Latest / Financial Survival Network / Lord Conrad Black Gives His Views on U.S. Politics, Global Affairs and Education #5990

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Lord Conrad Black Gives His Views on U.S. Politics, Global Affairs and Education #5990 · Financial Survival Network

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I'll tell you why I am an optimist. I think that you can discern
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quite clearly that the majority of people don't like what's going on. I'm all
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these polls showing direction of the country and so on a negative results. The
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country does not believe that the US is a rotten place. They do not
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believe that it was set up as a slaveholding operation. They do not believe
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that it is an evil, racist country. It isn't. You're listening to
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Carrie Let's's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you just can't find
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anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival Network
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now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get your free
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newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever. And welcome you
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are listening to and watching the Financial Survival net Work. I'm your ost Kerry
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Luttz. We have a very special guest for you today, somebody I didn't
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think would ever come on this channel, just because he's such a legend.
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You know him well, I've seen him speak, I've been reading his editorials
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for years and one of the smartest people out there that I know, Lord
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Conrad Black And it's not every day we get royalty on the show, Lord
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Conrad, but it's great to have you on. And hey, I know
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you've got opinions. Now I saw you speak at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference.
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Ohka, you you like Lambas did the the Trudeau administration about their environmental
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policies, about all of these things that they were doing, like killing the
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resource industry which made the country of cast and also the United States. We've
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done similar things here and hey, you've been around a long time. Is
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there always should we be optimistic that the left has overplayed its hand or should
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we just throw in the towel? Now I am decidedly optimistic. But first
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of all, let me thank you for your extremely gracious introduction. I didn't
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really recognize myself, but I'm not royal, you know, the royals or
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members of the royal theory. I'm noble, but that and the correct fair
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get beyond the public friends and system all around the world. So you know,
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it's good for making a dinner reservation in London or anywhere in England,
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but that's what it is. Really. It's nice to be a member of
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the Parliament though, but on your question. I'll tell you why I am
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an optimist. I think that you can discern quite clearly that the majority of
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people don't like what's going on. I'm all these polls showing direction of the
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country and saw ona negative results. The country does not believe that the US
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is a rotten place. They do not believe that it was set up as
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a slaveholding operation. They do not believe that it is an evil, racist
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country. It isn't. I mean, there are a few evil and racist
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people in a population of a third of a billion. You couldn't avoid that,
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But it is not that it is, as most Americans realize, a
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great country, and most of the people are good people most of the time.
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And it's been a strange phenomenon where you had this. I mean,
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if I may say it, I'm sorry to be sobyncopated here, but I
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may say this, I think Americans underestimate what the whole country, white and
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African Americans have achieved on the civil rights side. This is the only country
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in the history of the world where a servile, a formerly servile enslaved minority
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was not emancipated. That's happened all over. But there's this effort to raise
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them up to a state of equality, and in effect, it's happened,
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and it was, and I don't think Americans give themselves enough credit for that.
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Instead, they're still HARKing back to the undoubted evils of slavery. But
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you know, mister Lincoln said that if every drop of blood drawn by the
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lash had to be repaid by the sword, he was still going to abolish
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slavery. And he did it, and and most, you know, the
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overwhelming majority of Americans are glad that he did it. And so I think
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what's happening now is in the temporary absence of a serious foreign rival, and
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at a point when previously oppressed people were no longer really oppressed, you got
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this strange era of people doing a rethink on the US and saying, well,
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look, wait a minute here, this really isn't such a heroic country.
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You know, We've done this, we done that, And that happens.
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It's like an individual. Sometimes it's very self critical, and the country
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does sometimes ten but it's gone too far. Everyone sees it's gone too far.
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The United States, it's like all other countries, has made its mistakes
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and done some bad things, but it is on balance one of the most
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positive forces in the history of the world. And the huge expansion of post
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war democracy and the free market system is chiefly do to the United States.
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And we now know a reduction in the percentage of the world's population even as
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that population has got up that is in chronic poverty, from seventy percent at
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the end of World War two down to ten percent. Only ten percent.
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That's still a lot of people. But this is progress, and the US
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is the great enginet progress. So I think that what you're going to get
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is the sensible, reasonable majority, mister Nixon, silent majority are going to
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say this is funk and we've had enough of it. Yes, we've got
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our false but around going to spend the rest of our national life in self
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flagellation. Let's turn these these ingrades and ip I greats. And I think
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that's what we're going to see this And I'm hoping that you're right about that.
