🚨 Avoid This Financial Trap: Inflation's Hidden Dangers! 🚨 Dive into the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly, where we unravel the nuances of economic instability and its hidden threats. Join Jeremy Slate as he shares eye-opening insights into infla
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Jeremy Slate
Michelle Obama saying that she doesn't want power. I really don't believe that. The Obamas seem to enjoy power. I think they've been controlling the Biden White House for the last three years. Obama termed number three. So I think that's what you're gonna see, because I don't think Kamala Harris is very electable. I just don't think she's very likable. And at the same time, it has to be, you know, someone that also. That's a woman in a minority. Otherwise it's gonna create a problem in the party too.
Sean
All right, guys, got Jeremy Slate here. Just came from the rnc. How was it there, man?
Jeremy Slate
It was pretty cool. I think the thing that was most exciting to me is the Republican party's changed a lot, and I think it's become less of kind of like the, like, hardcore conservative right. And it's become more of like a libertarian leaning party, which I think to me is cool. Like, I want low taxes, I want, you know, freedom. But I think we can get too much into the, like, you know, this is what our party means, where I think more or less, we need to win elections here too. So I'm pretty excited about where things are headed. Met a lot of cool people. I met Crowder's team. I met just a lot of cool people. It was a great time.
Sean
Yeah, it looked like a blast. I'm going to go to the next one. Yeah. Now you. Did you grow up in Jersey? Because I know you're there now.
Jeremy Slate
I grew up in northwest Jersey. It's like the wrestling capital of the state. So everybody wrestles where I'm from. And where I live now is like maybe 40 minutes from where I grew up. And two dozen chickens. I got a pig. Whole bunch of dogs. Live on a lake, five acres. It's awesome.
Sean
Self sustaining. Reminds me of Tucker Max.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, well, it's definitely not what Tucker Max has. He's got a lot more. He actually. So he went to not like high school. Blair Academy.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
Which actually right next to Blair Center.
Sean
I didn't know he grew up in Jersey.
Jeremy Slate
Well, he didn't grow up in Jersey. Went to Blair Academy. Like he would. People from outside of state would come in.
Sean
Yeah. I asked about Jersey just because I grew up there too. And obviously it's super left and you're going to rnc. So were you left growing up?
Jeremy Slate
No. So you're part of Jersey, and my part of Jersey are very, very, very different. So it's like super red.
Sean
Oh, really?
Jeremy Slate
I'm in Lake Sussex county, on the border of Sussex and Warren. And what they did a few years ago.
Sean
So we were.
Jeremy Slate
We were represented for a bunch of years by E. Scott Garrett, but then they. And he was a Republican representative, they redistricted us about 10, maybe 15 years ago. And what they did is pull in the higher population density areas. And it really shifted a lot of the congressional representation. So right now we're represented by Josh Gottheimer. He has more left. But where I live, really, it's been. It's Trump country, man. It just happens to be that they've pulled in a lot of the major cities and it kind of shifts the congressional representation.
Sean
Got it. So Jersey might go right eventually.
Jeremy Slate
I. I have no, you know, aspersions on that, man. Like, I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but we'll see.
Sean
We'll see, man. I mean, they're saying Cali's. If Cali can go right, I feel like Jersey can.
Jeremy Slate
I don't see California going right. Not with a Batman villain like Gavin Newsom in charge. You know, just. I just. I don't know. I don't see that happening.
Sean
You think he'll step in if Biden drops out?
Jeremy Slate
So my pick, and I've talked to Roger Stone and a few different people about this, is I think it's going to be Michelle Obama.
Sean
Really.
Jeremy Slate
And I've been saying this since May, so I can't go the other way now because at least I got to stick with it if I'm wrong, because you have to look at it this way. And I'll bring this back to the Roman Empire, which is one of the things I talk about a lot. So the first emperor, Augustus, he actually became emperor because he told people he didn't want the job, and he had just helped them get peace and everything else. And he's like, I'm going to step down. They're like, no, no, no. Please rule us. And that's how they actually end up getting their first emperor. Michelle Obama, saying that she doesn't want power. I really don't believe that. The Obamas seem to enjoy power. I think they've been controlling the Biden White House for the last three years. And I think really what you've been seeing is Obama term number three. So I think that's what you're gonna see, because I don't think Kamala Harris is very electable. I just don't think she's very likable. And at the same time, it has to be someone That's a woman and a minority. Otherwise it's gonna create a problem in the party too.
Sean
Yeah. There are theories that the Obama were running this administration recently.
Jeremy Slate
I think so. I think he's the puppeteer behind the scenes.
Sean
Yeah. But aren't most presidents.
Jeremy Slate
Yes and no. Yes and no. I think that was the problem with Trump and why they had all the political persecutions and everything else is they couldn't really run him and they didn't really know what he was going to do. And for the political system, that's a little bit scary. So I don't know that most presidents are, but I think that was the major problem with Trump and the political establishment.
Sean
Right. And Trump's been compared to Julius Caesar. But you pose at the American Caesar was already 100 years ago, right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. So if you look at it and I think you have to kind of like understand the whole lay of land here. So when people think of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire was 31 BC to 476 AD. So it's about a 503 year period. But the actual Roman era is 753 BC it's founded as a kingdom. To 509 it's a BC it's a republic. And then 509 BC to 31 BC it's a republic. And then you kind of kind of the empire stage after that. Caesar is the last person in what's called the republic era. Right. So he's one of the final guys. He's assassinated in 44 BC and often they try to make the comparison to Donald Trump or they try to make the comparison to, you know, kind of anybody usurping power you could think of. And you have to kind of understand that the, the era in time that Caesar lived in. He's one of the last characters in what's called the Roman civil war. Their civil war isn't like we would have thought of civil wars. It goes from 133 to 31. And what it really is is rich people fighting for power. It's all of the political class fighting each other. It's not like rich versus poor or anything like that. So what they're really doing is using Rome to fight for power. And you have kind of this hundred year downslide. The first character is this guy. My memory has suddenly escaped me. Um, Gaius Marius. There we go. He's the first guy in, in, in the beginning there. And the main office in Rome is called a consul. And you would have two of them at a time because they didn't want One person to hold power. Because traditionally Rome had had seven kings. So to have another king was a scary thing to them. So consuls would hold power for a year. They would hold it for a year. And they had to have 10 years in between consulships. That was how the law was. Marius held seven consulships.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
He did not live to be 70 years old. So obviously the laws were getting broken there. There's a disagreement between Marius and another guy named Sulla. And Sulla in 83 actually ends up naming himself dictator. And during this time period he starts this process called proscription, where they basically would put names on tablets, put them in the forum and if your name was on the tablet, they'd kill you.
Sean
Really.
Jeremy Slate
They have to bring your head.
Sean
And it was anonymous or it was.
Jeremy Slate
What do you mean was it anonymous?
Sean
Like they put the names, they're writing the names or.
Jeremy Slate
So what would happen is it was the first day it was 80 names. Second day it was 200 names. These were the enemies of Sella.
Sean
Got it.
Jeremy Slate
And what would happen is people would add the names of their enemies to this list. Right. Because they're like, who's going to notice if there's 200 names if I put my person on there? So you have people just being killed and their head has to be brought to show that they're dead. And what would happen is the state would then own all their property, everything else, or sometimes maybe people get their property. So things are getting really upheaved during this point in time. There's an 18 year old on the proscriptions list named Julius Caesar because Sulla wants Caesar to divorce his wife, which he ends up not doing. He's connected to the right people. They end up getting him off the list. And after the period of Sulla, you have Caesar as consul in 59 B.C. and the consulship they would call it typically the year of these two guys. And if I'm getting too far into it, Sean, feel free.
Sean
No, this is interesting. I didn't know Caesar had a near death experience.
Jeremy Slate
He didn't. Yeah, he did. Yeah. He wasn't part of the right, I guess, political faction. Because there's these two political factions in Rome. There's the populares and the optimates. The optimates were the rich people and Caesar like he's extensively rich, but he did things more for the popular people. He actually, before he even became political, lived in a housing tenement. So he had like a. The right type of family, a patrician name, but he lived in more of a poor area early in his life. So he's often broke his entire life. And the fact that he's borrowing money is a big problem for him. So he's consul in 59. And the other guy he's consul with is this guy, Marcus Biblius. The power behind Marcus Biblius is this guy named Cato the Younger. He's an enemy of Caesar. So his goal is to just block Caesar at every turn. So what ends up happening is his first action is to give land to troops. A very popular thing to do. Right? He wants to give the troops that are retiring land so they can start farming. Biblius is opposed to this. What Caesar actually does something they wouldn't do, because typically the Senate would vote on these things. He. He brings the vote to the people. The people and Caesar agree on this thing. So what happens is the people actually chase Biblius into his home, and he doesn't leave the rest of the year. So the consulship would be called the year of those consuls, so it would be Caesar and Biblius. What it ends up historically being called is the consulship of Julius and Caesar. So he has, like, ultimate power for a year. But now there's actually a private agreement behind the scenes between Rome's most famous general, Paul Pompey, the Great Caesar, and Rome's richest man, Crassus, who Caesar owed a lot of money to. It's called the first Triumvirate. So for the year, these three guys are making all the political decisions that year ends. Caesar then goes for nine years in Gaul, kills about a million people, conquers a lot of land, and once again, he's a man of his era. That would have been acceptable. That would have been expected. He's on his way back with his army. He has about 10 legions. A legion is. It changes throughout the empire, but it's around 5,500 men.
