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What really happened at Davos this year? What is going on with the World Economic Forum nowadays? Today's guest, Justin Haskins, is going to break down everything that's happening that did not make the headlines. This is one of your favorite guests, and I think this is going to be one of your favorite conversations. We've got so much on today's episode of Relatable. Justin, welcome back.
B
Yeah, it's great to be here. It's been a while.
A
It has been a while. But we always have to bring you on after Davos happens to kind of break down. All right, what went on and what did we miss? When we talked right before the election, we talked about that law in Europe that was going to be passed that would have a huge impact on all industries, all companies, pretty much both here and abroad. And Trump kind of stood in the way of that law, law taking effect here in the United States. Do you have an update for us? This is a big question really about the whole global reset that we've been talking about for five years, that you've been talking about for longer than that.
B
So the law you're referring to is called the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the csddd. It's basically a global social credit score ESG system where there's the European Union is using. They're saying if you want to do any kind of business at all in the European Union, you have to everywhere in the world have our ESG scores, our social credit scores, adopt our European values. That was the idea behind it and it was a really terrible thing. And if Biden had been president or Kamala Harris, that would have continued on and we would have been in a really bad situation because corporations would have been slowly moving toward pushing our society toward European values. And most people wouldn't really understand why. But the reason why is because if you want to do any kind of business at all with Europe, you have to not only do it for yourself, but you have to do it throughout most of your supply chain. So all the other businesses you work with also have to adopt these European values. So if you're Walmart or some big gigantic corporation and you contract with a farmer in Kansas who has nothing to do with Europe at all, you still have to force that farmer to adopt European values in order for you, you, Walmart, to do business in Europe, that's the genius of the model, forces everyone to be like Europe. And what Trump did is when he came in, as part of his negotiating his negotiations about trade deals is he just flat out said like, we're not doing this. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board because there's no way we're going to adopt this. And if you try to impose it on us, then we're going to impose tariffs on you and it's going to be disaster for you. So they panicked and almost immediately after him becoming president and saying these things, started peeling parts of it back, they delayed it. Now they're talking about gutting a lot of it. And it was some of the more liberal people in the European Union, actually like the Prime Minister of France and stuff, saying, yeah, we're gonna have to completely change this. So he had a tremendous impact. It's not totally gone and they could easily just bring it right back back. And they haven't repealed it, really. They're just sort of delaying it and waiting and trying to work with Trump on a deal that he'll accept. So it's still a long term problem, but it is in a much better situation now because of Trump and his pushback on it. Yeah, so that's a really good thing as far as just sort of wokeism within corporations and sort of the great reset plan of public private partnerships pushing everybody towards that. In one sense, it's taken a massive hit. Obviously, you know, seen it, you talk about it all the time, so there's no question about that. On the other hand, when you pay attention to what they're saying at Davos, you pay really close attention to it and you don't just look at headlines and buzzwords. It's pretty clear that the plan is still the plan. Yeah, they just are really careful about how they go about doing it because they're afraid of some Trump backlash from it, frankly.
A
Well, 2020, obviously they pushed too far. We didn't see the results that until after 2020. Obviously the push worked to get Biden in office in November of 2020, but I think once we kind of woke up from that stupor of 2020, a lot of us never fell asleep, but a lot of people did. People realized, oh, I don't like that. Like, I don't like the government having that much control over my life, how I breathe, how I move. Also these companies like Target pushing for the transient of kids. Okay. Like, we went way past love and it was just too much, too fast. And it made a lot of people turn around to go the exact opposite direction. Which is why I was in Southern California this June, Pride Month. I walked into two different targets, saw zero rainbows and all fourth of July stuff. So they do respond. Even though these huge companies that are woke, like blackrock, have a lot of power there, the consumer still does have power. Obviously, Trump got elected, so that means we stu. We do still have power. But what you're saying is it's not like these people at Davos, like the Alex Soroses and some of these other world leaders are saying, oh, okay, I'm not progressive anymore. And I don't. You do you. They're recalibrating and they're restrategizing. Quick pause to tell you about our first sponsor for the day, and that is We Heart Nutrition. I love We Heart Nutrition. I take their supplements every day. Their prenatals, their magnesium, their omega 3s. They're iron. They've got a new probiotic supplement that I really like. Also, when I'm starting to feel down for the count, I always take their immunity supplement. And y', all, I really believe this is the supplement that is helping me stay healthy or helping my sickness end sooner. It's got all of those ingredients that are just so good for your immune system. All of their products come in the most bioavailable form. And so you're not just getting, like, synthetic folic acid. Like, you're getting stuff from nature that your body can actually absorb. That's great. That means you're not wasting your time or your money when you are buying from We Heart Nutrition. They've also donated over a million dollars to pregnancy centers because of your support. So get your supplements from We Heart Nutrition. Go to weheartnutrition.com use code ALI. You'll get 20 off your order weheartnutrition.com code ALI. We could go so many different directions with wef, but as we look at kind of the power structures in the world that are shaping up and shifting based on what we just talked about, based on Trump taking office, things look different than they did even five years ago. We've got a new, new world order that seems to be shaping up. Can you tell us about that?
B
Yeah. This is so important. Most people don't understand it, but we are living through essentially a cold war right now. And it's not being publicized that way or talked about that way, but that is basically what's going on. The reason why we've had so much activity with Venezuela and the Trump administration going to Venezuela and taking Maduro and bringing him back to America. The Trump administration bombed Nigeria around Christmas time. Most people didn't even know that that was going on. Nigeria is the largest country in Africa. The Reason that we're seeing potentially a war in Iran. The stuff that's been going on in Ukraine and all these things are related to each other. And what's happening is the Trump administration is taking this approach that we need to build a new. Well, basically everyone in the world is now saying we need to build new world orders, different ones. The Trump administration's version of that is America is the top dog in the world, and we're gonna build an alliance of other nations who will benefit from that and see the benefit of having that arrangement. But ultimately, we're gonna set the stage, especially in our own hemisphere. Yeah, that's who we are. That's the Trump administration's model.
