Real Stories Episode 25 Chaos Economics

                A sad fact of the world is that one county’s chaos destroys the lives of most of its citizens.  Their suffering, however, provides economic gain for other people.   Some people expertly toe the line between right and wrong.  Sure, they are exploiting a horrendous situation but they do some good in the process.  Others are in for their own greed and they will tell you that they weren’t the ones who caused the chaos so they can’t be blamed. 

                To give an example of this, take the chaotic event that was the holocaust by the NAZI’s.  The 1993 Academy Award Winning Best Picture chronicled the former of these people.  Oskar Schindler convinced Jews to give him all of their money.  He then used them for cheap labor to produce things.  Although he had no experience running a factory, he had the Jews do it.  Their payment was protection from the NAZI’s while Schindler made money.  In any other time, it would be a despicable offer to tell someone to give you all their money so that they can work for you.  For those that have seen the movie, Schindler’s entrepreneurial endeavor doesn’t work out for him as the NAZI’s forced him to stop making everyday household items and start making weapons for the military.  How Schindler reacts to this shows how he is not an unscrupulous man and what he proceeds to do is what made for a great movie and why, to this day, thousands of people flock to his gravesite to pay their respects to the man.  For the purposes of this discussion, we aren’t interested in the subsequent action but the prior one; the one that people living in more civilized societies, like America, would call reprehensible.

                The latter example, the one that sees no foreseeable benefit to the oppressed, can be personified in the Hungarian Billionaire and enormous liberal and Democrat donor George Soros.  Soros was a young boy not yet a teenager when the holocaust was going on.  As a Jew, he was on the chopping block and threatened to be sent to a work camp or, worse, a death camp.  Soros’ uncle gave young George a cross to wear and told him to pretend to be a Christian.  This, in and of itself seems like mere survival.  How many people of a particular faith would renounce said faith at the wrong end of the barrel of a gun?  What Soros’ Uncle and young Soros did next, however, seems culpable.  They went to the NAZI’s and told them that they had lived in the community for a while and had worked with Jews.  In reality, they attended temple with them and were in the same Yeshiva.  They told the NAZI’s that for a price, they will tell them where the Jews were hiding.  The NAZI’s accepted the offer and Soros’ uncle became rich helping the NAZI’s round up George’s fellow Jews and sending them off to work and death camps.  George is an old man now and commends his uncle’s business savvy to take a chaotic situation and use it for his own economic gain.  Makes one wonder with a role model like him, just what did George do to amass his billions?

                European history is filled with chaotic events.  Since the holocaust, it normally centers on the spread and collapse of communism.  Both its rise and fall has created chaos in various counties.  Yugoslavia gets broken up into not two countries but eight as just one example.  Some countries are happy to get rid of the communists; others prefer the devil they know.  There is no clearer example of this than the country of Ukraine.  Although it is not like Berlin in that there is an actual wall separating East and West, there is an ideological and symbolic wall that is almost just as effective.  West of the capital, Kiev, you will find marked animosity toward the Russians and a severe hatred.  This is understandable as Stalin cut them off from natural resources and those that didn’t comply with the communist way were denied food and water.  Although not very well known in America, in other parts of the world, what Stalin did to the Ukrainians is labeled genocide.  Given that you’d be hard pressed to find a western Ukrainian living that didn’t know someone that died as a result of Stalin, the term is not an exaggeration. 

After learning this tumultuous history, one would be hard pressed to understand what happens as they travel east and enter Kiev and head toward Russia.  The language may sound similar to the untrained ear but it is no longer Ukrainian being heard on the streets and in the towns.  They are all speaking Russian.  This is common in communist countries as even most Cubans speak Russians though few will admit it.  In Cuba, however, they also speak Spanish.  In Kiev and east of Kiev, if someone were to speak to them in Ukrainian, they would be just as confused as if you talked to an average American in Ukrainian.  For the inhabitants of Kiev and east of Kiev, they will tell you that they are Russians; they speak Russian and are just as Russian as if they had been born and raised in Moscow.   It is this dichotomy that makes politics in Ukraine very chaotic indeed.