Sean
Wow. And he had 10 of those.
Jeremy Slate
So he had 10 of those. They're on their way back from Gaul, and he hears from a messenger that Cato the Younger wants him to report for crimes that he committed 10 years ago that weren't crimes when he committed them. This is where we say, well, that sounds very similar to a president that's currently in office. So here's the difference between Trump and Caesar. Number one, Donald Trump has never led an army, so he's not as successful as a military man as Caesar. Number two, Caesar gets to a river called the Rubicon, and he utters a statement which is famous throughout history, saying the Die is cast. Now, it's actually an incorrect translation. It comes from Greek tragedy. And the actual phrase he's looking for, we're in Vegas. So it makes a little bit more sense. Let the chips fall where they may. It's closer to what it means. He's just, I'm taking a risk. It could work out for me, it might not work out for me. And then he takes one of his 10 legions, crosses the river Rubicon, and heads for Rome. What ends up happening is his enemies, Cato the Younger, Pompey and him had a falling out. At this point in time, they actually flee the city of Rome. So he marches into Rome unimpeded, and he becomes the guy basically in charge. And over the next five to eight years, he actually follows Pompey and his army through Europe. The Egyptians later kill Pompey, but that's kind of how things end up happening. They call Caesar's bluff, and he ends up bringing his way into Rome. Now, Donald Trump loses the election, since I may not agree with it. He fought it for a bit, but he probably would have retired if things didn't go the way they did. Caesar never relinquished power, and I think that's a very important differentiation to make.
Sean
Damn. What made you.
Jeremy Slate
I apologize. That was complex, but there's a lot to it.
Sean
This is fascinating. What made you want to dive so much into this kind of stuff?
Jeremy Slate
So I had one of the coolest professors ever in undergrad, Dr. Sean Lake. We're actually working on a book together now comparing the Roman Republican Empire to modern America. And. And I took every Greek civilization class that he could offer. I was fascinated by Alexander the Great. And if you see my office at home, I look a crazy person. I have a bust of Alexander the Great. I have a statue of Athena. I have Greek swords. And I read this really weird, obscure article, and it was called Augustus at Actium. And after the battle of Actium, which is the final battle of the Roman civil War, he goes before the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great. Alexander the great died in 323, so he's been dead for about 300 years at this point in time, but he goes and prays before it. I'm like, that's really weird. So that I. That I ended up doing is researching. Well, what propaganda tools did Augustus use to convince people he was God and then get people to worship the Roman emperor for almost 500 years? And that's what got me into the Roman Empire, was I was so obsessed with Alexander the Great, it just kind of sucked.
Sean
Interesting.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Do you see a lot of similarities with ancient civilization or. I don't know if they're ancient, but that civilization in modern times.
Jeremy Slate
You mean Greece or Rome?
Sean
Just like Rome, Roman Empire.
Jeremy Slate
So the thing I see the most, and you know, number one, like we were just kind of talking about Trump and Caesar. I see that there's a couple of different things happening and I've been talking for the last year about what's called Rome's crisis of the third century. And in the third century there's two things that are really killing the Roman Empire. Number one is inflation. By 284 they're at 15,000% inflation.
Sean
Damn.
Jeremy Slate
And also immigration. So you have to kind of understand how we got here. So there's what's called the five good emperors. The last of those is a guy most people have heard of, they probably read his book the Meditations, and that's Marcus Aurelius. So those five good emperors have a policy, the first of which is Nerva, followed by Trajan, Hadrian, Antinous, Pius, Aurelius, and then Aurelius brother, I can't remember his name off the top of the moment, but the two of those guys rule together. And then Aurelius has ultimate power. In 180, Aurelius breaks something that those five good emperors had done. What they would do is take the closest, most qualified person that they thought could rule Rome and do a good job and name that person Emperor. This was different than everything that was done before that, and it's different than everything that's done after that. But it was really effective and it creates the Pax Romana, like it creates this period of peace. So you have these guys ruling for an average of 20 years, which it's highly unusual. You know, Augustus ruled for a long time and there's several emperors that rule for a long time. But these guys aren't ruling for very long. They're either getting assassinated, they're either having some sort of a political feud and not lasting in office. So to rule for an average of 20 years is crazy. What Aurelius does is he doesn't name the next closest person qualified. He names his spoiled 13 year old son Commodus to be the next emperor. Commodus will rule until 192 and be the first in what's called the Year of Five Emperors. There's so much upheaval, they can't even get the right person in place. This starts a change and it's what Edward Gibbon, who writes the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire says is kind of that downward slide period of Rome. Now it falls in 476. But this is really a change in how the Empire functions. We have what are called the barrack Emperors barracks, meaning military barracks. And what would happen is an army would say, my general is Emperor now. And they would take their flags, they would take anything that had purple and put it on the guy and say, okay, he's an emperor now. You had in that time period, about 47 different guys in the third century claimed to be emperor. So what would happen is the person with the biggest army could be emperor. So how do you get the biggest army? Well, number one, there'd been a plague during the time of Marcus aurelius, so about 10% of the empire had passed away. So there weren't enough military men. So they started bringing in barbarian tribes out of the provinces to start serving. And they would, at the end of that time period, get citizenship and, you know, have a lot of different things available to them for serving in the Roman army. I'm condensing a lot of this stuff too there. So if there's any history people out there, please don't hate me how much I'm condensing all this stuff. But what happens is immigration now happens because these people are bringing into the army. So you have more barbarian tribes are coming in. You have at the same time the Huns are going across Europe, which is forcing more barbarian tribes closer to Rome. In order to pay these guys, there's not enough money. So what do they do? They clip pieces off of coins, they add other money to coins. So that creates inflation. When we think of inflation, it's just ones and zeros in a computer because our money isn't tied to anything. In the Roman Empire, it literally was adding other metals to these coins. So by 284, you're at 15,000% inflation.
Sean
My gosh.
Jeremy Slate
So the guy that becomes emperor in284 is a guy named Diocletian. He does these famous reforms, splitting the Roman Empire in two, east and West. He also creates four emperors, two senior, two junior, does some monetary reforms. It does not last very long. You have Constantine after him, which also does some monetary reforms. But you really have a downward slide in the empire after this because just inflation has hurt the empire too much and it kind of ceases to become a Roman Empire after a period of time because you have more and more barbarian tribes coming in.
Sean
Do you see that happening to the US Dollar?
Jeremy Slate
Eventually, Eventually. And I guess here's My problem with this, Sean, is like, I've talked to a lot of libertarian gold bugs about this, and a lot of people, like, we were taken off of a gold standard in the 70s by Nixon, and that's kind of why they're able to do the things they're able to do with money. We are nowhere near 15,000% inflation, but it's moving really fast because they didn't have the financial tools they had. The Roman Empire was not trading off of derivatives for financial investments. So we're moving that wave really quickly. And I guess the problem is, if we're going to fix it, Ron Paul says, hey, you got to get back on a gold standard or something like that. Or I don't know if it's a crypto in the future, whatever it might be, it's still going to be bumpy for a while until we get on that currency because we've been over our skis and spending for years, so we've spent money we don't have. So I think there is something we can solve about that. But if you'd look@usdetclock.org, congressman Thomas Massie wears the pin every day that shows it going up. It's out of control. I think within the next 10 years, they're going to say we're going to be up to 45 trillion in debt, which is more than our GDP. So at that point in time, what do you do?
Sean
So if debt is more than gdp, like, that's.
Jeremy Slate
You can't service the debt, like, and, and the problem that you have now, too, and the Ukraine war and other things have showed this. We've used the US dollar as a threat to other countries. Right. We've placed these sanctions on Russia, and it was supposed to hurt Russia, but it ended up not really hurting Russia. What's. What it's done is strengthened other currencies out there, like brics.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
Brazil, China, Russia, India and South Africa, I think, is the other one in that currency. And they're not really trading in any sort of like a Treasury yet. But if they get a bond market, like, we're going to be in real trouble. Because if, if oil futures and things like that move into brics, well, there's no need for the US dollar anymore. And that's why we're able to spend like, we're able to spend.
Sean
Scary times, man. Yeah, I actually don't keep that many US Dollars.
Jeremy Slate
Really. What do you, what do you keep money in?
Sean
Crypto.
Jeremy Slate
Crypto.