A
Love it.
B
The Biden administration's model, Kamala's model, and Europe's model is basically America. The progressives in America and the progressives in Canada and in Europe all team up together and impose their will on the rest of the world. And their will is progressivism, you know, left wing values, all of that stuff. Then you have the other parties, which are essentially people who support something called a multipolar world. And what that means is we don't want to live in a world where America and Europe tell us what to do anymore. We want to do what we want to do. Those those powers are mostly China and Russia, and Iran was part of all of that and others. Okay. So especially in wake of the invasion of Ukraine, the reaction from the Biden administration to that was, we in Europe are gonna get together and we're going to destroy you Russia through the financial system. That's how we're gonna do it. We're gonna put all these sanctions on you, we're gonna debank you, we're gonna take your money, and you have all this money in banks all over the world. We're gonna keep it. We're not giving it back to you. The international financial system that's involved with trade and all this, we're gonna shut it off to you so that you can't have that. And we're basically going to destroy your economy through all of these means. This was their reaction to that. Whether that's a good thing or not, it's a totally separate question. But that's what they wanted to do. So Russia and its allies, especially China, said, wow, that's really bad. Because if they'll do it to Russia, in this case, they could do it to any of us if they just don't like what we're doing. So if we don't adopt their way of doing things, they're gonna destroy us through this financial system. So we need our own global financial order. We need to get rid of the dollar, stop using that. We need to create our own currency, create our own trade alliances, create our own system for doing international infrastructure and international financial arrangements. We have to build all that ourselves. And so they started doing that. They created this alliance called brics. B R I C S. It's an acronym that stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Okay. And then they added a bunch of other countries to it. And so that's their version of the New World Order. We're going to create our own alliance of countries that are built around. What do they all have in common? They all have massive populations, massive manufacturing, they have lots of natural resources like oil and gold and rare earth minerals. They have processings, global supply chains. And they're saying, we're going to build a new global economy around us, with us at the center, and we don't have to listen to the west anymore. Europe is dying, America is overextended and they're weak and pathetic. This is all happening under Biden, remember? And we are going to go to a totally different model that doesn't listen to them. So you have these three competing views going on now. Everything that the Trump administration is doing foreign policy wise, is completely related to this competition that is existing right now. When they make deals with Middle Eastern countries over AI and stuff like that, which the Trump administration has done a lot of that. They're trying to build a new coalition with like the United Arab Emirates and others and who are interested in AI development. That's part of building this new coalition. When we go to Venezuela, which was becoming essentially a proxy state allied closely with the BRICS countries and wanted to be a full member of BRICS and almost got in, that was designed to try to take some power away from Russia and China and Iran in our hemisphere. They don't want foreign countries in our hemisphere, BRICS nations messing things up here, having influence here. Greenland is 100% same thing. We want to make sure that we have the ability to protect ourselves against Russia. And Russia has the ability to, you know, through the Arctic, potentially bring submarines down. And there's all these national security concerns over Greenland, the bombing of Nigeria, which happened around Christmas time. Nigeria is an ally of BRICS and they are the largest country in Africa. They could become the superpower of Africa in the next several years. They're going to have a larger population than the United States probably by around 2050. And we want to make sure that again, this is all about picking the trade wars with China, the stuff that's going on with Ukraine and Russia. It's all tied together. Trump is trying to build a coalition of countries who see the world, who are, you know, willing to work with us on a common economic agenda. And for the most part, we'll let them do what they want to do in their own part of the world. We're not going to get involved in that, for the most part. But we have some commonalities. But we're not gonna be tied to Europe anymore like we were before, because they're dying and they try to impose their will on us. And that will is a progressive will. And so everything that's happening right now is tied to this. The world global dynamic is completely changing. Since World War II, it has basically been the same. It's been Europe and America charting the course, leading the world, deciding what happens, going around playing cop, basically all over the planet, in some cases having colonies, then getting rid of colonies and doing regime change. And that's been the world. China and these other countries didn't have enough power or economic might to compete with that. Now they're starting to have that. And the world is breaking up into these three different alliances. And depending on how this all shakes up, the future of the planet is either going to be led by America and its allies and, and the west being its. The Western hemisphere being its own separate source of power, or it's going to be China and Russia and other brics nations, or it's going to be a Biden administration like alliance with Europe trying to impose progressivism on the rest of the world. Those are our three paths.
A
Yeah.
B
And Trump, we know where he stands, but we don't know how this is all going to shake up.
A
Yeah, it really does kind of rise and fall on the United States and who the President is. It's not just him as an individual, but all the people that he puts in power, like who he puts in power as the Secretary of State, as the Secretary of War, as all of those different, I won't say policymakers, but the people who are carrying out the policies that really have an impact not just on us, but also internationally as well. It makes a big difference. And that's what people need to know, is that there will be a world power. It's just who is it? Do you want it to be China and Russia who don't have the same belief in human rights, or do you want it to be America? Not to say that America is perfect by any means. But if these are our options, then you have a, you know, you've, you've got a choice. You've got a choice to make. Next sponsor is Good Ranchers. Y' all know we have been relying on good ranchers for five years now. We get our box of Good ranchers every month. It comes on dry ice. Whatever meat we want, want. We like their non pre marinated chicken, we like their ground beef. They even have seed oil free chicken nuggets which your kids will love. They've got bacon which we love and we rely on them entirely. And I'm just so thankful to always have a freezer full of all American meat ready at any time. It makes my life easier. I don't have to go into the grocery store. I'm worried and worried about the origin of my meat or the quality of my meat when all of my meat comes from good ranchers. This is also a family owned Christian company. They're just trying to glorify God and help America in what they do. So support them, make your life easier and tastier. Go to goodranchers.com use code ally. You'll save 25 when you do. Use my code good ranchers.com code ali. Now at the wef, was there anything that you were surprised that you were surprised by at Davos? Things that were said that you think people need to know about that maybe didn't make headlines?