                To make a long story short, the number one issue in Ukrainian politics is leaders whose loyalties are with Russia and those that want to be independent of Russia.  Every election, the country is ripped apart with these two conflicting sides butting heads.  The results of the election is catastrophic for the losing side so the battles are much more serious than anything experienced in the western world.  This chaos has attracted outsiders from America like Hillary Clinton, George Soros, President Barack Obama, longtime political strategist Paul Manafort, and Vice President Joe Biden to name just a few.  Books can be written about this recent battle but in the interest of time I’ll let you know that the winner was Petro Porchenko of the Ukrainian side.

                One result of this chaos of the election was that Joe Biden was able to secure a job for his son Hunter.  Hunter Biden has had no energy experience of any kind, which makes it odd that the largest Ukrainian energy company,  Burisma, would hire him as a member of their board and pay him a salary in the seven figures.  This captures the attention of the Ukrainian prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.  As an oversimplification, Shokin investigates Burisma and Hunter Biden to see if there are nefarious connections with the large swaths of money leaving Ukraine and going into Hunter Biden’s bank account.  It doesn’t take long for word to reach the Vice President and Hunter’s father about this investigation.  As it so happens, President Porchenko is on the phone with Barack Obama asking for a billion dollars in aid.  A little known fact is that when the President is on the phone with a foreign leader, there are many people listening in on the phone call on both sides.  Advisors and various experts need to advise the president and rather than have the president give them a summary of what was said, it’s better that they actually heard it directly and took their own notes.  That is why it is not unusual that Joe Biden is listening in on this phone call between President Obama and President Porchenko.  At the end of the call, Biden sees another opportunity in Ukraine so gets on a plane and flies to Kiev. 

Biden’s official role in Kiev is to announce that the United States is going to be giving Ukraine the billion dollars in aid.  The day before Biden and Porchenko are going to have a press conference announcing this, Biden approaches Porchenko and asks, “I need you to do me a favor.  I need you to fire your prosecutor general”

 “Mr. Shokin?  Why sir?”

“The reason is unimportant.  I just want to be perfectly clear; we need you to fire him.”

“Okay sir, we will”

As the press conference is just moments away, Viktor Shokin is still prosecutor general Shokin.  This prompts Biden to approach Porchenko and declare, “We’re not going to give you the billion dollars”

Porchenko responds, “You have no authority, you’re not the president.  The President said….”

“Call him.  I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I’m leaving here in about six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. ”

Porchenko doesn’t make the phone call to Obama.  Instead, he fires inspector general Shokin and the investigation into Hunter Biden is not picked up by his successor.  True to his word, after this, Ukraine is a billion dollars richer.  Biden considered this a great deal that he procured.  So great, that he bragged about it at a council of foreign relations meeting on January 23, 2018 when he was no longer Vice President.  Conveniently, he left out any information as to why he wanted the inspector general fired. 

The year is now 2016, and Barack Obama is no longer the president.  The new president is Donald Trump.  Ukraine also has a new president by the name of Volodymyr Zelensky.  DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa has been tasked by lame duck president Obama to find dirt on Donald Trump or his campaign members.  Chalupa goes to the Ukrainian embassy on a tip from Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden who recognize Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, from the battle in Ukraine.  The Ukrainian embassy tells Chalupa to go to Ukraine and meet with Porchenko to find out what she wants to know.  Chalupa does exactly that.

                Ukraine is very busy in the 2016 American presidential election.  They’ve also been contacted by Fusion GPS, a firm that Hillary Clinton hired through a law firm named Perkins Coie to find dirt on Donald Trump.  Their contact is a woman by the name of Nellie Ohr who is fluent in Russian.  The Ukrainians decide that it’s time for a little payback for how the Democrats meddled in their elections.  Just like the actual country, the embassy has pro and anti-Russians in it.  The Russian side helps the Democrats and Fusion GPS with Russian contacts such as Viktor Surkov and Vyacheslav Trubnikov.  This Russian and Ukrainian collusion by the part of the Democrats will result in a near three year investigation of President Donald Trump for doing exactly what they are guilty of.  Projection is a very common trait amongst Democrats so why wouldn’t those at the highest levels engage in it?  All this, however, comes later.