Sean
Crypto. Real estate. Honestly. Gold. Gold Anything you want to own things.
Jeremy Slate
Things are the things. Like if you have. That's why Bill Gates has recently put so much money in real estate, because if you own things, you're much safer.
Sean
He bought a lot of land, right.
Jeremy Slate
A lot of farmland.
Sean
Farmland, yeah. He's getting a lot of heat for that though. The APL stuff. Is that him?
Jeremy Slate
I. I'm not familiar with that one.
Sean
Oh, okay. It's like this thing they're putting on fruits and vegetables now.
Jeremy Slate
I'm not familiar with that one.
Sean
Really? Yeah, yeah, look into that. I mean, there's so many conspiracies with that guy alone.
Jeremy Slate
Well, Bill Gates. Yeah, he's. He's kind of made himself with event 201 and everything. You know, not many people are, are happy with Bill Gates.
Sean
It's a shame though, because growing up, like as a kid, you looked up to him.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Guinness World Record books.
Jeremy Slate
You look at what he's done. Even with, with Rotary, he was one of the guys helping to do, you know, vaccinations and things in other countries. And now they're looking at that and saying, oh, maybe that wasn't so good. So, you know, Bill Gates has gotten a lot of heat for himself.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
And even today, as we're. We're talking about this, I know Microsoft has like the largest IT outage of all. Of all time right now. Is there. They're using CrowdStrike as a vendor and they've had a massive outage.
Sean
I think there's something sinister with that one.
Jeremy Slate
I think so. Like, to me, because this, and this is what I was talking to my friend that I was staying with when I was here to see you. Like, think about it. If we were going to get attacked by China or if China was going to go after Taiwan or something else is going to happen in the Ukraine and Russia war. You know, the President looks super weak right now. What's going to happen? A cyber attack. That would be what would happen before something major. So could be totally wrong, but that would be what would happen before something major.
Sean
I mean, for it to be out this long, it just seems sinister to me.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. Because I think so. I was supposed to be on a flight yesterday and I had actually ended up booking a second flight, but my 10pm flight was canceled at 3 yesterday.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
And I know we're talking at noon ish today and it's still going and I don't know when it's getting better.
Sean
Dude, I had three guests canceled today.
Jeremy Slate
Really?
Sean
Yeah. There's a lot of flights canceled and that's just flights. My WI fi is down at home.
Jeremy Slate
Is it really?
Sean
Yeah, because I use the panoramic WI fi and that's on Microsoft.
Jeremy Slate
Yes. My, my mother in law runs a chiropractic office and my wife was telling me actually like all the phones are out of their office right now too. It's been, it's, it's interesting because it's, it's, it's not consistently across different services, but we have a lot of error. Airplane stuff is down. We have a lot of banking stuff is down.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
There's a lot of cell technology that's down. So once again, I don't know, you know, where this goes, but to me it kind of like makes me look at what's going on.
Sean
Dude, if it lasts weeks, it could get kind of dangerous.
Jeremy Slate
I'm just hoping to be able to get home in a couple days. Man.
Sean
That's gonna affect people's livelihoods at that point. Because I'm already freaking out over a day because I use WI fi, obviously. But we'll see what happens with that. Man. You just went on Alex Jones, you said, right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
How was that?
Jeremy Slate
That was a pretty cool experience. I ended up, I was supposed to do the show with Alex, but he ended up not feeling that well that day. So I didn't get to meet him. The man's hands are like baseball mitts. He is a mountain of a man and probably one of the nicest human beings I've ever met.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
I just think right now knowing about the Roman Empire is vital. And they had ended up reaching out off of another show that I did. And I think to understand kind of where we are at the point in history, like the Roman Empire, they couldn't discuss the things this openly like we can now. So I think that's the thing that makes me hopeful kind of about where we are in history, that we can observe what's happening, we can see what's happening. We can still do something about it now. Our politicians aren't the best of us and I think that's the problem. Right. Like the changes would have to be made by the people that are in power. And so I think really it gets back to getting involved in a local level. And I think that's really all we can do right now. So it's. I was definitely grateful to have that experience and I just, I think we need to be talking about these things more.
Sean
I love it. And you believe the Roman Empire is important because history repeats itself.
Jeremy Slate
I don't know that it repeats Itself, Right. Like, I don't think it's like kind of like one of those maps at the mall where you are here. I think it's more that history rhymes. Right? A lot of the same things happen. And I think based on that, it's, if you see what they did wrong, hopefully we can react to it better because our political system is based on the Roman Republic. And if you look at as well, this goes back to a question you asked me before, and somehow I got away from it and didn't actually end up finishing answering the question. I kind of explained Julius Caesar. I see the Julius Caesar in our country being more around, like, 1913, because people say, okay, well, you know, is America a republic or is it a democracy? Well, ostensibly on paper, it's a republic. It doesn't operate like a republic. It operates like a democracy. Not that I like that, but that's how things end up going. So I see symptoms of the Republic fall, right? We see the political class fighting like they're still trying to have their own civil war. And then I see a lot of the economic things happening, which is what killed the empire. But if you look at the republic fall in America, I put that around 1913. Woodrow Wilson, probably one of our worst presidents. As someone from New Jersey, I apologize that you guys have to have him. He's not originally from New Jersey, but he was the president of Princeton. But in that time period, it's what's called the Progressive area. And the Progressive era has a major effect on even where we live now. So what happens in 1913 is the income tax amendment passes in December, right before the Christmas break. The Federal Reserve act passes and then goes into effect in 1914. And then you also have the 17th Amendment, which passes. So the 17th Amendment makes it so state legislatures no longer name who their representation is. Now it's just a popular vote. So the problem that you have with that is the Senate and the House, they serve this exact same purpose now because they're voted on by the exact same group of people. And if you look at how our framers wanted the Constitution to work, they wanted states to be able to have representation against states and the people to also have representation in their government. That's why it worked, and that's how it functioned as a functional republic. So in my opinion, we've really, Republic ended a very long time ago. And if you want to look at somebody like, you know, Woodrow Wilson being your Julius Caesar, and then maybe somebody like FDR being your Augustus, the person that starts the new thing I just think things have changed dramatically and it's been a long time since we've actually been a republic.
Sean
Interesting. Yeah. Because country is only what, 300 years. So I mean, Roman Empire, you said.
Jeremy Slate
1976 was our, was our bicentennial. So we're, we're closing on like 250 years.
Sean
50, yeah. And you said the Roman Empire lasted 700ish.
Jeremy Slate
So, so it goes from 753 to BC to 476. So like the actual Roman era is very long, but the empire period is about 503 years. And you know, I think the thing that we're seeing is technology has really sped up how we're going through things. I think it's just moving so fast because, you know, the Romans couldn't even dream about some of the things we.
Sean
Do technologically, so hopefully we can outlast.
Jeremy Slate
I would hope so. But the right reforms have to happen. And like I said, the best of us aren't in power. You know, our politicians all want to give themselves more power.
Sean
It seems like countries are catching up. Like you could debate China's past us already. I mean, it's close, right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, I wouldn't disagree on that. I think that's the problem is we don't have any industry here anymore. We, we don't really innovate as much as we'd like to. And I think as our currency loses power, we're in trouble. And that's why, once again, that's how an empire falls. Not that I like being an empire, but I feel like that's kind of where we're at.
Sean
If we're going to live anywhere, might as well be an empire.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. Once again, I don't really like that we're kind of in other people's business globally, but at the same time it gives us the best quality of life.
Sean
Right. That's true. I didn't know currency was the fall of Rome.
Jeremy Slate
So people will debate that and they'll blame it on Christianity, they'll blame it all sorts of other things. But I really, I think if you have to look at it, you have kind of minor causes and you have major causes. I think your major causes really are immigration and inflation. Because if you can fix your currency, you can fix a lot of things. But if your currency is ruined, as we're seeing now. Right. Like as our currency goes downhill, we're, we're ruining our country.
Sean
And immigration is pretty bad lately too.
Jeremy Slate
We don't even know how many people are here at this point, man.
Sean
Like, I Think thousands a day.