B
Yeah. So the, I think the biggest thing that didn't make headlines from, from Davos, the biggest headliner from Davos was really the two competing visions that we just talked about being expressed in one case by Trump himself just attacking Europe and saying America's gonna lead the world and you guys are either with us or against us. And then Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, who's a big Davos guy, big ESG guy, basically saying, no, we need to do it, you know, sort of the old model version of go back to what Davos is really all about and international cooperation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those were the, that was the big headliner. But I think the most important thing that came out of Davos is the importance of artificial intelligence. In panel after panel after panel, what are the elites talking about? What are they most concerned about? It's clearly artificial intelligence. What they want to do is make sure that AI is designed with their values so that when the, as the world continues to adopt artificial intelligence over a long period of time and AI becomes more influential and powerful in our world, it's with a Davos Core, a Davos infrastructure. That's the focus very, very clearly. And if you chart the focus on AI, Davos has been talking about AI for a long time. But if you talk about the focus of AI at the conference itself, the number of panels, number of people talking about it over a period of time, compared to other things, what we're seeing is climate change, esg, all of that kind of stuff has been trending downwards and emerging technologies like AI have been trending rapidly upwards, and that seems to be the focus for a lot of these people.
A
Now, are you concerned about the focus on AI, or do you think it's just a reaction to how powerful we're seeing it's going to be?
B
Oh, I'm terrified of it. Yeah.
A
We talked about. What's that word that we talked about last time? That when AI becomes so powerful, it basically becomes as smart as the human brain and we kind of merge together.
B
Yeah. So there's artificial intelligence we have now, then you have. Artificial general intelligence is the next stage of development where AI becomes basically as smart as a human being. So that it can do lot, because AI is already better at human than humans at a lot of things, but they're narrow, so we usually call it artificial. Narrow intelligence can be really good at, like doing math, for example, but not very good at doing math and, you know, taking your kids to school and 50 other things, painting a picture. It can't do all of it really well. You have to have different systems. Specialized general intelligence means it's basically as good as humans at pretty much everything. And then once you hit that level, very shortly after that, most AI experts believe you get artificial super intelligence, asi, where now it is far more powerful than people. And at that point it's so powerful we can't really control it or even fully know what it's doing. And at Davos this year, they were, they had a whole panel dedicated to artificial general intelligence. And what do we do when AI inevitably becomes just as smart as human beings? And how do we make sure that AI is sustainable and that it's essentially woke, you know, is what they're going for? That's a huge focus of theirs and it has been for a long time. It's just now becoming significantly more important because of how rapidly AI is being deployed and adopted.
A
I feel myself aging as technology becomes more and more, as it changes more and more. Like, I just don't like people outsourcing their brains to chat GPT. I, I think it has its uses. And like, I use GROK for different things, looking different things up. But even when like people use it to write emails or write, I don't like it. First of all, I feel duped when I find out that it's been, that it's been written by ChatGPT and I'm like, use your brain. What happens to us as individuals when we start voluntarily outsourcing our God given critical thinking faculties to a computer? Like not what does it do to AI, but what does it do to us as people when we are willingly making ourselves replaceable? That's something that worries me. Just that we're exchanging like human nature for something robot. And we all thought it would be like iRobot or one of those movies where robots are taking us over and we're fighting back. It's not that at all. We're like, here, have my brain. Have what makes me human, this unique thing that distinguishes me from an animal. Here, Grok have it. That is troubling.
B
It's, it's very, very scary. And the world that we live in today, the, this is sort of coming at the worst possible time for people in the west, because people in the west in particular were. We've entered into this postmodern what is truth kind of thing. A lot of people in the west have no mooring on how they determine whether something is good or bad or true or not true or everything is subjective. And that is crisis level stuff when you inject AI into a society like that. Because really, if we're all just animals, that's all we are basically is how the postmodern world works. People are just animals. The only difference between us and other animals is that we're smarter. Well then this other thing that's even smarter than us, why shouldn't we just do whatever it says? Why shouldn't we outsource it? If its value is derived by its intelligence and we've built this thing that's smarter than we are, then why shouldn't we just do whatever it tells us to do? Why shouldn't we hand that over? I don't think that there is a good answer from a postmodern perspective, honestly.
A
True.
B
And we are going to get to a world very soon. There's been already been lots of stories about this where. And I've actually had lawmakers tell me this. Lawmakers tell me. It's very whispered and quiet. They don't want people to know, but they use AI to help them make decisions all the time. Not just writing and, but like actually to help them sort of tell them what to do because they're not sure about an important thing.
A
I hate that. That's even worse than giving them your brain. That's giving them your conscience. 100 and so you're going to AI instead of to, if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit. That is very. That's very troubling.
B
Yeah. And as that continues to happen and as adoption becomes higher and higher and higher, there was a study recently that came out that said 40% of people are using AI now at work for their jobs. As this becomes more popular and people trust it more, you're going to reach a point in time, especially in a world as divided as the one we have in America, where people say, well, why shouldn't AI, if it's smarter than us, just make decisions about society?
A
Yeah.
B
For us, because it's smarter. So if it says we should do X, Y, Z policy, who are you, Ali Stuckey, to say no AI is wrong? Well, you're not as smart as AI. That's what that will be the argument. So why shouldn't we just do what it says? And if you have no grounding in morality, then you get into really scary territory. Because if AI says, you know, the math says that if we just end free speech, we'll reduce poverty rates and more people will live longer. I don't know. I mean, should we do it then?