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Just the population sometimes you think has just been dumbed down to the point
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where the average guy is working two jobs, just trying not to go bankrupt
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and just can't focus on the bigger picture and feels that the elites have like
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totally abused him, totally exploited them. And basically, you know, nobody
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is out looking for your interests. You know, you're just you've just had
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it, and you know it's it's it's hard for the average working person to
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just keep the effort up and really really, you know, stay focused and
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and sure, on the other hand, he can remember that three years ago
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things were better, haven't. The president who made the better is running for
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the office again, so you know, you can put to them together.
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Yeah, I was definitely was better. I mean, how many wars got
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started under Biden's predecessor was it? About as many as the full points of
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Under Trump, about as many as the full points of inflation. There were
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no wars, no inflation, no oil imports, no illegal immigration. Uh.
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And no unemployment. Yeah, a million more jobs to be filled than
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there were unemployed. It's full imployment, right, And and TV news was
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a lot more entertaining. Back to love of them or hate him, it
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was a luck entertaining. Oh yeah, no, he's a great comedy genius
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in addition to his other tones. So and look at you know, the
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left wing media was was prospering under him as well. You know, all
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the jobs that have been lost in the left wing media, The Washington Post.
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Uh, you know, CNN, all those anchors that have been shown
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the door anchor Chris Wallace, they're all they're all gone. They're all gone.
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So they didn't even know that he was. He was instrumental in their
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in their prosperity. Where are they now? So so looking ahead, you
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know, one thing we were under the impression were sold the bill of goods.
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I think that China was going this was going to be the China Century,
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the Chinese century, and now we see that China is one big two
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food drag the tiger. You know, it's like apart. I mean,
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no, they're not in any of these international organizations really because you can't believe
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a word they say, er figure they published. I mean, there's no
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doubt as a development story, as a primitive country bootstrapping itself up to great
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economic progress, it's a brilliant story. No one can say anything to oppose
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that view. But the idea that it's a real rival to the United States
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is rubbish. I mean, none of the institutions have deserve any respect,
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except possibly the armed forces, although they haven't really been active since the Korean
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War. And it's a forty percent command economy. They still have three hundred
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million people living the way they did a thousand years ago. It's you know,
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it's a corrupt, authoritarian, totalitarian state, and you know it has
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no great diplomatic suaby. The Burmese colonels found them so offensively, threw them
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out and drought back that lady that they'd banished under house arrests for twenty years.
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I mean, their belt and rogue approaches fiasco. They're going to lose
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their paths. And I have to agree with the recently convalescent Secretary of Defense
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Lloyd Austin when they said that the Chinese aren't ten feet tall. Now they
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are. Yeah, they're they're they're famous, numerous, distinguished nationality. But
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the Chinese is no real rival of the United States. Hey, well,
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you know it's a and you look at all that infrastructure is just frumbling before
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your very eyes. And then they they've exported that in the form of the
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Belton Road Initiative, or they call it the Bribe and Rape Initiative. Yes,
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you know, they the dam in the Ecuador, it's got a thousand
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cracks in it because they use that fine Chinese concrete. I'm afraid to go
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to the Bahallas now because they built those new hotels in Nassau, and who
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knows how long they're going to last. Uh, you know, standards right,
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and they export the workers, they send Chinese lu works. They don't
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create employment where they go, and you know, they don't create a great
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deal of gratitude or good will. So what about what's happening in Europe?
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I mean, Europe is like in a sorry state right now. And what
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birds or worse than others? Easterns better? Yeah, and look, I
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think this premier in Italy is doing very well. The woman, you know,
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I think she's fine. Uh yeah, I think I think it's I
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think you're starting to get signs of life there. I mean the problems really
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are in Uh, Britain, I think is going through a cycle of poor
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government and then they'll come out. I always do. You know, it's
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generally a well governed country, but right now it's kind of you know,
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treading waters. You know, it's moving sideways. Germany is in a puzzling
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state. I mean, it is the strongest country in Europe, but it's
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still intimidated by the moral atrocity. So it's passed within living member to ely
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people, and so they're kind of reluctant to step out and take the lead.