Jeremy Slate
That's the problem is I have no problem with people coming here the right way. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, there's a process and follow the process. But I think the problem that you have is just like in Rome, when people, you know, a lot of people are coming here now and they're getting, you know, social programs and money and things like that. And that's one of the big reasons they're coming here also for freedom, which I think is a good thing. But at the same time, they're coming into a system that they're not really bought into. You know, they haven't served in the military, they haven't, you know, voted in our taxes, they haven't voted in our elections, paid taxes. Well, I hope they haven't voted in our elections. They haven't paid taxes. So I think. And that's what you see in Rome is as it becomes less of a Roman Empire, more of a barbarian empire, it doesn't fall. It just kind of fades away. And in 476 is the often traditional fall of Rome in the West. In the east, it lasts until 1453. It's called the Byzantine Empire. But they would have called themselves Romans. When you look at it, there's the last kind of hundred years of emperors. Rome is sacked in 410 by a Visigoth named Alaric. And after that point in time, the Romans are literally just paying money to the barbarians not to attack them. Like, just please leave us alone.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
And what happens is these barbarian generals are just propping up the emperors for the last hundred years. And you have a lot of child emperors and a lot of weak emperors. The final emperor is this guy named Romulus Augustulus. He's a child emperor. And the king of the Visigoths at that point is this guy named Odoaker. And he just takes Romulus Augustus. He says, we're going to have you retire, we're going to give you a pension. You can go live over there, but you're not in charge of anything there anymore. There is no Roman Empire. And what ends up happening is the Eastern Roman Emperor, a guy named Justinian in the late 6th century, tries to basically reunite the Roman Empire. So when you hear about the Roman Empire falling, it's often because the east tries to bring it back into the West. It really had transitioned into being a barbarian empire. And there's a lot of building projects that happen early in kind of that barbarian era to preserve what Rome was. Because they liked the idea of Rome. They didn't know how to build it because they hadn't built it, but they liked the idea of what was there. It's when Justinian tries to reunite the empire that it destroys what's left of it. And that's. That's your real fall of Rome, right?
Sean
Dude, this is fascinating. I'm surprised you can retain all this. And I wonder how accurate it. Because, like, history class in school was just bs.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, no, I agree with you.
Sean
So, like, I wonder how much of this history has been either lost or mistranslated.
Jeremy Slate
I think that's part of the problem, too, is, like, you know, going back to Julius Caesar, we know a lot about his time in Gaul because he actually wrote commentaries, and he wrote them in third person, by the way. So if you want to be really entertained, it's interesting. Caesar did this and Caesar did that, and Caesar did that. It's quite interesting. But there's a lot of his writing from his time as dictator that doesn't survive. What does survive is a lot of the writings by a guy named Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero is the famous Roman writer. And he kind of goes back and forth where he's a friend of Caesar and he's not a friend of Caesar and he's a friend of Caesar, and eventually he ends up kind of in the camp of people that don't like Caesar. His writings are the ones that survive.
Sean
Got it.
Jeremy Slate
So a lot of what we believe about Julius Caesar is based on others that have written about him. And that's the same problem with the fall of the Rome. In the West. We have a lot of writing from Justinian scribes. We don't have a lot of writing from Western scribes because at that point in time, like, it had become more barbarian. There's a lot less literacy. So you just don't have the type of records you would have coming from the East. And I think, once again, it comes back to what you were talking about. Like, if we don't have the knowledge firsthand, what are we going to do? We just have somebody else's opinion.
Sean
Yeah, because when they teach history in the US it's just all our opinion.
Jeremy Slate
Well, and also, I think the problem is, too, they don't teach this at all.
Sean
Yeah, they don't teach this at all.
Jeremy Slate
This has been the most surprising thing to me is when I talk about the Roman Empire or, you know, Greek civilization or things like that, nobody knows about it. And, Sean, I will admit I've probably made 10 mistakes in this interview at some point in time. I can't do them off. Top of hand, top of head. Now, I'm not a PhD. I'm not the smartest person in every room, but I think I know enough about it to be able to make it make sense to regular people. And I think we need to learn more about these things because we're not learning in school. And that's been the biggest surprise to me, that people aren't learning these things in school.
Sean
Right. And there's that viral meme about men thinking about the Roman Empire you probably blew up during that time.
Jeremy Slate
Well, that's actually how. So what ended up happening is my wife saw that on. I'm not really on TikTok. I have somebody else that, like, manages an account for me, but my wife's like, hey, there's this thing on Tick Tock about men. Think about the Roman Empire. Like, you're actually pretty qualified to talk about that. You should do it. She's like, honey, you're relevant now. I'm like, I. I'm relevant. Thank you. So, yeah, it's. It's been interesting because for me, it is something I have thought about all the time. Right. So to be able to talk about it more and have these conversations has been pretty cool.
Sean
Yeah. There must be something there, right? Past lives or something for all these guys to be thinking about it.
Jeremy Slate
I'm a big believer we don't live more than once.
Sean
Oh, okay. That's interesting. So you have that take where it's just one and done.
Jeremy Slate
No, no, I said I don't think we live more than once.
Sean
Oh, you don't think.
Jeremy Slate
I think we do live more than once.
Sean
Oh, got it.
Jeremy Slate
Sorry about that.
Sean
Got it. Okay.
Jeremy Slate
So I think a lot of times, you know, you get kind of these bad people that keep coming back sometimes, but, you know.
Sean
Yeah, yeah, no, I could see it. I think. I think there's generational trauma and everything, so I believe in that for sure. You also went on Tim Pool.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Did you talk about the Roman Empire on that?
Jeremy Slate
Roman Empire, man. Which was. Which was a cool experience because once again, nobody's talking about the third century. And I think that's the bigger problem. You know, everybody's talking about the fall of a republic, and, you know, Donald Trump's bringing down a republic. And I think the thing that's bigger is how a civilization falls. And a civilization falls. When we lose economics, we lose our currency. So I've been talking about the crisis of third century man for the last six months, and, you know, I feel like we're starting to finally break through. And I think it's a thing we really need to take a look at.
Sean
Yeah, I love it because people think about just losing in war, but they don't think about losing on these fronts ever.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. If you overextend yourself, if you start paying for a military industrial complex too much and your money is weak, you're in a lot of trouble.
Sean
And we have the biggest military. Right. Funding wise.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. And I, I've heard some interesting viewpoints on this, too. And if you think about it like, we have military bases in the UK we have military bases in so many different countries, but they don't have military bases here. It's almost like an occupation when you think of it. And I think it's something to really consider of, like, we're spread so much around the world and you have to fund all that stuff. And I don't think, number one, I don't think we should be funding that stuff. But I think the problem is, is we're just debasing the currency more.
Sean
So you don't want to fund any overseas basis.
Jeremy Slate
I want America first, man. I want, I want to handle the borders, I want to handle the economics. I want to, you know, raise the tariffs so we can start having some production here. Because here's the problem, right? If we do handle our currency well, what's going to happen? Nothing's produced here, Right? Nothing's produced here. So if you make it more expensive to produce things outside of America, well, companies have no choice but to bring it back to America. And I think that's. We have to have industry here or we can't fix our currency because we're based fully on an information economy. Then.
Sean
And I just found out we, we do make weapons, and that's like our biggest. Yeah, right.
Jeremy Slate
It's about it. Yeah. And we just sell them all the globe.
Sean
Yeah. And it's crazy because when Trump was in office, he was anti war, but the economy was good.
Jeremy Slate
So economy was good because he had. And he did a lot with the tax structure too. Like, one of the things he had done which changed is as a business owner, you didn't pay in income tax on your first 30,000 in income, which is pretty cool. There was also higher tariffs on China and other countries like that. A lot of those things have been rolled back. So I think we really have to get to making things here. Raising tariffs, lowering taxes. I think that's really how you start to fix things. It's not going to get any better unless we handle our Currency.
Sean
I don't know any cars made here. I just found out the Tesla chip is made in China. Isn't that crazy?
Jeremy Slate
It's interesting, too, because I've heard some interesting things about Elon Musk in China as well.
Sean
I just.
Jeremy Slate
I don't know how true they are. That's. I guess that's the problem. I. I interviewed Batya Anger Sargon, who's the deputy opinion editor for Newsweek, a couple years ago, and she had talked about. If you look at Chinese social media, Elon Musk has. And once again, I haven't seen these things firsthand. This is her opinion on it.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
Elon Musk, how he's kind of America, America, America here in China. He's China, China, China. So it seems like he's somebody that economically is going to do what's best for him, and I guess that's how you get to be a billionaire capitalist.
Sean
Right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Interesting. I was very intrigued. He tweeted out after Trump's assassination attempt. He's been almost assassinated twice the past 18 months.
Jeremy Slate
Wow. He also said he's given 45 million a month for the next, you know, through the election to the Trump super pac.
Sean
And he was left his whole life, Democrat.
Jeremy Slate
Well, I think the problem, Sean, is like, the left isn't the left anymore, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't consider myself to be, like, hardcore conservative, but I feel like as the left has gone so far left, it's left everybody behind. That makes sense. And you have kind of the. How many lefts were in that statement? I think if you look at the political spectrum, it's kind of like left and everything is far right now. I think that's the real problem we have, that the political spectrum is out of control.
Sean
Yeah. Cause when I grew up. Cause I grew up left, it just seemed normal. It didn't seem this crazy. You know what I mean?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. And I think that's the thing that's interesting is a lot of my friends that I would consider to be, like, left or somehow on my side of the fence, but their views haven't changed. You know what I mean? I think that's the interesting part about it is I look at somebody like Tulsi Gabbard, I disagree with her on a lot of things, like Second Amendment and her views on taxes and things like that. But I think the thing you have to look at is we agree we like this place and we want to preserve it.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
Where I think if you look at the modern left, they say let's burn it down and let's start something new. That's a very different viewpoint on what we're doing in this country, you know?