A
Yeah.
B
I mean, if you don't believe that any of these things are sort of God given rights and it's just kind of this thing we all collectively have agreed is a good thing. But now this machine that's smarter than all of us says, actually it's not a good thing. You'd be better off just getting rid of it. Why shouldn't we do it? You know that this is a real problem. The idea that your rights are just this sort of collective agreement is a crisis when you throw AI into it. And you basically are now dependent on that to, you know and trust the science. Right. Well, that is the science. So if the science tells us reduce human rights in order to get some better collective benefit, why wouldn't we listen to that? I guarantee that that is the world that we are headed towards. Where the debate is going to become. How much control over society should we give this machine that's smarter than all of us and people like you and me who are gonna say, don't do that, that's really bad, are going to be told that we're backwards and stupid and, you know, we're living in the Stone Age and that this is the future and trust the science and trust the math, that's what they're gonna say, guaranteed.
A
And it really does all of this, and for the past five years, every conversation that goes back to this is that it really does come down to the Creator versus whether it's the machine, AI, the Creator versus these big corporations, creator God versus all of these governments. Like who has the moral authority, who is the giver of rights, who says why we matter? And it's not that everyone is ever going to believe the same thing or that we are trying to force people in America to all believe the same thing as me. But I'm just revealing what the fundamental disagreement is, is who is ultimately in charge. That's what all of these debates come down to. And if we can't agree on just a basic level, hey, there is a creator who is bigger than all of us, who made all of this with a purpose and gives us rights and value. And we should wrestle with and debate how we defer to him and these big things and not try like the Tower of Babel to like build our tower up to God. Then we can kind of move forward. But when we can't, yeah, then it's gonna be really, really scary when we're the minority voices at least saying, no, no, no, we don't want this machine to be in charge. Because can technology can tell you what is possible, it can't really tell you what is moral. And it's up to human beings to say, okay, when technology takes us from what's natural to what's possible for us to ask, but hang on, is that moral? Is that good? Okay, y', all, I love all of my products from Paleo valley, especially their 100% grass fed and finished beef sticks. This is not your average beef jerky. That stuff has all kinds of fake ingredients in the casing. They always used to make me feel sick when I would have beef jerky from other companies. And it, it's probably because of some of the synthetic ingredients. You don't have to worry about that. With Paleo Valley, I don't have to worry about that. I can meet my protein goals for the day and feel really good. This is an amazing, healthy snack. But they don't just have this product. They have all different kinds of product. They've got bone broth protein. This is a savory protein that you can add not only to shakes and things, but you can add it to all different kinds of food, like to spaghetti to make sure that your kids are getting the protein that they need. They even have electrolytes. I love their watermelon electrolyte electrolytes. I just love all of their products. I love to know that the products that I'm putting into my body are helping me reach my goals, that I don't have to worry about them having any adverse effects. And so make sure that you check out these products from Paleo valley. Go to paleovalley.com use code ALI at checkout. You'll get 15 off your first order. Paleovalley.com code ALI. I want to talk about the counter programming that was at WEF by people like Gavin Newsom. So you've got Trump saying, america first. This is our value system. This is how we move forward. And then you've got people like Gavin Newsom, who obviously has presidential aspirations, trying to lay a different picture for everyone of America's role and what the world should look like. What was that?
B
Yeah, essentially the progressives have not, like Gavin Newsom, have not totally given up on the idea that progressive values imposed in a soft way. They would say, not with military, you know, might or anything like that, but in a soft progressivism driven by things like sustainable investment and international banking and ESG and all the things we've talked about before the great reset, that that still is the best path forward. And really it is the only path forward for them. They don't have any other options. I mean, there's just no other way for them to make sure that the rest of the world, which is rapidly rejecting progressivism all over the planet. If you just look at the total raw number of people in the world who believe in progressivism, it's actually really low compared to most people. They have to do it that way. And so what the United States? Because Europe really is becoming increasingly weaker. The only way for Europe to be successful in this endeavor is to have a president of the United States who buys into it. And that's what Gavin Newsom is offering. And they're going to sell it to the American people as this is. It's cooperation. It's, you know, remember all these great times we had together in World War II and, you know, fighting the Soviets and everything. Like, we have to go back to that. Like, the world's about better place. When America and Europe are working together and it's like, not if I have to live with European values. It's not because I don't believe in the progressivism that they're trying to impose on the rest of us. Right. And so that's the two competing visions. Americans are going to have a choice. We're either going to be leading the world and I think hopefully building a Western hemisphere coalition, because I actually think we have more in common values wise with, say, South Americans and Central Americans in a lot of ways than we do with, like, the postmodern, you know, average person in France these days. Like, I think that's probably true. So are we gonna build that kind of alliance or are we going to continue down this road that was set up in post World War II, where it's Europe, European progressives, American progressives working together to force the rest of the world to be just like us and meet by like them. Really? Because they're trying to force you and me to be like them too.
A
Yeah.
B
Or. And China and Russia fundamentally. Well, at some point, destroying us probably in the process because of how weak we'll ultimately become under that strategy.
A
And that's what I was gonna say that I think even though there is that third world order that you described that's led by that small cabal of progressives in different parts of the world, then you have brics, then you have the America first alliance. I would assume that brics, if they had to choose between America first and the progressive cabal, they would choo use the progressive cabal just because it makes America weaker. And America being strong is a huge impediment to Russia and China being able to take power and do what they want to do. So I would assume they'd probably want someone like a Gavin Newsom coming back in there and going around doing the Obama apology tour and being as weak as possible.
B
Absolutely. There's no. I mean, they've been very clear that their goal is to surpass the United States and to become the world leaders. They're very clear, especially the Chinese. They're very open about this.
A
Yeah.