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In Europe, they want to be in a cocoon of allies and move
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together with them, which is much better than Germany. And it's militant domineering
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mode. But it's a continent that's still I think reorienting after the World Wars
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and Cold War. But there are, as you say, in the Eastern
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Europe, there are signs of great oak in the Czech Republic, in Hungary,
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in Poland, and in some ways in Ukraine also. Yeah, yeah,
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so the Ukraine War here, we can't get a straight story on what
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exactly is going on there. It's like dueling propagandists, you know, it's
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like that thing from a dueling banjo's you know, you just don't know who
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to believe or what what's your take on what's happening there and how it's going
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to end. I think that every buddy, including the former Chairman of the
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Joint Chiefs of Staff, who should have been court martialed by the way General
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Milly thought the Russians were going to take over all of Ukraine in a few
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weeks. I mean, that's what he told the Senate. And I think
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the fight that Ukrainians have put up as a heroic fight, and I think
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I think we all feel that in the West, and if Russia had taken
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back Ukraine, it would have undone the largest single part of the greatest and
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most bloodless strategic victory in the history of the world, which the West won
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in the Cold War, when the USSR just felt like a soup late disintegrated,
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had of shopping fired, and that was a tremendous victory for the Western
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world and for democracy. And as we were just discussing, a number of
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those countries have done very well as democratic countries. And if we had a
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lot the Russians simply to take over Ukraine, we including the Ukrainians, it
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would have undone part of that. It would have shown the world that the
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Western Alliance was a paper tiger, that we were flabby, and nobody need
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worry about anything we said. So I think it was terribly important that we
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support Ukraine, and I think we could have done a better job of it
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right, and we should have what happens we're giving them now, we should
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have given them at the start. But with all that said, we have
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a second goal where, apart from assuring that Ukraine survives and is recognized and
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accepted as an independent country, we want still to bring Russia into the West.
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We don't want to drive them into the arms of the Chinese. So
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we shouldn't be holding a dmentic regime change in the Kremlin or sweeping out of
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every square inch of U Grant. I think it's quite clear we can make
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a deal now. You let the Russians have most of what they take it,
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maybe you can pull them back, but you've got to do it on
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the ground that the Ukrainians can do it. I've got to live with three
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quarters of a lobe. Only this time the guarantees of Ukraine wouldn't be phony
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guarantees like we all gave them before when they gave up the nuclear weapons that
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they inherited from the Soviet Union. They got to be real guarantees. The
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Russians, I have to understand if they invade Ukraine again, they went war
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with NATO, all of NATO, right right, Yeah, Well, I
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always say by which I mean including Turkey and Spain, Annada and not just
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everybody free loading on the United States. Yeah, which was one of the
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themes of the last president's tenure is that that NATO has to step up and
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actively and they did when he said it. They did it, Yeah,
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because they were called to account. So interesting things that nobody thinks about.
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You know. One thing that's interesting going back to China is that they're uh
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their attitude as unified. All the countries are around them and sent back to
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the US, the Philippines, Vietnam, we just did a major deal with
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them, Japan, Korea Island was playing footsie with them for a while.
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Yeah. Now Thailand's got a bunch of the Belton Road projects that are probably
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going to fall apart in the next ten years too. And you know,
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all of this, all of this has changed. So the idea of like
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the development that China saw over the last twenty thirty years, now the rest
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of the South Asia Southeast Asia probably going to be the beneficiaries of that.
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Yeah. And I have to say, not that you've ridged this, but
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I'm not a pessimist, but Taiwan there, I mean, the fact is
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it's about one hundred and forty miles in blue water across that's four times as
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much as the Allies had to cross invading Normandy and you know, the Chinese
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would have to move half a million men in slow moving boats across that water
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that they'd you know, it reminds me of a speech of mister Churchill's to
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nineteen forty when he said, we're still awaiting the long promised invasion. So
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are the fish meaning you know, try up no old drum and it's just
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not going to happen. Yeah, I don't see it either. Is there
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way of getting attention or distracting or whatever. And so the crumbling of the
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Chinese economy, it looks like they're going through nineteen twenty nine over there,
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now, good jump to that. I mean it's it's tenuous from the look
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of it. Yes, And somebody looked at we in nineteen twenty nine.
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We had the ability in the thirties to spend more money, use these workfare
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schemes to put people back to where and you know, gradually get out of
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it. But China's already done that. They've done the worker as you say.