Sean
Yeah, shout out to Tulsa. She's coming on next week.
Jeremy Slate
She. That's awesome. Lucky. I like her a lot.
Sean
Yeah, I'll. I'll text you for some questions to ask her because I'm sure you're good at that. So, Pretorian Guard. So this whole Trump thing, you said there was a link there with the Secret Service and Praetorian Guard.
Jeremy Slate
So the Praetorian Guard, they're instituted by Augustus, and they're the group that's responsible for prisoners protecting the emperor. They're basically like his personal bodyguard. It goes from Augustus until Constantine in the early three hundreds. And he actually ends up disbanding them because the major problem that you have is they're responsible for protecting the emperor. But oftentimes, whether it's through negligence or actual malice, emperors are dying under their watch. The first of which actually killed by the Praetorian Guard is Caligula. He is kind of out of control. His actual name is Gaius, but Caligula ends up being the name they give him. But because as a kid, his father, Germanicus, was a military commander. And they used to. This is kind of weird, but they used to dress him up in this, like, little kid's military uniform. And he used to have these small boots. Caligula in Latin translates to little boots.
Sean
Got it?
Jeremy Slate
Or bootikins, however you want to go with that. So the actual name Caligula, that's where it comes from. But he's so out of control as an emperor that the Praetorian Guard actually ends up knifing him to death.
Sean
Damn.
Jeremy Slate
And his wife and his child, and they name his uncle Claudius, who's the next closest related to the family, to be the next emperor. And you have various points of this throughout history. You have Caracalla, who's emperor in, like the 210s. He actually, in 212, takes 30 million people that are in the Roman provinces and gives them citizenship overnight.
Sean
Wow. 30 million.
Jeremy Slate
30 million. So one of the. But he's actually killed by the Praetorian Guard. He gets off his horse while he's on campaign to take a piss, and they end up knifing him to death. Same thing happens with aurelian in the 270s. He's one of the guys that actually reunites the east and west for a period of time because the Roman Empire had a tendency to Break in the middle because it just got so big. So he reunites the Empire, but once again gets off his horse, take a piss, gets killed by the Praetorian Guard. Praetorian Guard also kills Commodus. They try to kill him twice. They finally succeed in the second time. But out of the. I think there's 77 emperors in the Roman Empire. There's all sorts of other claimants. So, like, that number could be different, depending what you're looking at. Thirteen of those are actually killed by the Praetorian Guard, and they're the people actually charged with protecting the Emperor. So now, if you want to look at what's happened with Trump in the last week or so, once again, I don't know when you're publishing this episode, but, like, in the last week or so, when we're talking, you look at it and you say, okay, maybe they didn't do it, but at the same time, how did that many things go wrong, man? How does some guy with a ladder get to the single roof that's uncovered? Apparently go up it twice at two different points in the day, crawl up it with a rifle while the SWAT team is actually inside the building underneath him. How does that happen? Except if there's either some sort of involvement or they let it happen? That's my major concern is, did they let it happen? Because at the same time, if you don't stop something, maybe just because you didn't do it, but if you don't stop something, it also allows it to happen. They lost this guy for like a half an hour, and then they find him again. He managed to get back on that roof, and then they only find him because people are yelling about it. So to me, that just raises a lot of concerns. Where is the Secret Service actually protecting Trump? Or once again, maybe they didn't do it, but are they going to leave the window open? So maybe something happens because they'd like somebody else to be in power.
Sean
So I wonder who was influencing those guards to make those decisions.
Jeremy Slate
So what ends up happening for a lot of them is they're the most elite unit of the. The Roman soldiers, the Roman legions. And what ends up happening is initially they had the idea of they want to protect and save the. The empire of the Republic at that point in time. Later it becomes, well, who's going to give me the most money? Who do I want in charge? And that's. That's how corruption goes. Corruption goes by who is going to give me the most.
Sean
Got it. So they got bribed A lot of.
Jeremy Slate
Them, they get bribed and they want the right guy in charge who's going to give them more. Right. Like, who's going to be better. To me as a military commander, and.
Sean
I could see that happening modern day too.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. Because the word emperor doesn't come like the original name of what the emperor was called. Because once again, Augustus is brilliant, is princeps first citizen. It's where we get our word prince from. Because they didn't want to use the word king, they didn't want to use anything else. The actual guy who's in charge of the military is the Imperator. So that's where our word emperor comes from. So that the Emperor is actually tied very closely to the military. And that is why, you know, the Praetorian Guard is tied in so tight. And also later on, when generals are declared Emperor by their troops, you have, you know, that whole situation happening.
Sean
Yeah, because 20% pretty much murder rate for their guards to kill their, their emperor.
Jeremy Slate
I didn't do the math on that. That's pretty significant.
Sean
13 out of 77. I mean, that's about 20%, right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
That's pretty crazy.
Jeremy Slate
It is pretty crazy. And it's. There's a lot of them, if you want to look at the list of it and how they die. If you want to look back at Commodus once again, they try to kill him twice because he wanted to be a gladiator more than he wanted to be. The movie's totally wrong, by the way, but.
Sean
Oh, that's what the movie was off of.
Jeremy Slate
It's the Joaquin Phoenix character supposed to be Commodus.
Sean
Got it.
Jeremy Slate
But he would often dress up as Alexander the Great or as Hercules. And he would try to fight in the arena, but he would often do it from the platform because nobody can hurt you from up there. So you can shoot from above him and all those things. And he just didn't do a great job in actually running the Empire. So what ends up happening is the Praetorian Guard conspire with his wife, which is, you know, consider that you're married to her and apparently she doesn't like you. They conspire to poison him. So what they end up doing is they get him so drunk that he actually throws up the poison.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
So the first attempt doesn't work. The second one is they actually hire a wrestler to strangle him to death. And that's what ends up being how Commodus dies. He gets strangled to death by a wrestler.
Sean
Damn.
Jeremy Slate
But from the bidding of the Praetorian Guard.
Sean
I didn't know wrestling was around back then.
Jeremy Slate
And the Praetorian prefect, who's the guy in charge of the Praetorian Guard, is actually named the next emperor after that.
Sean
Who's your personal favorite emperor?
Jeremy Slate
Personal favorite emperor out of the 77. I like Hadrian a lot.
Sean
I haven't heard that one.
Jeremy Slate
So Hadrian, he's one of the five good emperors. As I've mentioned, I'm a huge fan of Greek culture and a lot of. Because there's a lot of learning. And once again, I'm obsessed with Alexander the Great. So the Hellenization of Rome actually happens during his time as the Roman emperor. So that's. That's a big part of it. He also. Which is sad, but it's because it's also part of the downfall of Rome. But he also is the one that stops the conquest of basically going further. He builds a lot of the. The walls in Britain and places like that. And the empire is right before him under Trajan in 117. It's at its largest, but it's at its most prosperous under Hadrian. So he was, in my opinion, one of the best rulers.
Sean
Nice. What about U.S. presidents?
Jeremy Slate
U.S. presidents, that's a tougher one. I feel like it's a tough one because, like, if you like, it's tough because a lot of them kind of take us further away from what I want things to be. I read a really great book by David McCullough called Washington about George Washington, and the guy didn't want the job, but he was excellent at it. And to me, I think he's kind of the best in the kind of what you could be as a. As a president. No one's really ever lived up to that since.
Sean
Wow. The first president.
Jeremy Slate
First president. Everybody's been trying to live up to that since. And I just, I don't think anybody's really done that great of a job.
Sean
Dang.
Jeremy Slate
I'm a big fan of a lot of what Trump has done, but once again, he's been undercut where he couldn't really get the job done in some ways, too, by, you know, the intelligence agencies, by the FBI, by, you know, he's the you're fired guy. But he's made a lot of bad staffing picks in the first time around. So if he wins again, I hope those things would be better. And maybe he's got a second shot at it.
Sean
Yeah, maybe he can overtake George Washington.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, I don't know about that. He Would love to hear that, though. I don't know about that, though.
Sean
Where do you rank rfk? You got him high up there.
Jeremy Slate
Robert F. Kennedy or.
Sean
No, not. Or jfk.
Jeremy Slate
Sorry, jfk. So I think JFK had the idea to do a lot of good things, but the problem is, you know, he's killed three years in. Right. And he doesn't get to end up going for reelection. One of the things he wanted to do is he wanted to defund the CIA.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
He wanted to get us back on a. I think it was a silver currency, or he wanted at least get us back on hard currency. So I think he had a lot of good ideas, but how quickly he was killed and a lot of those off. I think that's the issue.
Sean
I saw your most viewed podcast was about trying to figure out who killed him.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. It was Roger Stone.
Sean
Yeah. Did you get convinced in any particular way?