B
And so we should just take them at their word when they say we want to be number one and we don't want America to be number one anymore. And you have to ask yourself, okay, if that's what you want, who's a better fit for you, like Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? It's, like, pretty clear what the answer is. There.
A
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B
Yeah. So this DTC system, the DTC institution that is the direct registered owner of all of these securities is owned by a corporation called dtcc. Okay, really confusing, I know, but DTCC is owned, is a corporation, so it's owned by shareholders. Shareholders are the big institutions that use it. So the people who are using the institution to basically do the hard, heavy lifting of what Wall street is doing, transferring stock and things like that, those are going to be banks, big financial institutions, Wall street firms and investment management firms are like BlackRock. And those kinds of things are related to all of that. So in essence, every big powerful player on Wall street, if they're really big institution, is directly either a direct owner of DTCC or they are doing so much business with the direct owners that they have a lot of sway in how this whole thing goes. So that's. They're definitely involved in it in that. In that sense. Yeah.
A
Okay. I'm wondering what those players think about Trump and everyone and every entity that you're talking about and some of the things that he's said and done recently at Davos, President Trump urged Congress to pass a ban on large investors like Blackstone trying to buy up single family homes. So let's just Play a clip of him talking about that. It's SOT12.
B
Every time you make it more and more and more affordable for somebody to buy a house cheaply, you're actually hurting the value of those houses, obviously, because the one thing works in tandem with the other. And I don't want to do anything that's going to hurt the value of people that own a house who for the first time in their lives are walking around the streets of whatever city they're in, very proud that their house is worth 500, 600, $700,000. Now, if I want to really crush the housing market, I could do that so fast and people could buy houses, but you would destroy a lot of people that already have houses. In some cases, they've mortgaged their house and the mortgage would be very low.
A
Okay, so obviously, if this pass, if this ban passed, you'd have companies like Blackstone take a hit, like, tell us what's really going on behind the scenes here. Is Trump really fighting back against all of this?
B
Yeah, I think Wall street and big corporations have a real love hate relationship with Trump because on some things, Trump is, Trump is not, in my opinion, Trump is not, not a straight up conservative or just a straight up liberal or anything like that. He's basically a utilitarian, practical sort of politician who says, I'm going to do the things that I think are going to work and I'm not going to do other things. And so sometimes that aligns with what Wall street wants and what these big corporations want, and other times it doesn't. In this case, it doesn't align with what they want. They want the ability to buy single family homes. And the reason they want the ability to do that is because they, Blackstone and other investors know that all of the money printing is that we talked about earlier is going to continue. It's going to continue at a huge scale because the government can't afford to pay its own debts without printing lots of money. And a lot of that money is going to end up in real estate and the housing market. They have to keep interest rates low, which drives up the price of homes. And so over the long run, it's a really good investment to buy homes and hold them for a long period of time. And there's going to be more and more people renting because there's not enough houses being built. And all these investment firms know that. And Trump, who's kind of a populist sort of guy, says, this isn't good for regular people. And I want to Stop it. Because you can't have a regular person competing with a gigantic multinational corporation over the price of a house. That's not. That just is completely unfair the way that works. But on a whole bunch of other things, he's really good for them, especially like deregulation, for example, and, you know, his investments in AI and bringing foreign investment into the United States. A lot of that stuff works, works in their favor. And at Davos, you had heads of corporations saying very positive things about Trump at certain times. Like the Citibank CEO, for example, was very positive about Trump and basically said it sucked under Biden. This was a horrible situation. There was stupid regulations all the time. And this is an exact direct quote,
A
but this is essentially what he said. Yeah.
B
And it was, in that sense, really good for Citibank. Well, Citibank is a big ESG organization. They're big progressives. They're Davos people. But they still like Trump because he's for cutting regulations. So it's a mixed bag when it comes to Trump and his relationship with these people.
A
I want to talk about your book because it's very relevant to what's going on. The Next Big Crash, Conspiracy, Collapse, and the Men Behind History's Biggest Heist. Wow. Very mysterious. What is that?
B
Yes. So this is the culmination of three years of research. While I've been doing other books with some other guy named Glenn Beck. I was working on this, too, on the side. Yeah.
A
It's nice of him to help you out.
B
Oh, it is. It's very nice. Yeah. So the. The. The book is just the most incredible story. And the. More. It's one of those things where you start researching it and it gets crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier. But at the root of all of it is most people have absolutely no idea at all that your investments, the investments that people have, not just any individual person, institutions, basically everybody in America, you don't actually own them legally. So the direct registered owner of all investment, securities, investments, we're talking stocks, bonds, retirement accounts, all that stuff is owned by one singular institution called dtc, the Depository Trust Company. And this whole thing was set up over several decades by very powerful special interests. Started in the 1960s and 70s. And by switching to this model where people, individual people don't own their own investments, they were then able to build on top of it all of these rules that benefit big institutions so that in the event of a big gigantic crash, they will be protected, they will be bailed out. And everyone else maybe could be destroyed by this or maybe not, depending on how things go. And most people have no idea that this is what has happened. And so that's sort of the heart of what this story is about. But the conspiracy that led to it and the people who were involved in it, it is even crazier that part of the story. So it's just. It's just the most unbelievable thing. And I don't think anybody really knows that that's the case, that when you go and you make your investments and you save your whole life for you and your family, those things don't really belong to you. And in the next big crash, you may lose all of it.
A
Okay, tell us what that means. What is dtc?
B
Okay, so the Depository Trust Company was set up by big financial institutions on Wall street back in the 1960s and 70s. It officially launched in 1973. And what it is is it's a financial institution that actually owns all of the securities investments. So all the stocks, all the bonds, they're the actual owners of it. The direct, registered owner of it in
A
the whole world, not just America.