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They've got highways and bullock trains to nowhere cities with empty forty story buildings
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in them, and I mean they're the forest of these buildings. They're like
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downtown New York with nobody in it, you know, and so they pull
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all those leapers. What are they going to do next? Yeah, they
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have a version of New York City. I actually saw it from a bullet
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train, which I would never ride in now, knowing what I know about
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the quality of their infrastructure. But I saw that city and it's like wow,
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but nobody's there, and they can't get anybody to move there, and
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they can't even force people to move there, and you know, just the
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inequities of their system. You think the CCP can last much longer? Or
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how much longer can they last? I would have to assume that they would.
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Look, I'm not a I'm not a person who follows China every day.
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I think the CCP will last, but I think the masquerade they're putting
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on is a channel leading the whole world will be less durable and less believable
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than you know when and less violetother than when Russia, you know, Soviet
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Union. Try that Bruce shows sound will bury, but in straight economic terms,
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not politically. They were always a friendly country, but Japan thought they
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were going to take over the economic leadership of the world too. That's very
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true. But Japan at least is for real, isn't the economy? Yeah,
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and you know it's still a powerhouse you've kind of forgotten. So so
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the reason for optimism, you think the world has like looked over the abyss
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and not Noine didn't want to go there, all didn't want to go there.
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Yeah. I hope you're right, And I really I think that problem
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is that in all of our Western countries education's going to pieces. And one
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of the ironies is all of us spend more and more on education and get
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less and less well educated people. And I think the greatest single menace of
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the teachers hits and this wide yard woman is the ed your hub result public
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enemy number one list, you know. But uh, you know again,
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there's an antidote to it. People are going to charter schools, home school
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I can second schools so far. Well, you can actually do homeschooling more
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effectively now the age of the Internet than you ever could before and makes homeschooling
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a viable possibility for millions of people. And there's just an article like glanced
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at said that thousands of schools are getting ready to close in the United States
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because there's no students there. So you know, that's when you know,
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when private parties sell a product, unless they're a monopoly, if you don't
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like it, you don't buy it. But when the government's selling it,
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you know, I have a choice, and you got to subsidize it and
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prop it up when it's failing. So interesting case of what's happening there.
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The New York City Teachers Union was always on the total extreme. That's where
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rand Garden came out of. Our predecessor, Albert Schanker, was the first
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teacher strike. Milton Friedman always said once teachers unions became trade unions instead of
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affinity organizations, that education started going downhill. They stopping a professional association and
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then just became an irresponsible industrial trade unise. The Albert Shankar I knew from
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the Trenlateral Commission. He was a charming man to have a dinner or drink,
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so very brillight. But he made a complete cynic. You have big
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plan, but the few drinks needed knowledge what he was doing. He was
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just taking the country for a ride and ailed with the children. U goes
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back from bark Well, Lord Black, I really appreciate you coming on the
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show. Here. It's my pleasure. Yeah, it's uh I look,
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can I I just put in a one plug for my book here and please
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yeah, I was going to ask you about your book. I just got
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a hold up here if I can here it is. This is Moses Socrates,
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He's Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar gets volume one. This is my
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big historical work in my career. And I'm two thirds of the way through
22:32
volume two now writing it. But the political and strategic history of the world.
22:36
Now it sounds like a pompous and absurd title, and it's a big
22:38
book. But you can actually this gets us up to the Emperor Augustus.
22:45
You can actually put it in there. You read it, take ten years
22:48
reading it to be want read it from back to front of her any way
22:53
you want, and it's all there, and you can see how we got
22:56
the how we where we are now. And it's my delia the gainst this
23:00
theory that to understand a really significant amount of history you have to read twenty
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or thirty volumes like some of these ones behind me in the shelf here.
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So true. Hey, well, that's the purpose of the original purpose of
23:15
a liberal arts education was to read all those important books, key books.
23:22
Yep, because freethinker, critical thinker. But somehow we went off the rails
23:26
in this country, in any event, and now we have a we're all
23:30
experts and gender studies puful things, you know. You know, I wish
23:37
nobody can make a living in Yeah, of course not. We'll have a
23:40
link to the book in the show notes. This interview on Financial Survival Network
23:44
dot com. Lord Black, thank you again so much for coming on.
23:48
Been a real pleasure, highlight of my twelve years of doing this. Yeah,
23:52
look the pleasures mind. I hope you'll invite me on again. Thanks
23:56
for listening to carry Letz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times.
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For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network
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