Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the book Homo Criminalis and take a look at how consistently throughout recorded history, the criminal underworld and the general overworld have kind of danced in sync with one another.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keats, and join me today is a man whose podcast takes can take you on a funky ride. Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde. Are you ready to show the people how to get up and get out?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're gonna go on a fantastic voyage today, right?
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Hey, man, you tell me, man.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: I just wanted to. I always want to see if you'd laugh if you get it
[00:00:53] Speaker A: all right. Now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe or like the show on YouTube or your podcast. Appreciate doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on July 21, 2026, and we continue our culture series today by doing some reading between the lines in the book How Crime Organizes the World, which was released in 2025.
This book, or in this book, author Mark Mark Gailotti does a deep dive on the criminal underworld, with particular focus on how throughout history, crime has organized itself in ways that mirror society at large.
And also how, in many cases, I've operated to keep things moving in society at large. So to get us started, Tunde, I know you appreciate the subtitle here, How Crime Organizes the World. So after having read the book, what stands out to you most in the book? In that concept?
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, so a lot stood out, which I know we'll discuss. But the idea of organizing the world was intriguing to me, and I want to speak on that for a second because the subtitle didn't say how crime rules the world, how it runs the world, how it makes the world do this or that, specifically the term organizes. So that's what intrigued me at the very beginning, because I was like, wow, this is an interesting look at society.
And in reading the book, which I know we'll discuss, it did a good job at that, like, where is that line? And it seems to the point of the way you even introduced the show, the line is blurry.
And that there are times in history that we've seen where the organized. Sorry, the underworld has actually kept the upper world kind of propped up.
And I'll finish on this, James, and hand it back.
This book was even more intriguing to me just having lived in the recent years because we've got things like we just did recently, a discussion on the latest financial disclosures by some of our leadership in this country. We know that there are some famous files that were released by the Department of Justice and a lot of these things that we.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Which happen to include that same leader.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Yeah, so, but the point is, just like a lot of us, I think it's just been interesting. It's like this blurring of lines like, hold on, but this guy was doing this stuff. But he's also hanging with these heads of state, not just domestically, but internationally as well. And it's like. Yeah. So I think that how crime organizes world affairs is a very interesting topic in the book. I think did a good job of maybe not explaining it all in a matter of fact way, but more helping us understand the blurriness and the extensiveness of it.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: This is not something that is.
This is a feature, not a bug, so to speak. And that to me was the biggest takeaway from this is that I think a lot of times a more simplistic understanding of kind of society is that the criminal underworld, particularly, again, not smash and grab necessarily, but. But particularly in more organized ways or in certain ways, is not a malfunction of the overworld, so to speak. It's not something is being done wrong in the overworld. And so therefore this crime will exist, so to speak. And again, there's certain types of crime that, yes, there are ways for regular society to combat that and to really reduce that. So there are types of crime that are a result of regular society doing something wrong. But crime itself is something that is inherent to an underworld to some, to some degree, you know, and it is like the book talked about concepts like as long as there's property, there will be theft, you know, and as long as states, you know, can. Can ban and tax things, there will be people trying to get around that, you know. And the book starts talking about just banditry and how that was almost considered a respected profession if you go back far enough in history and so forth. So in the another one, as long as there's privilege, which human societies have privileged and privileged people, as long as there's privilege, there will be underprivileged and underprivileged will be drawn to illicit activities, more so because the legitimate opportunities are going to be Tunde to them, more so. So it's almost like these normal human things that we think about, the normal ways, the normal outcomes of ways that we organize ourselves give rise to lots of types of what we consider crime, you know, so to speak. So the way that they. I mentioned at the beginning, you know, it's like this dance that's being done.