B
Well, pretty much in America, but a lot of the foreign ones, too. Everything traded in America, New York Exchange, nasdaq, all of that's going to be owned by one institution. So when you go and you make investments, you think you're buying a stock like Tesla or something like that, but you're not. What you're buying is a contract that gives you certain rights related to the stock. But the stock itself is actually owned by this institution called the Depository Trust Company. The Depository Trust Company is owned by another corporation that is owned by all the big Wall street firms. So the big Wall street firms sort of indirectly own everything. And you give them your money thinking that you are a part owner in it, but you're actually not a part owner in it. You have an ownership right related to the investment. You get certain benefits to it, but you're not the actual owner of the investment. So the reason why this is so important is because if you're not the actual owner of it, then your rights are totally dependent on what the contract says and what regulations say and what laws they pass in Congress and at the state level. But you have no, like, constitutional rights to the actual property itself. So if they want to change the rules and use the property in ways that you don't agree with, which they've done, then they can do that because it's not really yours. And so they've created all these Special systems and rules, and they basically the. The whole derivatives complex on Wall street, which is basically like gambling on Wall Street. When you think about people making risky investments and all of that stuff, they're making a fortune off of all of that. That's only possible because they're the owners. All the ownership is tied up in one institution that they control. If that wasn't the case, then they would have to go to you every time they want to do something like that and get your permission to use your investments for all of these other arrangements that they've got going on. And they don't have to do that because you don't really own it.
A
Some people are saying, well, that's, you know, I've gotten a return on my investment. Things seem to be going fine. I seem to own it. I'm getting the money back that I invested, if it was a good investment. So how. What do you say to those people who say, well, the system seems to be functioning okay for me.
B
Yeah. So as long as everything is going okay in the market and you don't have big, gigantic financial chaos, pretty much everything will be fine. Most people will never realize that this is the arrangement. But they're the ones who have built all this infrastructure that's designed to help them in the event of a big gigantic crash. So they're the ones preparing for that. And there's all sorts of people who have been involved in it, academics and stuff. You can read the papers and go, it's all in the book, the next big crash. And you could see for yourself that they are preparing for what one of them called Armageddon. So a financial Armageddon happens. All the big institutions, they can be protected. If it never happens, then great. Everything just keeps moving along and everything is fine. But if they need to tap into that, all that wealth in order to prop up big institutions, they can do that. And the vast majority of people have no idea that that's even a risk. They, they think they own these things that they're buying and paying for and paying commissions on, on top of it to buy it and have it. But they really don't own it. They just own something that's kind of related to it.
A
I've never heard of the dtc. It's a company that runs here in the United States.
B
Yeah, it's. It's sort of. Yeah, it's a financial institution. That sole job is basically to help these other financial institutions in Wall Street. Big investment firms like, say, Merrill lynch or Fidelity or banks like Chase bank or Any of those kinds of things to make Wall street work. So when you buy and sell on Wall street or you have people doing, like, options trading on Wall street or futures trading, all of that stuff is happening within this DTC financial institution. And the DTC is part of the Federal Reserve. It's a Federal Reserve bank. So the Fed is actually tied up in all of this stuff as well. But, yeah, most people have never heard of it. I never heard of it until a few years ago. It's because unless you're on Wall street and you're dealing with this kind of stuff, you would never hear about it.
A
You call this a property rights heist. What does that mean?
B
Right. So back in the 1960s and 70s, before they started changing the laws, when you would make an investment, you were the actual owner of that investment. You would actually get a paper certificate. They used to send people paper certificates with their names printed on it that said, this is your stock for this company that you just bought. They don't do that anymore because you don't own it anymore. So they shifted the system. Powerful special interest shifted the system very quietly in a way that people just didn't even realize was happening. So that you no longer own the investments. You just own something that's kind of related. That's related to the investments. It gives you certain rights and benefits, but it's not the investment itself. So we took ownership effectively away from everybody who makes investments in the United States, which is most people these days, especially with retirement accounts and everything else, without people having any idea that that was what was going on. So technically it wasn't stealing, because technically, you know, they did it through the legal system, but no one knew it when it happened. They just took your property rights away and all the protections you would normally have, and they did it without people having any idea that it was going on.
A
Okay, so these big financial players are taking our money. They're using it however they want to for whatever purposes. And if things are going well, then we might get a return on. On our investment. But when things really hit the fan, they'll take all the money that they've taken from our investments and use it to prop themselves up. Is that the very simple explanation for what you're talking about?
B
It could go that way. It depends on what happens. Now you have rights, and there are limits to what they can do with your investments right now. They can't just do whatever they want. But the. But that's because there are regulations and stuff in place that prevent them from doing it. It's not because they don't own it.
A
Right.
B
And the regulations could change. And there are emergency powers in place, like laws, emergency powers, laws in place right now that could be activated that change all of that right now. So whatever protections you do have could go away tomorrow if they really needed to. So again, if they don't need to, they're not gonna do that, because then everyone's going to realize the gig would be up. Everyone would realize, oh, wow, we actually. This is a really bad system. We don't like this. So they're only gonna do something like that if they absolutely have to. Like if there was a big, gigantic collapse, an economic collapse, some of this did happen in 2008. There were actually isolated situations. When Lehman Brothers, which was a big financial firm, went under in 2008, this exact situation happened. And some of their customers actually lost access to their investments that they had made because Lehman Brothers was taking that money of that. Those investments, and they were pledging it as collateral with a bank, with JP Morgan Chase and doing some other stuff like that. And basically what that means is you go to the. Go to a bank and you say, I need financing, because they were in a lot of trouble. And the bank says, okay, well, but what if you don't pay us back? Then what? And they say, okay, well, we're just going to pledge all of this collateral, all this stuff we have, and if we don't pay it back, you get to take all this stuff. Except they started pledging their customers assets as part of that deal. And then when Chase bank wanted their money back, as Lehman Brothers collapsed, they took. They actually stopped people from getting access to these investments so that they could have them. And there was big, long legal battles over it, and there was a whole scandal, essentially, and ended up working out somewhat okay for a lot of people. But they had to wait a long time to get access to their investments. But that's the kind of thing, those same laws that happened in that situation
A
could happen on a very large scale.