Jeremy Slate
I think Lyndon Bain Johnson is kind of the biggest guy you could see, is that that's what Roger Stone makes the case for.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
Because if you look at it, it's really a collaboration of groups that caused the JFK assassination. Once again, I'm not the world's biggest JFK expert. Roger knows a lot more than I do. But this is. From what he's talked about. The FBI didn't like him. You have the Mafia didn't like him because he had turned to the Mafia. They likely helped him get elected. And you have also. The Communists didn't like him, too. And so the best person to be there is lbj, because he kind of unites all these groups. Right. And he wanted to be a powerful guy. And if you read about lbj, he's kind of a interestingly weird dude. Like, he used to. He wanted to degrade reporters, so he'd make him. Make them interview him while he was taking a crap.
Sean
What?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. He was notorious for having reporters interview him while he was on the toilet.
Sean
Oh, I didn't know that.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. And he was a philanderer, too. He was going around on his wife, Lady Bird a lot.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
So he's a very corrupt dude. And the issue was the Senate was about to bring him up on corruption charges and do an investigation. So what do you do? You get rid of the President. You get rid of anything else that's going to cause that problem.
Sean
Pardon yourself.
Jeremy Slate
So, like, yeah, it's. I think it's a convenience thing. I don't think, you know, he was planning the whole thing, but I think these three groups united with him as the right guy. Make it all work. So do I think he was out there giving orders? No, but I think he has the most to gain from it.
Sean
I wonder if Trump will, if he gets elected, will release those documents ever.
Jeremy Slate
I hope so. I really hope so, because they've held back the last percentage of what's in there. And I think we really need to know about it. Right. I think we need to know, you know, what is, in my opinion, our intelligence agencies doing. I think that's the bigger problem.
Sean
Absolutely. And the 911 documents, I really want to see those have.
Jeremy Slate
They haven't really sold us.
Sean
I think they released some. Right. But not all of them.
Jeremy Slate
Well, they released some stuff recently. I didn't know they were still holding more back. Related to. Apparently they were casing some Saudis a few months before 911 actually happened.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
There's also a lot of, like, the Defense Department lost. Was it 2 trillion or $2 billion? I can't remember the exact.
Sean
Crazy.
Jeremy Slate
Some big amount. Like, on September 10th, they couldn't account for it. So there's a lot of things around it that you're just like, we need to know more information.
Sean
Did you see the passport thing recently, too?
Jeremy Slate
Was that.
Sean
So the passports they found of the terrorists? Yeah, they found. The guys were actually alive recently.
Jeremy Slate
Really?
Sean
Yeah. You didn't see that?
Jeremy Slate
I did not see that.
Sean
Yeah. So they're alive.
Jeremy Slate
I got to watch whatever news you're watching, man. Twitter. Twitter's first of my time, so I don't know how I'm missing this.
Sean
Yeah, I'll send you it. Twitter, I feel like, is the most authentic right now.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. I don't watch any news channels. I'm often, like, searching on there, looking for. I have kind of my sources that I like a lot. I like. Kyle Becker is great. I'm watching what Jack Posobic says a lot. Breitbart does some good stuff on there, so I'm often following those accounts that I like a lot to see what they're talking about.
Sean
Yeah, Twitter and Rumble for me. Like, when the assassination happened, I was on a Twitter live with Mario in the fall. He had a bunch of good guys on there, and that felt just so. More authentic than watching the news.
Jeremy Slate
I was in the middle of the woods, so I had no cell service. I was camping with my family. Wow.
Sean
So you came home to that.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, well, no, I was. I. I could get, like, text messages, but I couldn't get, like, anything else. So I got, like, the text from my craziest friend first. And I'm like, yeah, okay. Yeah. He thinks there's some sort of a plan, and Trump's doing blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I don't think so.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
And then I started getting texts from more people and, like, okay, something's actually happening here. Like, I initially didn't believe it because of, you know. You know where it came from.
Sean
Yeah. Crazy times, man. You also interviewed a White House chef.
Jeremy Slate
I did, yeah.
Sean
Was that Obama chef?
Jeremy Slate
So he was actually the chef for Obama, George W. Bush, and then also for part of. Part of Trump's term.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Was that the one that ended up getting killed or.
Jeremy Slate
No, no, that was a suit. That was like a sous chef. I don't even know if he worked with this guy.
Sean
That was a weird situation.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. You don't want to go apparently wakeboarding with the Clintons. The Obamas, man. You may not come back from it.
Sean
Dude, that's like, some mafia stuff.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. You want to Google the Clinton body count, you're gonna find some interesting stuff. People in the. The Clinton and Obama.
Sean
Over 100, right?
Jeremy Slate
Is that what it's at?
Sean
I mean, not directly, but, like, indirectly. Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. That's why the. The joke is every time somebody dies, they. They put up a meme of Hillary Clinton with, like, a mustache or something like that.
Sean
Dude, it's crazy. Her and Soros, what a source isn't.
Jeremy Slate
Really killing people, but he's putting money behind cover of the right people. District attorneys has been his big thing recently, because he realizes if he can subvert the law, he can. He can change a lot of things.
Sean
But did you see the DJT short recently?
Jeremy Slate
I did, and that came out of a company out of Austin, as far.
Sean
As I know Soros.
Jeremy Slate
Do we know who's trading it?
Sean
Soros is a backer.
Jeremy Slate
Okay.
Sean
Yeah. And there's a few other big ones.
Jeremy Slate
So which one? George or Alex?
Sean
George.
Jeremy Slate
George.
Sean
Yeah. I mean, what are the odds?
Jeremy Slate
I'm surprised that that demon's still alive, man. He's almost 100.
Sean
He's still fighting, man. God damn. He must be taking something.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, go figure.
Sean
Yeah, there's a lot of conspiracies on him. I mean.
Jeremy Slate
Well, he's an interesting guy because I often compare him a lot to a guy in the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic called Marcus Crassus. Marcus Crassus was the richest man in Rome. And what he would do is he had gotten it initially by starting a firefighting company, but there was often thoughts that he was the one starting the fires he was fighting, so. But he was the richest one in Rome, and he was backing a lot of these different people, and he was actually the money behind Caesar. So it's, you know, the kind of. The more times change, the more they say the same.
Sean
Yeah, absolutely. Do you believe a reformer like Diocletian could emerge this year or next year?
Jeremy Slate
I've often hoped that Trump could. And there's good things about Diocletian and bad things about Diocletian. Like, the good things are monetary reforms. He tries to take and split the empire into four, but kind of still under one emperor. And it's similar to what our 10th amendment does. Right. We've gotten too federal. We don't really operate on states rights anymore. And we really need to get back to that, because states are supposed to be more powerful than the federal government, but that's not the case.
Sean
Wow, I didn't know that.
Jeremy Slate
Well, that's the way we originally. Originally like a confederation. Then after that, we became more of a federalist system. But the states are supposed to have more power, but they've been giving all of their power to the federal government. That's what I've been seeing. The Department of Education isn't constitutional. Like, a lot of these things shouldn't actually be things. If we actually went by our Constitution and what it means. But we've given so much power to. Sorry, I keep kicking you. We've given too much power into the federal government. I think that's the real problem. So I've hoped that Trump could be somebody like that. But the things that have to happen is we have to get back on hard currency. We have to get back on producing more things here, which is trade tariffs, and then we have to stop funding foreign wars. I think that's the biggest problem, is we're spending. If you take a look, if you pulled up, like, the amount of aid that we spend to other countries, like, that is why the US Dollar is so dominant, because we give our dollar to so many different countries. We give money to Pakistan, we give money to Afghanistan. We give money to, you know, North Korea or South Korea. Not North Korea, but we. We're giving money all over that. We still have troops in South Korea. So it's like we are spread all over the place planet. And I think unless we start to solve our situation at home, which includes solving education, like I. Those are things I would hope Donald Trump would do in a second term. But, you know, once again, he has to pick the right people. He picked the swamp last time.
Sean
Yeah. He's also going after big Pharma. Which I like.
Jeremy Slate
I do too. I think pharma is a huge problem. Right? Like pharma is a huge, huge problem.
Sean
Massive problem. I mean, that and education, those two are probably the biggest affecting our kids, I'd say right now.
Jeremy Slate
Well, yeah, because education, it's become. It's become marks, if I think it's the biggest problem. There's this guy. Well, he's dead now, but he was a Brazilian philosopher named Paulo Ferreri. And James Lindsay talks a lot about this. If you want to know about this, check out James Lindsay. He's conceptual. James on X. But what this philosopher did is his philosophy came to America in the 80s through colleges of education. And that's where a lot of your wokeism comes from. They were doing critical consciousness is how they talk about different subjects and it's happened how we look at history and it's happened how we look at math and it's happened how we look at all these different things is we have critical consciousness on how we look at things rather than learning how to actually do them. So Ferrari's education has ruined our colleges of education, which is then comes down to who's being our teachers.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
So we have to get those things out of our schools if we're actually going to have kids, be competitive again. I think that's the biggest problem is we're more interested in kind of socially how we look and feel about things rather than just kind of solving our situation.