And at its core level, you know, it's easy to see that it was like okay, prohibition, you know, when the United States did prohibition, then organized crime spiked because there was. They were given this marketplace. But again that goes back to as long as states ban and tax type of thing. But that, so that spiked it. That may have been look an overreach by the state. If you spike organized crime in that way by banning something or, or as opposed to finding other ways to minimize it or control it. But nonetheless the existence itself that didn't organized crime existed prior to that, you know, that was just something giving them a bone that allowed them to kind of spin out of control a little bit more, you know, so. So yeah, I mean I think that just the, that the hand to hand piece or the yin and yang was the example I kind of gave to you is like it seems like these things operate, you know, there is a symmetry, you know, like to the way that they operate in societies. And, and what that means though is that if you want to reduce crime, there are other ways to go about it as opposed to it's. It shouldn't necessarily be all stick, you know, like there should be other ways how you organize society in some ways give rises to more crime or can lessen the amount of crime that exists, you know, particularly like I said, in that organized fashion.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah, man. I think it's fascinating and you know, as you're talking, it makes me realize that you're talking about things like prohibition. Remember we recently did the show on the five Families, the American Italian Mafia. And so. And remember in that discussion we talked about how once by the mid-1930s, when the mafia was really making money and doing well with like you said, filling the need that prohibition created that people still wanted to drink alcohol so, you know, somebody's going to sell it that. Then he said, okay, well let's mirror the upper world then. And he went to the Italian families and said we're going to make more money if we can figure out how to stop fighting each other and bring these five families together and create a cartel. Basically.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That was like the Luciano story.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yeah, so it was. Yeah, luckily. I'm sorry. So it's interesting how that was an example of how the underworld took cues from the upper world or overworld and said, hey, we can behave like them and create a corporate structure for us down here. And it worked.
And to your point, that's why it made me think of it is Italian and Americans at the time in the early 20th century were discriminated against and couldn't find employment in other areas of society because a lot of people didn't want Italians assimilating into greater mainstream America. So it's like you said, I guess that might be a better way to
[00:08:10] Speaker A: remember, and that was one of the things, even in the Five Families documentary that they talked about, is that over time, as Italians were more accepted in society, the opportunity, the mob receded. Some there were. People would go in again.
As Italians became less underprivileged, then more of them opted to join the overworld, so to speak, and not. They didn't have to behave. They weren't being shunned and then Tunde the privileges. And so therefore, they took advantage of the overworld, so to speak. So again, in that same kind of way.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no, you're right. And other groups, I mean, people don't realize this. In the early 20th century, there was a lot of really rough Jewish gangs running around the northeast and all that.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah, for the same reason.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah, for the same reason. We know the story of black gangsters in the 40s, 50s, 60s. So the idea is, yes, if you keep a certain. A certain group of people out of mainstream society, they're going to do whatever they can to still make it. And usually that's providing goods and services that are banned in mainstream society, but that mainstream society still wants. Yeah, and in our society, that's been traditionally drugs, alcohol, during prohibition, well, sex, things like that. Prostitution, all that.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I was. I'd say, I think we. We've seen that. And a lot of. I think a lot of people appreciate that, you know, just that.
But I think it's worth being said because again, I'm talking about this dance between the overworld and the underworld.
The underworld doesn't have. Doesn't need Madison Avenue out there marketing what it has. Like, hey, we're going to make people. You know, Madison Avenue is like, hey, we. How can we get people to want to buy more clothes? You know, people have clothes, they don't necessarily need more clothes. How can we get them to want to buy more clothes? That's how the Overworld thinks. You know, the underworld is like, hey, we'll just wait. You know, people want certain things, we'll wait until the state decides that they can't have them or taxes them so much that they won't be able to reasonably get them. And then we just step in there, you know, so it's like the demand for the stuff that the underworld does, oftentimes criminal. You know, the organized underworld is created by the upper world, so to speak. But yeah, the other thing I wanted to touch on with you in this, that I found that really, really, really was interesting and stood out to me was the discussion on how similar. How similar governments are, the state, the way the state operates, and criminal protection rackets, you know, and just going in, I think the chapter was near the beginning, it was like looking at protection versus extortion, you know, so to speak. So what did you make of this chapter? And then just areas of the book that kind of touched on how closely related or how similar the action of, you know, a government would be to, at its core, you know, a protection racket. Like, hey, I won't, you know, rob your store, you pay me off. And in fact, if you pay me off, I won't rob your store and I'll stop these other guys from robbing your store. You know, that. Yeah, that gets into some of the, like, what we traditionally see a state doing.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, that's what was. Those kind of concepts were fascinating to me because once you hear it, your brain can make the connection.
