an article a few years ago about is New York City dead forever? And I think people look at the economy and they're like, you know, things aren't really going so great right now. Kids are getting out of school and they're paying for an education that

[00:51:07] that education didn't actually teach them how to do anything. So they have a mortgage without a house and you have the government telling you, hey, we're not in a recession. We just changed the definition of it. Things are going great.

[00:51:16] So people are looking at it and they're like, I want opportunity. And I think that's really the biggest frustration for people right now. I see. So, so to some extent, the Roman Empire and Republic might have been more upwardly mobile than people are feeling right now.

[00:51:32] I think so. And because people as much as we want to say there, there aren't kind of established classes here. I think it really has started to become the political class and everyone else. And that's, I don't care if you're on the right

[00:51:43] or the left James, they're both corrupt as hell. And they both, you know, kind of do whatever serves them. And I think for the rest of us, we don't have as much mobility as we do. I think entrepreneurship gives us mobility

[00:51:54] and I think that gives us the ability to do a lot. But I do think it's becoming increasingly closed off because of the political class. So if there's like one lesson from the decline of the Roman Empire that you would look at,

[00:52:06] what should the U.S. be worried about as a society, as a culture? More solid monetary policy. I think that is the number one thing that's killing us is I know you've been big on talking about cryptos and things like that.

[00:52:18] And I think we need to take a look at our monetary policy because you can thank Richard Nixon for taking us off the gold standard and they're able to do fractional reserve banking and things like that now. So I think unless we handle our monetary policy,

[00:52:32] we are in a lot of trouble. And that was one of the biggest things that Diocletian handled is he's like, there's two standard Roman pieces of money. We have a gold coin and a silver coin and this is the exact size they are

[00:52:44] and the exact weight they are and how they're traded. But I think the problem here is people don't have... If you look at the American dollar, it's not backed by gold. It's backed by the faith and credit of the American economy.

[00:52:54] And I think people are losing the full faith and credit of the American economy. So I think unless we can solve that and unless we stop using our money as a weapon around the world, we're hurting ourselves because you're looking at what's happening with bricks

[00:53:06] and we have countries that are starting to trade for oil and Chinese Yuan and things like that. So I think unless we handle our monetary policy, man, we're in a lot of trouble. So interesting how basically that becomes the cornerstone of an empire slash country, slash kingdom, whatever

[00:53:25] is the monetary policy. It's more important than the military. It's how you treat your dollars versus how you treat your soldiers. And we're doing it for the same reasons, which is interesting because one of the big things that became the problem in the third century

[00:53:39] was they needed to pay for... Like basically Rome had started a grain dull. So they were feeding grain for everybody in the empire like, hey, you get free food if you live here. So you had that was happening. They were trying to fund the military

[00:53:50] and emperors when they realized that they got their power from the military, well, they kept giving the military these giant raises every year, 30%, 60% because if they kept the troops happy, they were happy. But in order to give more money, they needed more money. So they started devaluing dollars

[00:54:03] and you look at it here, that's exactly what we were doing. I got some car repairs recently and the hourly rate for those car repairs versus those same repairs I had in a different car in 2007 were triple for the hourly rate.

[00:54:16] So it's like your dollar is losing value so fast because we're just printing more of them. That's what, you know, people hear the idea quantitative easing. They don't know what that means. That means that the Fed just fired up the printing press and made some more money.

[00:54:27] So we try to pay for things by just creating money and it's like, you can't do that. Yeah, and I guess you could do that if the economy was growing faster than the amount of money. It's not. Right, like after 2020, between 2020 and now 40%

[00:54:42] of all the money created in history was created in the U.S. And the economy certainly didn't grow by 40%. It grows, you know, like one or 2% a year. But, you know, maybe now because it's still coming back from COVID, it'll grow a little faster

[00:54:56] because it was coming back from Lowe's. But it's a very scary situation with $34 trillion in debt. I haven't really wrapped my head around it about what it means. Like, the U.S.'s interest payments amount to about 4% of GDP a year.

[00:55:13] So if you say, oh, your mortgage and your debt payments on your credit cards and your house and so on is 4% of your income per year, that's not so bad. It doesn't seem so bad. So there's like different viewpoints about how bad our debt is.

[00:55:26] And when I was speaking to David Rubinstein, who's the head of the Carlisle Group and a really, you know, obviously a super smart investor, he does think there's going to be a problem when all of us get older and Social Security can't pay for it all.

[00:55:40] And that's when he, as he put it on my podcast, he said that he'll be dead by then. So he doesn't care as much. But it is going to be a problem, I think. Well, I think we're hurtling towards like a lot of entitlements we can't pay for.

[00:55:54] Now, that doesn't mean that we need to get rid of them. But I think you think we do need to restructure how we're paying for them because we're just not doing things the right way, man. Things are out of control. Yeah, particularly if interest rates go up

[00:56:05] if other countries lose faith in the dollar. So that's when... Because normally the US can just roll over the debt. Like they could borrow more money to pay back the old money. And because of inflation, they're borrowing cheaper dollars to pay back the more expensive loans

[00:56:20] that they took 30 years earlier. But if other countries lose faith in the dollar, then interest rates will go up. You know, they'll basically charge a higher interest to lend to the US. And that's when things can get into... That's when things can spiral into a problem.

[00:56:34] I think there are banks also, so I have to start behaving here too. Like if you watch it like, you know, a big part of what caused Silicon Valley Bank to fall is they have the Fed window is kind of the last place

[00:56:44] they can go to get money when things aren't going so well. And they can borrow money from the Fed against Treasury bills. But the problem is those Treasury bills don't actually gain value. So then they try to sell those off to other banks to handle things.

[00:56:55] And that's just a shell game, man. And it ends up being a bank collapse because there was no money in the first place. Yeah, I mean, the good thing about... The weird thing about Treasury bills is that they lose value during times of inflation. But you do get...

[00:57:09] If you hold for the long term, the US government does at least historically pay back every dollar owed to those Treasury billholders. So that's why they're sort of treating the Treasury... Like from the purposes of keeping the bank alive, they're treating the Treasury bills

[00:57:24] as if they have the full value, even though if you try to sell them, they don't have the full value. So the Federal Reserve is basically willing to scoop up all those Treasury bills and hold them. But again, that just seems like a band-aid

[00:57:36] and it's unclear how that will work in the long run. Yeah. But Jeremy Ryan Slate, author of Unremarkable to Extraordinary. Thank you so much. You've basically... It's one of the most educational podcasts I've ever done. I learned a huge amount about...

[00:57:53] I have never given any interest in the Roman Empire at all. Maybe I should have to learn more history, but I was fascinated after... I did love the TV show, Rome on HBO, which I know is not 100% historically accurate, but it's a little historically accurate

[00:58:10] and there's great actors in that show. And then you suggested we talk about this and I've learned a huge amount doing some reading before this podcast and then you were answering all my questions on it. So thank you so much for coming on.

[00:58:26] If you ever want to come on again and talk about something else, let me know. Absolutely. I really appreciate having you, James. I was really looking forward to this. Actually, I read a lot more this week too just to make sure all of my knowledge gaps made sense

[00:58:36] and I think we had a great conversation today, man. Excellent. Thank you.