Sean
Absolutely. So how do you think schools can fix that issue?
Jeremy Slate
So schools need to go back to the states. Department of Education isn't constitutional.
Sean
But get rid of the Department of.
Jeremy Slate
Education doesn't need to exist. It spends a lot of money. Most of it is in student loans anyway. If we get rid of that and have states start putting their own curriculum together, I think that's the way it needs to be.
Sean
So private schools.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, because then the state of Florida could do what they want and you know, the state of Nebraska could do what they want.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
And I think then you're actually back on a system where people are voting for what they want rather than, you know, a governing body do that. Are you familiar with. There was a Supreme Court case that went through about three weeks ago, Chevron deference.
Sean
No, I haven't heard of that.
Jeremy Slate
So Chevron's an oil company and I think this is about 35 years ago at this point in time. This is how a lot of these agencies started popping up. Where typically Congress would have to go over things if you want regulations, but in chevron deference about 35 years ago, that's where the EPA is allowed to regulate things. That's where Department of Energy is able to regulate things. It was given this power by this Supreme Court decision. Well, about three weeks ago, that was overturned. So what would mean, you know, once again, there's going to be so many court cases on this of, you know, trying to reverse things that have already happened. The Congress is going to have to legislate again. You're not going to have these smaller departments that are giving orders, like the Department of Education. So I think to me. So that's good if people need to research Severin Deference and like, what it means for kind of where we're at once again, I'm not the biggest. World's biggest legal expert, but it's a kind of a monumental case for handling a lot of these people that you don't vote for that are deciding what to get to do with your life.
Sean
Dude, that's exciting because I remember school and it was just I hated it. And I thought I hated learning because of it. But then when I graduated and started learning about shit I cared about, it was awesome. Similar how you were in college, probably. Right?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. Well. And I think that's the biggest thing, man, is like, we want people to be educated to pass a test. And I think it needs to be. You need to be educated for two different reasons. Number one, how is this applicable in my life and how useful is this to me? And if it doesn't make economic sense or it's not useful. Right. Like, it doesn't exactly make economic sense to get a degree in the Roman Empire, but it's useful. Right. Because it's useful in a lot of ways that I'm able to look at things differently. So I think really that's how we need to look at our knowledge. And not everybody needs to go to college, but I think we've been sending everybody to college.
Sean
Yep.
Jeremy Slate
And the problem is the student loan bubbles. Next one's going to pop. Like, that's the next thing that's going to go.
Sean
You think so it's a lot of.
Jeremy Slate
The financial guys I've been talking to are saying that's the next one. Because you have a lot of people that are years behind on these loans or, you know, they're in default and there's nobody to pay it. So you have. The White House is saying, we can forgive it. The Supreme Court was saying, well, no, you can't. And the White House is saying, I don't care. We're Gonna do it anyway. So it's. It's a big issue right now because I believe there's more student loan debt than unsecured credit card debt. And that's a huge problem.
Sean
Huge. Yeah. My girl went to Seton Hall. I know you went there. Isn't that one like 70k a year?
Jeremy Slate
So I was a commuter, so I think it was like 30 for me.
Sean
Which is still crazy.
Jeremy Slate
I had scholarships for undergrads, so I don't know how much I actually ended up paying. Most of my loans were for grad school.
Sean
Oh, got it. Yes. I think when she went, which was five years ago, was 6.70k a year.
Jeremy Slate
That's insane. So I graduated, graduated 2012 from. From grad school. So 2009 from undergrad. And I. I don't think I had broken 30,000 yet. Wow. It's 70. But did she live there?
Sean
Yeah, that's including everything.
Jeremy Slate
Okay. So I, I was just commuting, man.
Sean
Okay. Like, so I think if you live there, probably 40ish.
Jeremy Slate
Okay. That's still a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of money.
Sean
It's nuts, dude. Holy crap. I mean, Rutgers is going up every year. I remember when my brothers went, it was like 15, 20. When I went, it was like 25 and I was in state.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. Yeah.
Sean
So outstate it might be like 40, I don't know.
Jeremy Slate
And it's insane too, because you look at it and, you know, a better system would be taking a look at like, okay, if you're going to do that, maybe instead of giving somebody the money up front, you have them put some money up up front because they have to have some skin in the game. And then maybe they take a percentage of your income five years out of school.
Sean
Right.
Jeremy Slate
So then at least if you have to be able to do something when you graduate, agree, that's the bigger.
Sean
I would love that set up.
Jeremy Slate
Right. Because you can't do nothing up front because then there's no skin in the game and people have a reason to just drop out and do whatever. But I think if you had that, it would be good. But also, like, we need more trade schools. I think that's the biggest problem is right now we have a shortage in trades.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
I don't know if you follow Roger Wakefield.
Sean
I don't.
Jeremy Slate
He's the biggest plumber on YouTube.
Sean
Really.
Jeremy Slate
And he's doing a lot for. For trades right now. And you know, you can make great money three years out of school in the trades. Like you can make 60, $70,000 doing that, but People don't want to do them because they're dirty jobs.
Sean
Yeah. Shout out to plumbers, man. I just paid mine a lot.
Jeremy Slate
I'll tell you what, man. Lack of plumbing is what caused the Black Plague. So if you want to. It's. It's important for sanitation. It really is.
Sean
Wow.
Jeremy Slate
And it's. It's good money for people that are competent at it. Damn.
Sean
I didn't know that's what the Black Plague started from.
Jeremy Slate
Lack of sanitation.
Sean
Holy crap.
Jeremy Slate
Lack of good sanitation.
Sean
I don't think a disease like that could happen again. Right? Could in the U.S. could.
Jeremy Slate
We had a pandemic, so I don't see why other things you could do in a whole other podcast and that. That might not be fit for YouTube.
Sean
Yeah, I don't want to get banned on that one. I already got two strikes talking about that.
Jeremy Slate
Do you really?
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll stay away from that.
Sean
I came off one last week.
Jeremy Slate
I got a strike after I interviewed a former State Department official about who exactly rules the world. And we went into this whole thing about a number of different groups that I won't name here, and we got a pretty solid strike, and now we got a shadow ban on YouTube, which is really fun.
Sean
I'm a little nervous for my interview with Nick Fuentes, because I know it's.
Jeremy Slate
You're doing that.
Sean
I know it's important.
Jeremy Slate
Did you already do it or.
Sean
No, no, but he said he wants to. Come on.
Jeremy Slate
Okay.
Sean
But I think I might not post it on YouTube.
Jeremy Slate
I wouldn't have.
Sean
Just to be safe.
Jeremy Slate
Are you guys on Rumble or.
Sean
No, we're on Rumble, so I think I'll post it there in Twitter. I don't know if Elon will allow that, but, like, I've.
Jeremy Slate
I've interviewed, like, Peter McCullough and a lot of guys like that around. Like, an event that we all experienced four years ago that I'll leave unnamed.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
And I left those all on Rumble because I just. I don't feel safe putting them on YouTube.
Sean
That's what I mean. I don't want to get the whole channel deleted.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people who are like, oh, you have to put it up there, and you have to fight the. The cancel culture. And it's like, at the same time, use it for what it's worth. You know? Use it to help new people find your content, and they just realize what you can use where. And I think you can't win a culture war if you don't have A way to talk.
Sean
Right. Yeah. That's why I'm willing to have on just about anyone. And a lot of people disagree with that, but I think it's important to at least hear what they have to say.
Jeremy Slate
You just know where you publish it, and I think you're safer.
Sean
Yeah. Like I would have Alex Jones on, and that's a controversial one.
Jeremy Slate
Just can't put it on YouTube.
Sean
Can't put it on YouTube. Just Twitter and Rumble.
Jeremy Slate
So we reposted my. Because he posts everything on band video. We put it up on YouTube and literally he's not even in the interview. But it's his show, so I pulled it down.
Sean
Damn. That's crazy. Didn't they raid? He said the FBI was going to raid him like a couple weeks ago.
Jeremy Slate
So what ended up happening with that whole situation is they have like, basically the court put somebody in charge of his office because how it works. Because they want to make sure the settlement money actually comes in.
Sean
Yeah, but he can't even settle for that.
Jeremy Slate
Not for the amount. They want $1.5 billion, whatever it is. And I think they said he has like 10 million in assets. So there was some sort of disagreement between him and this person. So they were going to basically send people in to seize it. They ended up not doing that. And for the moment, they had a court case on June 14th. And for the moment, Infowars is still open and operating. And, you know, they said they're not going to seize all of his assets. I guess we'll see where this goes.