But until I was reading it in this book, I never really thought of that. And there's a quote I'm going to read from the book, and it says, a quote, yesterday's predator becomes tomorrow's legitimate protector.
And that was the part because you were talking about banditry and they talked about that in early modern Europe and coming out of kind of the medieval period and all that banditry was what happened, like in the countryside. And a lot of the. Where there was lawlessness, the bandits were the main guys. But somehow, over time, as modern Europe developed, a lot of those bandits ended up becoming governors of lords of the little fiefdoms, the regional areas. They were protectors.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: They became protectors of that area. Yeah.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: And they were kind of the middlemen. They became the protectors for those people. But they also were kind of respected by whoever the lord or the nobility was because it was like, all right, well, if that guy can keep that set of people, that 10,000 people over there in that valley calm and he can control them, then I'll just deal with him. So eventually the guy that was predating, you know, practicing predation on the population became the one that ruled it. And it's kind of fascinating. And so one of the things that examples they gave that I thought was very interesting and I'll just cite a little bit from here, was how the British empire fought the two wars with China in the 19th century over opium. And I knew about those stories, but they get into a little bit more detail how the British had outlawed opium in Britain. So British people weren't allowed to use opium as a drug because it was seen as negative and would put society in a bad place. But the British Empire, because of the British East India Company and his monopoly, still wanted to sell opium and make money doing it, selling it to other places. So they didn't care if the Chinese community collapsed because they were all addicted to opium. But the Chinese did care about that. So the Chinese themselves, as a sovereign nation state, said, we don't want to buy any more opium when they banned imports. So to deal with that, the British sent their navy and started shelling and bombing the coast of Beijing and Shanghai. And before they would open their ports to allow the import of opium, force the Chinese to have to do that, you know, to have to basically bring opium in, which ruined China for almost a century, which created Mao. Right. As a response. So these things have long tailwinds. And I thought about that, James. I thought about, yes, in one way, the British government, the British Crown was being a government on its own people and telling them, we don't want you doing this because we think it's going to hurt society. And in the other way, they're extorting the Chinese population and basically putting a gun to their head, literally, and saying, you better take this drug, which we know is going to ruin your population, because we just want to make profit. And, you know, I couldn't help but think, James, about Afghanistan and the fact that we just spent 21 years there as a nation.
Everybody knows Afghanistan has 90%, produces 90% of the world's poppy, which is the root ingredient for opioids and heroin.
And somehow, in the same period of time that we occupy that country with the greatest military ever and could stop all of that stuff exporting, at the same time, we have an opioid epidemic in the United States. And that's what got me thinking about somebody who was in the state level also made a decision to make sure that we didn't destroy the poppy and eradicate this stuff around the world.
And that, to me, is where all this stuff kind of gets blurry.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, that's one example of where it gets blurry. I mean, I think that taking a step back, you know, which the author does, he talks about like, that a state itself must, you know, establish, you know, establish its authority to provide protection and to adjudicate disputes, you know, kind of the core functions of what can define a state. You Know, you establish protection or provide protection for the people that are under your guise, and then the ability to adjudicate disputes. When somebody has a problem with somebody else, here's how it's going to be resolved. And it does. So part of the function of the state, it would be to exclude others from providing those things as well.