B
Yeah, on a very large scale. So if you had a really big crash, and there's a lot of reasons to believe we could have a really big crash at some point in the future because of how messed up our system is financially. If that happens, then everybody who's made investments thinks they own this stuff and thinks, oh, no, I'll get my money back because I'm not being risky. It doesn't matter if the system collapses and they trigger the right laws, they could use your property because it's not really yours, to their benefit, to prop themselves up. And that is exactly the kind of thing that they appear to be planning to do in the event of something like that happening.
A
Last sponsor for the day is Concerned Women for America. From Congress to your children's books, there is a culture war raging across America. And for the moms watching, I don't have to tell you this. You know this because you're living it. You know it because you listen to and watch my show. And so if you've ever wondered, okay, all of this is crazy that's going on, but I want to know what my part is like, how do I make a difference? I really encourage you to connect to your chapter of Concerned Women for America. This organization has been around for 45 years and they are the largest public policy Christian women's organization. They focus on family, the sanctity of life, religious liberty, parental choice, fighting sexual exploitation, national sovereignty. They train women to become grassroots leaders, to speak into the culture, to pray, to testify, and to lobby the President. Penny Nance has this awesome book, It's a Woman's Guide. Seven Rules for Success in Business, Business and in Life. And for a donation of $20 or more, you can get that free copy sent to you go to concernedwomen.org alli that's concernedwomen.org alli. You say that the CIA could possibly be a hidden player in this heist. What do you mean?
B
Yeah, so there's the problem that we've talked about where you just have lost your property rights. But then there's just this incredible story of how all of this came about in the first place. And when I was researching that part of the story, that's when it really got. I became convinced something more was happening here than just big firms setting themselves up to protect themselves. And it all starts with this guy named William Denser. William Denser's not a well known guy, but he ran DTC and was well known on Wall street for a very long time. He was the guy that the big banks and other financial institutions put in charge of this DTC project to control everybody's investments, Right? So the thing about William Dentzer was at the time he was put in charge of this project, he was completely unqualified for the job. It made no sense whatsoever. Prior to that job, he had a bank regulatory job which had nothing to do with what, you know, what DTC was doing really. But he was completely unqualified for that job, too. You go back one more step. He was at a New York Domestic Policy Commission he was totally unqualified for that as well. No experience at any of these fields before getting these jobs, and he had all of them within just a few years. They just kept giving him all these crazy promotions until he ended up in this situation where he's in charge of one of the most powerful financial institutions that have ever existed. $80 trillion worth of investments are in DTC. $80 trillion. Wow. So how did that happen? So you go all the way back to his history and you follow it through. William Denser was a student activist in the 1950s. And while he was this student activist at this big gigantic student organization called the National Student association, the CIA started secretly funding this project illegally. They weren't supposed to be doing it, and Denser was a huge part of that. So Denser is a. Is a CIA activist or a student activist being funded by the CIA. And at some point during that process, the CIA decides, we're going to hire you. We want you to be in the CIA. So he joins the CIA, and he spends the rest of the 1950s basically working in the CIA, helping do these illegal things with student groups. And then after that, he ends up in the State Department, where he helped create usaid, which was a huge thing recently in the news, the Trump administration trying to destroy it because of all of the really nefarious things and corruption that it's been involved with. Well, he was a huge part of that project. And while he was working in the State Department, he was involved in all kinds of shady things in South America and Central America, propping up foreign regimes and engaged in regime change in some cases, and propaganda efforts and all kinds of things like that. And from there, he suddenly, after doing that for all the 1960s, he ends up in New York, and then he's suddenly in running this financial institution. So after spending two decades in intelligence, propaganda, all these things that have nothing to do with banking or Wall street or anything. And of course, they could have picked anybody to run this project, but they chose this guy of all the guys. And the more you dive into that and the reasons for why that may have occurred, the more it seems like there were a lot of other things at work. And he was chosen because of his CIA connections or maybe because of the stuff he was doing in the State Department. The Rockefeller family is really closely tied to all of this stuff, and it's just this insane, insane, crazy story of how that all played out.
A
So when things are going pretty well economically, which I think a lot of people look at the numbers, and they think that Right now it is. Most people aren't thinking about this kind of stuff because who has time and capacity to think about anything beyond their own bank account? But it sounds to me like you're writing this book because you think that we are getting closer and closer to a boiling point to where this heist could actually happen. Why?
B
Yeah, that's a great point. If everything goes well forever, you're never gonna have any problems. The reason that I'm so concerned about it, and by the way, just to. To make it clear, I'm not making any money from the book, all the money from the book goes to nonprofits who are trying to change laws to fix the problem. So literally, I get nothing out of this other than I think this is a really bad thing that's happening. The reason I'm so concerned about it is because what we have in our system is the reason you see the stock market continuing to go up dramatically while regular people are not enjoying the same kinds of benefits and not becoming as wealthy as those on Wall street is because our system has been set up to benefit Wall street firms and big banks at the expense of regular people. And part of that has been this massive amount, trillions and trillions of dollars that have flooded into Wall street over the past several last decade or two, going all the way back to Obama, but especially since COVID huge amounts of money have gone into Wall street, and that's why stocks keep going up even though the economy isn't getting better for regular people. Part of that is that they're doing a lot of gambling essentially on Wall street, and it's very risky what's happening. And because they're doing so much gambling with something called derivatives, especially the derivatives market is very, very big.
A
Can you tell us what that is?
B
Yeah, sure. A derivative is. You can think of it like gambling. Essentially what it is is it's an investment whose value, its value is derived. That's why they call it derivative from something else. So it's not the actual thing itself. It's an investment that's derived from some other kind of investment.
A
What's an example?
B
So like, for example, if you have a futures contract, that would be like a contract to buy something at a certain price in the future, the contract itself has value that is related to the thing you're gonna buy, but it isn't the thing itself.
A
Right, okay.
B
So like a good non Wall street example would be like, think of a football game. You have two teams playing each other, but then you have all these people betting on the Outcome of the football game. The bets are not the football game. They're bets about the football game. But then you could have people betting on what the bettors are going to do, betters, do the best. Or you could have which team scores first or whatever. These are not the actual game. The players are playing the game. These are people making bets on what will happen in the game. That's what's happening on Wall Street. There's tons of that going on. We don't even know how much of it. Some people estimate that there's $1,000,000,000 worth of derivatives.
A
Wow.
B
Which is a number that you basically can't even conceptualize. Yeah. I don't even know this is beyond trillions.
A
It sounds like a word that I would make up.
B
It like a word that you had to make up.
A
Right.
B
And that's the thing. There's so much of it happening, and it's not really tightly controlled or tracked or anything. We don't even really know how much of it is going on. So if the market starts collapsing because there's all these people gambling on things that they maybe have overextended themselves or whatever, and you get firms that start to fail, you end up in this horrible situation where Wall street is just collapsing, and then what do they do to try to bail themselves out? So you're seeing all of this happen coupled with the government has way overextended itself with its money printing and the amount of debt that it has in the past. When Wall street has gotten into trouble, what they've done is they've printed lots of money and they've bailed Wall street out, and Wall street continues to thrive because of it.
A
Is that why you're saying, you're arguing that the Federal Reserve is responsible for a lot of this and, and you've even argued like is responsible for the income equality that you're talking about. Is that the role that it plays?
B
Yes, I absolutely think income inequality is driven largely by what the Fed has done, by money printing, by government spending. I think it's a huge part of the problem. They print lots of money, trillions of dollars, but they don't give it equally to everybody. When they have done that, they've ended up with inflation problems. So they don't just send everybody a check when they print the money. Most of the money ends up in concentrated areas, especially Wall street and housing and things like that. So the reason that housing prices have skyrocketed over the past five years is because the financial system is getting a lot of the money that's being created through the Fed and other things.
A
Got it.
B
So the more they've done this, the more they've boxed themselves into a corner. We have a debt crisis, but if they print money, We've had a debt crisis and an inflation crisis. If they print more money, they worry about inflation, so they can't print too much more money. And they can't lower interest rates too low. So they gotta try to play this. But if they lower, but they raise interest rates too high, now it costs more money for the government to finance its debt, which the government can't afford to do without printing more money, which causes a debt spiral, and it's totally out of control. So when the next big crash happens, there's a real concern. Whenever it is, there's a real concern that the government can't just. The Fed and the government can't just come in and say, well, we'll just print trillions of dollars again and just bail everybody out. Because they will run the risk of causing an inflation crisis again, which means they're all gonna get thrown out of office. And Joe Biden learned the hard way, like that's not a good political strategy to do that. So then what do you do to bail people out while you have all these. You have $80 trillion worth of securities investments just sitting in this institution that they just happen to own. Well, that's really convenient if they really need to tap into it. And they may never have to tap into it, but if they do, it's it. They've set themselves up for their, what they called an Armageddon scenario. They will be protected. And maybe you will, maybe you won't. That's a problem that they'll. They'll deal with in the future, but at least they know we'll be okay if the crash happens.
A
Okay, tell people again, your book, where they can get it.
B
Yeah, the next big crash. You can get it.
A
Now.
B
We have an audiobook, digital book, paperback, hardcover, Amazon.com's the easiest place to get it, so please pick up a copy.
A
There you go. Everyone go get his book. You will feel a lot smarter and a lot more in the know afterwards. Thank you so much.
B
Thanks, Ali.
Episode Title: Trump's Warning to Iran Is Deeper Than You Think
Podcast: Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Host: Allie Beth Stuckey
Guest: Justin Haskins
Air Date: February 20, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode dives deep into recent shifts in global power structures, the impact of Trump's return to the presidency on international policy, the ongoing influence of world elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the hidden architecture of global finance. The conversation weaves together topics from global regulation and ESG mandates, to competing visions for the new world order, to the dangers posed by unchecked artificial intelligence, culminating with a behind-the-scenes expose on how Wall Street has insulated itself from potential economic catastrophe.
[00:34 - 04:19]
[07:09 - 14:42]
[16:49 - 20:25]
[18:34 - 25:48]
[29:05 - 32:50]
[34:29 - 51:48]
[56:33 - 62:44]
On the csddd and Trump’s resistance:
On the global power shift:
On the technocratic ambition for AI:
Allie on AI and morality:
On the progressive world order:
Haskins describes Wall Street’s ‘heist’:
On the moral crisis and AI:
The episode delivers analysis in a frank, conversational, and occasionally urgent tone; Allie and Justin trade insights seamlessly, shifting between high-level geopolitical dynamics and concrete policy mechanisms. They blend skepticism of globalist elite intentions with a pragmatic (if sometimes alarmed) view of technological and financial developments. The episode is accessible even for listeners outside the financial or policy world, with deep dives into opaque topics explained through analogy and plain language.
This episode of Relatable pulls back the curtain on sweeping geopolitical change, the dangerous ambitions of AI governance, and a financial system designed to protect the elite at the expense of regular individuals. Whether discussing Trump’s international maneuvering or the hidden mechanics of Wall Street, Allie and Justin argue that vigilance and informed action are essential as the rules of the global game are rewritten.