Sean
That sucks, man.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
Like his whole livelihood.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. And it's. You know, he's been really right sometimes and he's been really wrong sometimes. But I think the. The problem is we can't go after people for their speech because we have to be able to talk about these things. You're going to make some mistakes sometimes, and I think that's what you have to. You know, he was willing to apologize for those mistakes after they happen. But mistakes are going to happen when you're trying to be first to a story.
Sean
Yeah. I would have understood the settlement if it was a lesser dollar amount.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah.
Sean
But 1.5 billion was just.
Jeremy Slate
It's basically. Let's unperson him.
Sean
Yeah.
Jeremy Slate
You know what I mean? Because you can't come back from that.
Sean
Yeah. That's absurd. Those families will never make anything close to that.
Jeremy Slate
Correct.
Sean
Like, how did they even come up with that number?
Jeremy Slate
I don't know. To be honest, I didn't follow the case close enough.
Sean
Nuts, man. Shout out To Alex. Hopefully he gets through that, man. I think what he's doing is super important.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, I agree.
Sean
But he's saying this. This Trump thing is going to. They're going to try to kill him again. And that. That worries me.
Jeremy Slate
Well, so the last thing I heard from him is he thinks they're going to use this as a reason to have somebody go after Biden and then blame it. Blame it on a Trump support. I watched something on Saturday that he had put out about it.
Sean
Okay, so maybe he's changed his opinion. When I heard him right after happened, he said they might poison him or try to kill him again.
Jeremy Slate
I don't know. I just. So the security at the RNC was the highest I've ever seen.
Sean
Oh, I saw videos.
Jeremy Slate
It was insane.
Sean
You probably got patted down.
Jeremy Slate
Patted down? I got patted down twice. I took away my lighter, man. I just had cigars. They took away my lighter. I'm like, what am I. It's a. What am I going to do with my lighter? But, yeah, it was. It was pretty extreme. They were so in the perimeter around it, they. Had you ever seen those barriers that, like, go up and down and they, like, search your car?
Sean
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Slate
They were getting everybody out of their car. Uber drivers, everybody checking everything out of the hood, backseat. Holy crap. Every vehicle that came in. So I had a couple really angry drivers because I had asked for a ride and they weren't very happy with me afterwards. So I hope I didn't get any bad ratings. So that was kind of the first area getting in there. Then once you're in there, they had Secret Service, Homeland Security, the Army.
Sean
Geez.
Jeremy Slate
Here's a weird one. Park rangers with their little park ranger hat on. Yeah. They also had each state sent either people from a major city or they sent, like, there was like 25 New Jersey state Police there that I saw.
Sean
Holy crap.
Jeremy Slate
So, like, there was, I think 4,500 law enforcement was the number I was giving.
Sean
Damn.
Jeremy Slate
So it was. They were in packs, man. So I. I don't think anything was happening there.
Sean
Yeah. That's intense. Holy crap. Well, Jeremy, it's been fun. Where can people find you and what you got coming up, man?
Jeremy Slate
Yeah. So I'm Jeremy Ryan, Slate on X. And they can find me either at Jeremy Ryan slate.com or if they're interested. Interested on what we do for business. I run a PR agency that focuses just on podcasts. It's over in commandyourbrain.com.
Sean
Cool. We'll link below. Thanks for coming on, man.
Jeremy Slate
Yeah, Absolutely. Thanks.
Sean
Yeah. Thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you tomorrow.
Digital Social Hour: Avoid This Financial Trap: Inflation's Hidden Dangers | Jeremy Slate DSH #853
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Jeremy Slate
Release Date: November 2, 2024
[00:00]
Sean Kelly welcomes Jeremy Slate, who shares his recent experience at the Republican National Convention (RNC). Jeremy highlights a significant shift within the Republican Party from its traditional hardcore conservative base to a more libertarian-leaning stance.
Jeremy Slate: "The Republican party's changed a lot, and I think it's become less of the hardcore conservative right and more libertarian leaning, which I think to me is cool." [00:30]
Jeremy provides insight into his roots in northwest New Jersey, describing his current life on five acres with livestock and emphasizing the stark political differences within the state. He discusses the impact of redistricting, which has altered congressional representation, making his area more "Trump country."
Jeremy Slate: "Where I live now, really, it's been Trump country, man." [01:52]
Jeremy expresses skepticism about Michelle Obama's disavowal of power, suggesting that the Obama family has exerted significant influence over the Biden administration. He theorizes that Michelle Obama could become a central political figure if Joe Biden withdraws from the presidency.
Jeremy Slate: "Michelle Obama saying that she doesn't want power. I really don't believe that. The Obamas seem to enjoy power." [02:54]
A substantial portion of the episode delves into an extensive comparison between the decline of the Roman Empire and potential future challenges for the United States. Jeremy outlines key factors that led to Rome's fall, primarily focusing on rampant inflation and uncontrolled immigration.
Jeremy Slate: "The major problem with the Roman Empire was inflation and immigration. By 284 AD, they were experiencing 15,000% inflation." [12:13]
He draws parallels to contemporary issues, warning that without monetary reforms and controlled immigration, the U.S. could face similar systemic failures.
Jeremy Slate: "Eventually, eventually... we're moving that wave really quickly. We have spent money we don't have, so something's going to give." [15:46]
Jeremy discusses the necessity of returning to a hard currency standard, such as gold, to stabilize the U.S. dollar and curb inflation. He criticizes the abandonment of the gold standard in the 1970s, linking it to current economic vulnerabilities.
Jeremy Slate: "Our currency is moving really fast because we didn't have the financial tools they had... if we're going to fix it, we have to get back on a gold standard or something like that." [16:48]
Examining the military-industrial complex, Jeremy argues that excessive overseas military spending and entanglements drain financial resources and contribute to economic instability. He advocates for an "America first" approach, emphasizing border control, tariffs to boost domestic production, and reducing foreign military commitments.
Jeremy Slate: "I want America first, man. I want to handle the borders, I want to handle the economics." [31:24]
Jeremy critiques the current education system, attributing widespread issues to the influence of philosopher Paulo Freire and the rise of "wokeism" in curricula. He advocates for decentralizing education control to the states and promoting trade schools to alleviate the student loan crisis.
Jeremy Slate: "We have to get those things out of our schools if we're actually going to have kids be competitive again." [50:37]
He highlights the unsustainable nature of student loan debt, surpassing unsecured credit card debt, and underscores the need for systemic reforms.
Jeremy Slate: "We have more student loan debt than unsecured credit card debt. And that's a huge problem." [53:23]
The conversation shifts to various conspiracy theories, including claims about Bill Gates, the Clinton family, and the influence of figures like George Soros. Jeremy draws historical analogies, comparing modern-day financiers to Roman figures like Marcus Crassus, who wielded significant power behind the scenes.
Jeremy Slate: "Marcus Crassus was the richest man in Rome... he's the money behind Caesar." [47:08]
He also discusses the JFK assassination theories, suggesting involvement from figures like Lyndon B. Johnson, based on arguments presented by Roger Stone.
Jeremy Slate: "I think Lyndon B. Johnson is the biggest guy you could see for the JFK assassination." [42:25]
Jeremy draws parallels between the ancient Praetorian Guard and the modern Secret Service, expressing concerns about their effectiveness in protecting political figures like Donald Trump. He speculates on possible internal corruption and failures that could lead to security breaches.
Jeremy Slate: "The Praetorian Guard was responsible for protecting the emperor, but 20% were killed by them." [39:03]
This analogy extends to recent events where Jeremy questions the security measures at the RNC, noting extensive security presence and potential vulnerabilities.
In concluding the episode, Jeremy emphasizes the importance of understanding historical contexts to prevent repeating past mistakes. He encourages listeners to engage locally and remain informed about political and economic developments.
Jeremy Slate: "We need to be talking about these things more... understanding the Roman Empire is vital." [20:18]
He invites listeners to connect with him through his website and social media platforms for further discussions and insights.
Jeremy Slate: "You can find me at Jeremy Ryanslate.com." [60:10]
Jeremy Slate on Republican Shift: "The Republican party's changed a lot... more libertarian leaning, which I think to me is cool." [00:30]
On the Roman Empire's Fall: "By 284 AD, they were experiencing 15,000% inflation." [12:13]
Currency Reform Advocacy: "If we're going to fix it, we have to get back on a gold standard or something like that." [16:48]
Education System Critique: "We have to get those things out of our schools if we're actually going to have kids be competitive again." [50:37]
Conspiracy Theory Comparison: "Marcus Crassus was the richest man in Rome... he's the money behind Caesar." [47:08]
In this episode of "Digital Social Hour," Jeremy Slate offers a comprehensive analysis of current economic and political challenges facing the United States by drawing parallels with the decline of the Roman Empire. Through historical context, he underscores the dangers of unchecked inflation and immigration while advocating for monetary reforms, educational restructuring, and a more localized political approach. His discussions on conspiracy theories and security concerns add a layer of depth, encouraging listeners to critically evaluate the forces shaping modern governance and economic stability.
Connect with Jeremy Slate: