24 Comments
Dec 7, 2023Liked by Rudy Havenstein

I was born in 1954. I recall watching a January 1961 television presentation of President Eisenhower's farewell address. The man was prescient. Don't just skim it, read every word, including his handwritten notes.

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address

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Demetri Kofinas has a bad take.

I appreciate your willingness to push back on the narrative he was trying to inject.

Ultimately what Kofinas identifies as an increased focus on money is the product of FED policy that results in a constant diminishing of savings and which steadily erodes the foundation for the future.

There is no choice but to focus on money because the FED acts to ensure you'll never get enough to raise your grandkids.

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author

I like Demetri, but we have disagreements, and that's ok. I think he's trying to help.

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Dec 9, 2023Liked by Rudy Havenstein

Was thinking the same about Demetri. somewhat of an arrogant, know its all, just did not like persona , no intention of listening to his podcast again,

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You shoudn't listen to it again. You might learn something.

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Wow. This is fantastic. I can’t wait for the next hour.

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Dec 8, 2023Liked by Rudy Havenstein

If you want to know who our next enemy is,

Look at who we’re funding right now

In the 1960's Iraq was named "One of the best places to be a child " by unicef

'Terrorizing the Populace': Report Finds CIA-Backed Death Squads in Afghanistan Committing War Crimes, Atrocities

"The CIA has enabled abusive Afghan forces to commit atrocities including extrajudicial executions and disappearances."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/31/terrorizing-populace-report-finds-cia-backed-death-squads-afghanistan-committing-war?

After the CIA overthrew Iran's democracy

The US had quite warm relations with Saddam Hussein by the time the war broke out, even though he had nationalized Iraq's oil in 1975. As well as this, the US was strongly backing the Pahlavi Shah of Iran who was staunchly pro-West. This relationship was so close that the CIA had stopped collecting their own intelligence, relying entirely on the Shah's essentially private police (SAVAK). However, the US's strongest interest in the region was Saudi Arabia, the regions largest-scale oil producer; at this point, ARAMCO (Arab-American oil corporation IIRC) had not been fully bought out by the Saudi family. What does all of this have in common? Oil.

They took Iraq off the terrorist list so the they could sell Saddam precursors to WMD's , poison gas , biological etc . basically anything the military wanted tested out and he used it against Iran . Don't think they forgot that

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution breaks out in Iran. The SAVAK didn't do a good job of collecting data on the ground and Shah Pahlavi surrounded himself with people that told him what he wanted to hear instead of realities on the street. Iran becomes an Islamic Republic, and severs its ties with the US and the West right off the bat with the 1979 hostage crisis. The new 'Green Threat' of Islamic extremism started being seen as the new enemy (sound familiar?) but just as importantly the US would lose all oil interests in Iran's vast oil fields.

Saddam was the US attack dog in the ME

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Dec 8, 2023Liked by Rudy Havenstein

Rudy, with all due respect,and I am a paying customer, I agreed with 75% of your comments, but 25 % of your views are just gas to me. While I understand your views on the Vietnam war, I would be much more supportive if you had acknowledged in addition to to Noam Chomsky views you had read Mark Moyar's recent 3 volume work on the the Vietnam War. Victor Davis Hanson marked Moyar's works as a must read. Mark Moyar provides a revisionist history based on access to recent NVA archives and it is quite a eye opener. Maybe you need to refresh a bit. Secondly, as a military officer that participated in Desert Storm, we always knew it was about the oil. Remember if you will that until 2007 or 2008, many in the oil business believed that the US was down to 7 years of oil and natural gas reserves. We know now that was true. Rudy, if yo want o continue your good work, don't become LAZY.

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I can live with 75% (or 25%). Thanks for the comments, I will look for that book. You make my point, though. You "knew" the war was about oil, but that is not how it was presented to the world or the American people. We are constantly lied to.

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Dec 8, 2023Liked by Rudy Havenstein

Thank you and of course you are right, however the progressive narrative to which we are bombarded constantly never affirm the reality of the World or what has driven human nature for the last 10,000 years.

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Compelling and edifying!

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Thank you.

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I plan on listening and revising this assessment to include a detailed breakdown of his, Kofinas, mistakes, but I want to be in the record now: He has an agenda that is not aligned with yours.

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If true, I think it's all the better that we talk.

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It's good to talk to others with different opinions about the problem we need to address to restore liberty in the USA.

It is not good to waste time and risk reputational damage getting into a knife fight with someone whose agenda influences their willingness to dialogue in good faith with a guest.

This IS the worst podcast you've released and it's because the person questioning you got hung-up on their agenda instead of utilizing your immense knowledge and familiarity with the true source of our malaise to shine a light on solutions.

He constantly tried to circle back to get the answer he wanted out of you instead of allowing the conversation to develop.

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I don't consider a waste of time. As for "reputational damage," I'm willing to engage with people who I think are trying to help, and I think Demetri is. We have disagreements, and that's ok. As for worst podcast, yeah, well, you know, that's just like, uh, your opinion, man.

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I hear you, but after Luongo was moments away from convincing you that J. Powell and the Fed was trying to save us, I've got to be wary. You know as well as I do that the Fed is not trying to save the public.

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I let him tell me his views. I don't necessarily agree with them. I can argue vehemently with someone if I choose, and then go have a beer with them. Many people can't.

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If I'm being honest it seems like you were having the same trouble I did following his logic in asking about power distribution.

Their were a tremendous number of women who were quite satisfied with their power outside of politics before women's sufferage allowed for families to be splintered into the economy.

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There's a lot of topics we could have gone into more. I was a bit surprised at how the directions I was being steered, but as he pointed out, I tend to ramble. In the end, I stood up for what I think, and he did too, and we'll see what people think.

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Yes. You do ramble.

So you should work to orient your knowledge into the conclusive narrative that will allow masses to understand the fraud being perpetuated on them.

I listen to you and follow your work as much as I can because I know that you are on the right track and recognize the fraud is and always has been private control of the money to exploit all market participants utilizing that money.

When paired with a host who is willing and able, I expect your rambling can be diminished or eliminated.

You ramble because you have offered yourself to a host who does not ask you clear and concise questions. Several content creators who publish completely free content, people like some of the gentlemen with Blockworks Macro, have perfected the proper use of questions to extract the maximum amount of value from their guest.

To my Chagrin this was not an example of that.

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Thanks for the feedback.

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The problem with people like you Spooner is that you aren’t trying to understand the world, just to confirm your priors. Plus, you’re unaware of your hostility, and you ascribe to others your own intentions. I have no "agenda." I get to talk to people for a living and try to understand their perspectives and push and pull and push and pull until a deeper understanding emerges for me and hopefully for them. Over the years, I've come to certain views that I feel strongly about, and I've started to advocate for some of them, but never in an underhanded way. I come at you respectfully and directly with question after question after question in order to understand more completely how YOU understand a subject. That’s called philosophy. That’s epistemology. That dialectic.

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You ought to confirm your priors, they seem foolish.

You clearly did not try to understand Rudy's perspective. You repeatedly circled back to YOUR perspective, phrased as a question, yes, but nonetheless a reiteration of your perspective. You unflatteringly fished for the response that you wanted from him.

It is a damn shame that Rudy wasted his time being interviewed not only by a rude host, but also by someone who wants to gatekeep access behind a paywall.

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