                Chalupa goes to Ukraine and is handed a black ledger document.  What Chalupa doesn’t know is that this ledger is a complete hoax.  In it, however, it documents how Paul Manafort was paid millions of dollars to work for a foreign company, in this case Ukraine, but didn’t report it.   The reality is that it wasn’t reported because it never happened but the ledger alleges that the payments were made in cash so that it wouldn’t be able to be traced and Manafort can evade taxes by accepting it. Chalupa calls Obama’s team and the DOJ, which is really just a part of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s personal mafia.  With this ledger, they open up an investigation into Paul Manafort.

                As the investigation is unveiled, Donald Trump meets with Paul Manafort.  Trump declares, “You know, when you applied to be my campaign manager, you told me that since you’ve been out of politics for so long, you were an outsider like me.”

                “I guess I meant American politics sir.”

                “Look, this looks bad”

                “Yes, I know I’ll resign immediately”

                “Thank you and just so you know I’m going to instruct my team to comply fully with the investigation.  I am also advising you to do the same.”

                “Understood sir.”

                With that, Manafort’s very short tenure as Donald Trump’s campaign manager has come to an end. 

                The Mueller report looking into Donald Trump’s collusion with Russia has finally come to a close after wasting $ 40 million in tax payer money and doing everything they can to thwart Trump in trying to make America great.  Despite his efforts, Donald Trump has thrived so well that Obama, who previously said the economic numbers Trump claimed he could deliver were impossible, is now claiming that he is responsible for them and saw them coming.  This is laughable since Donald Trump reversed almost every policy Barak Obama had.  Reversing almost ever economic policy and then claiming the trajectory will be unaffected is something only people who trust mainstream media would believe.  To non-sheep and people who can think for themselves, they know the credit goes solely to Donald Trump despite having the Democrats stop at nothing to take him down. 

                Now, it is time for Donald Trump to take the offensive.  He hires a new Attorney General Bill Barr and has Inspector General (IG) Horowitz investigate the origins of the Russian collusion investigation that has been unraveling since its inception.  They are looking for malfeasance by the Democrats and the DOJ; especially the FBI and CIA.  It is currently September of 2019 and the IG report is finished.  It is currently under review to see what is to be redacted and what will not be.  President Trump has given the authority of declassification to Bill Barr, which is unprecedented.  The negotiation between FBI director Wray and Barr is only a stall tactic by Wray.  The Democrats have their lackeys, the mainstream media, leak perceived scandals so they can claim them as an excuse later for why they did what they did to Donald Trump.

                While Bill Barr and Horowitz were conducting their investigation being stonewalled by the FBI, CIA and congress at every turn, President Trump calls President Zelensky of Ukraine.  Just like with President Obama’s call to Porchenko years before, this one is being listened to by several people.  The nature of the call is President Trump is trying to find out the extent of the corruption and collusion by Zelensky’s predecessor by Trump’s predecessor.  Unlike Obama, President Trump is not looking for dirt on his political opponents.  He’s trying to assess the damage and the extent of how the Ukrainians and Russians interfered in an American election by tricking the Democrats by giving them disinformation.  He is most interested in the fraudulent black ledger document that got Paul Manafort fired from his campaign.

                The conversation is very troubling in a lot of ways.  Like everything else with this case, when you try to answer one question, several more arise.  This one has to do with Joe Biden threatening former president Porchenko to fire his prosecutor general.  As Trump realizes this is getting more complicated by the second, he advises one of his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, to keep digging and follow the bread crumbs wherever they will lead.

                Now, one listener on the call who is loyal to former President Obama has leaked to the Washington Post anonymously that President Trump revealed sensitive information on this phone call.  He files a complaint with the attorney general who sees it for what it is; complete nonsense.  For one, the president is the final arbiter on what is classified and what is not.  His subordinates, the FBI and CIA, can disagree with him but ultimately their opinion is irrelevant.  Furthermore, several people were listening to the conversation and only this one person had a problem with it.  Barr knows that the reason for this is politically, not security, based.

                As Giuliani looks into the Black Ledger, he finds an awful lot of information about Joe Biden.  He knows all about the threat to Porchenko to fire the prosecutor general Shokin or else he wouldn’t get the billion dollars in aid.  He also knows that Shokin was investigating Hunter Biden and that’s why Joe Biden targeted him.  As he tells his team this information, some try to defend Biden by pointing out that Shokin was corrupt.  Giuliani simply states that even if that were the case, given the nature of what he was investigating, Joe Biden should have recued himself from the investigation as he was obviously biased.  Now Giuliani is looking into the cover up of this extortion scheme by the mainstream media for the last five months, if not longer.  CNN employee Chris Cuomo, whose brother is the governor of New York and an avowed anti-Trumper, calls Giuliani onto his show.  Cuomo framed the narrative and does what Democrats have always done and project their past sins on the Republican Party.  Many people are unaware that the Democrats were responsible for segregation, Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and slavery.  Many who do know this have been hoodwinked to believe that there was a ‘big switch’ and the values of the racist Democrats were now the values of the Republicans.  They wave around Strom Thurmund as proof as he is one of only two former racist Democrat politicians to switch to the Republican Party.  Other evidence they point to is that the South used to vote uniformly Democrat when it was racist and blacks started voting Democrat.  Their time line is off as blacks only started voting Democrats in the 1940s when FDR offered them free things in the new deal.  Southern Whites didn’t move to the Republican Party until the 70s when the South started prospering economically and getting less racist and more integrated.  The reality is that if you take all the Ku Klux Klan leaders and add in prominent leaders in racist organizations.  You then add all the Democrat congressman from 1860 to 2000 and throw in everyone that voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  This makes up 1600 people.  Less than 1% of them became Republicans.  This lie can still be found even on Fox News as Juan Williams unapologetically says there’s a double standard for Republicans and Democrats because of the racist history of the Republican Party. 

                  As Giuliani listens intently to Cuomo frame his narrative perpetuating the lies Democrats have been telling for years, Giuliani responds “I’m glad I’m here because everything you just said is totally erroneous”

                Giuliani then outlines the Democrat corruption in Ukraine as Cuomo tries to shift the narrative back to trying to blame Trump for it all.  It’s a contentious interview but Rudy Giuliani took down the Italian mob rule in New York, ended the corruption in the NYPD and cleaned up the cesspool that was New York City so that Chris Cuomo’s brother could be Governor of a safer and great American city.  Given Giuliani’s history, this interview is a walk in the park.

                Unfortunately, the Democrats have succeeded in one thing very well.  They have severely inhibited President Trump from building a border wall with Mexico.  This was his number one promise to the American people so, naturally, it was the number one target for his opponents to stop him from doing it.  It has worked too.  Ann Coulter, who wrote a book entitled In Trump We Trust is now an outspoken opponent of President Trump because he didn’t defy Democrats and assert his presidential power to build the wall without congressional approval.  Coulter, being a lawyer, knows that he is legally allowed to do just that but it wouldn’t be the first time that a federal judge, congress or the mainstream media lied to the American people on what the president is legally allowed to do.  Giving them ammunition didn’t seem practical.  The past few months, however, President Trump has started building the wall.  He even tore down ineffective walls in existing areas to rebuild much to the dismay of Coulter and her followers.  The wall is being built and hundreds of miles have been erected and more is scheduled to be erected before the election.  The entire border, however, will not be.  Coulter is not one to compromise and anything short of a solid concrete wall is not going to be sufficient for her.  In order to assuage the damage people like Ann Coulter have caused, Donald Trump is visiting the border wall.  As he is the president, the media follows quickly thereafter. 

                Since President Trump is the most transparent president in American history, he has no problem giving impromptu interviews with the media.  He stands in front of the wall and starts talking about the one thing, unlike politics, he’s been doing for decades; talking about construction.  He starts talking specifics about what the concrete is made of and why it’s effective.  He compares it with what was there originally and does a compare and contrast in a calm comfortable manner.  As this is a topic he knows well, he stands there for a while answering and explaining all the reporter’s questions.  What results is a billionaire who is endearing himself to blue collar working class people.  If any of them are paying attention, they would realize the blue collar salaries and work has skyrocketed due to President Trump’s policies.  There is no better candidate that is for the manufacturers and builders than Donald Trump as it has been his entire adult life.

                When President Trump is finished inspecting the progress made on the wall, he goes back to an area set up for him to work.  An advisor comes in and informs him, “Mr. President, Colt is discontinuing their manufacturing of the AR-15.”

                “Okay, that is their prerogative”

                “I think you should take a pulse check of the times sir.  People need some concession on gun control.  The Universal Background Check would be a small concession to appease the outcries to do something about the mass shootings as of late.”

                “The more I consider it, the more I’m thinking it’s a veiled attempt to have a gun registry so that a future Democrat President can confiscate law abiding citizen’s guns.  It’s not a power I’d like to give them.”

                “Respectfully sir, if a gun manufacturer is getting on board, I don’t think it will be met with much opposition”

                “I disagree.  Colt could just be another company cowing to social justice pressure.  Companies haven’t figured out that liberal boycotts don’t work.  The left doesn’t have the courage of their conviction to see it through.  Apologizing and giving in to their demands just emboldens them to do it again and again.  They are out for blood and conceding to them only makes them thirstier.”

                “Colt has not made an apology sir”

                “Do you have their statement?”

                “Yes, Mr. President, it’s right here” as he hands him a document.

                President Trump reads it quickly, “This says that they are discontinuing it because they’ve overproduced the AR-15.  It mentions nothing about the mass shootings”

                “I realize that sir but the reason why the market is saturated with the guns is people have stopped buying them because of the shootings”

                “That’s a stretch. Do you have any evidence to back that up?”

                “No Sir, I do not.  I just think it makes sense.”

                “You may be biased in this matter.  Colt’s own statement says that they are focused on the military’s needs for weapons.  It seems to me that they are being good businessman and supplying a need in the market at the cost of another product that is not in high demand due to the massive supply.  Once their inventory depletes, I see no reason for them not to stop making them again.  Is there any fault in my logic?”

                “No Sir, there are no holes in that line of reasoning.”

                “Alright, thank you for your advice”

                “Thank you Sir” as the advisor leaves.

                President Trump turns on the news and sees a story about an abortion doctor that passed away.   He is a little confused on why the public should care but this is a common thought when watching the news.  The story answers his confusion as when the family of the deceased went to his house to raid his things, they found a plethora of fetal parts inventoried.  President Trump shakes his head.  He understands how a lot of Americans are pro-abortion but even a pro-abortion person has to be horrified that a doctor would keep the parts.  Ophthalmologists don’t keep little mementos from cataracts they extract. This is just another reminder that there are sick people in the world.

                He switches over to the Democrat debates as it is the one thing that seems to be helping his re-election chances more than anything else he’s done.  The Democratic Socialists Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders keep lying to the American people by saying they aren’t looking for the socialism of Cuba, Venezuela or Russia but of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.  Trump knows it’s a lie.  One of his advisors is watching with him and President Trump declares, “There they go lying again”

                “Yes Sir, they only get half the story”

                “What do you mean by that?”

                “Well, it is true that the citizens of Scandinavian countries are taxed heavily, that part Sanders and Warren have right”

                “And the part they have wrong?”

                “Well, respectfully sir, their corporate tax rates are lower than ours.  There is not much red tape for corporation s to grow.  This is the opposite of Sanders and Warren’s proposal to target the rich to pay for their programs through high corporate taxes.  Instead, Scandinavia taxes the middle class and lets the corporations flourish.  By doing so, the corporations end up financing their government programs because even though they pay a lower rate, they end up giving up more money because of their growth.”

                “Kind of like how my tax break gave the government record high revenues because people moved up in income and jumped into higher brackets.  Even though they paid a lower percentage, they made more money so the actually dollar amount was more.”

                “Yes, it was a win-win for everyone involved.  Government and citizen get more money.”

                “Maybe someone should explain that to Sanders and Warren”

                “They have sir.  Several former prime ministers of Sweden and Denmark have publicly attacked them for calling them socialists when they’re not.  A Danish economist named Otto Brans-Petersen even did a PragerU video on the topic chastising Bernie for lying about his country.”

                “I guess they didn’t get the memo”

                “Wouldn’t make much of a difference if they did”

                “Why’s that?”

                Swedes in America are outperforming Swedes in Sweden.  They have a great work ethic so they thrive in both countries.  Saying the poverty rate among Swedes in Sweden is low is true but there aren’t many Swedes in poverty in the United States either.  It seems to be a good case study.  Take the same people and put them in two different economies to see if there’s a difference.  The results are in; Swedes do better in America so even if Sanders and Warren did implement Scandinavian style market economy here, your economy is still better.”

                President Trump smiled.  He merely responded, “Yes, I know what it takes to lead and to keep America great.  No matter which Democrat wins the nomination, they will make the America I hand them worse than when I gave it to them.”

                “I agree Mr. President.”