And so when you look at it at that core level, then it makes sense that whether it be a state that considers itself to be a legitimate. Well, like you said, that line is blurry, but considers itself to be a legitimate sovereign or entity can handle that stuff. But the thing is that if the state doesn't provide that stuff, and this is again, where you have this dance between the overworld and the underworld. In places where the state chooses not to or cannot provide protection and adjudicate disputes, a power will arise there to do those things typically. And that will be usually considered a criminal organization, so to speak, a lot of times. And so what ends up happening in that sense is that, I mean, I know when we did the five families, part of what the Mafia was doing in a lot of the neighborhoods was providing protection for people. And whether it's from themselves or from other gangs, and then being a place where you, hey, you go to the Godfather, you got this dispute with this other business or whatever, he can mediate that dispute. So, and those are places where people didn't either couldn't or didn't trust the regular authorities to do that kind of stuff, you know, so if what they're doing is the same in some cases, then it makes sense that the lines between them would be blurry.
A lot of it comes down to when you talk about adjudicating disputes. That means, hey, all right, here's what's going to happen. Here's the resolution. Everybody abide by this. You can only do that if you. If people say, hey, if I don't do what this person says, I'm going to have a problem. So a certain level of power there and then, same thing with providing protection. You have to have a certain level of power. A lot of this comes down to having the. So having sufficient power in the eyes of people and as a matter of fact, to tell other people what to do. And that's something that a government would have in common with a criminal organization. So when you boil it down like that, then yes, they. They in many ways are kind of the same.
Now, I think there's been, like, there's been an advent in more recent times that will put some distance between or that can put some distance between a criminal organization and a government. And that would be what I would consider that to be as the rule of law. You know, like rule of law, actually. If, if you're going to set one set of rules and then everybody abides by that, and you don't have exceptions for this person or that person or anything like that just because of arbitrary stuff, then you actually can divorce it just from, hey, I'm a body that. That. That throws my force around, throws my power around. You're actually doing so you're serving something a little higher. But that's the exception. In human societies, usually it's just, hey, I have the most power. So I'm going to call the shots. And I might have gotten the most power through illicit means, but once I get it, I will come up with a backstory of why it's okay for me to have it, and then I move forward from there. Which is, you know, it's something we've seen throughout history and, and also illustrates what you just talked about, how the people who were the bandits in many cases oftentimes end up becoming the people who are providing the protection and agents of the state in that area.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: So it's funny, you landed in the perfect area where I can quote the book, because this is one of my highlights. It says in this respect, if history is written by the victors, then crime is the complaint of the loser, but defined by the winner.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: I remember that part. Good.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good. But it's true, right? Like, if history is written by the winner, then the person that says that they're a criminal is the loser. You know, that's because the. Because what is crime and what is not crime is defined by the winner. And we've seen that throughout history. I mean, there was a time when slavery was legal in the world, and now it's not. And I'm not just talking about the African slave trade. I'm talking about all slavery. And the last country to ban slavery was Madagascar in 1981.
And that's 1981. And so. And so. And so there was a time when owning other human beings and telling them that they had to do stuff you wanted them to do and they didn't have any agency for themselves was legal. And today it's not. Maybe one day it'll be legal.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Example earlier though, just with the British East India Company and you know, like, where if they would have. If they would have tried to import heroin or opium into ports in England, it would have been a criminal act. And if they would have done it. And then. But. But the same country would go to war with China to make sure that they get imported into China. You know, so it's literally just. That's being. That's arbitrary, though. That's where you are operating like more like a criminal organization than a quote, unquote, government, at least in terms of the oppression impression that people have when they think of. Or many people have, many people do think of the government as. As justice.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question, James.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Because in the real world, I mean, we're in 2026, January 3rd, two days into the New Year, we basically saw the United States kidnap the leader of Venezuela.
And the president of the United States basically come to a press conference a day later and say, we went there to get the oil and a lot of our companies made capital investments like Chevron, and they deserve to go back and see their investment play out.
It's fascinating.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: That's basically the same thing. I think we wouldn't have enough time to give all the examples of governments acting like criminal organizations. And I mean, that's kind of the point is that this isn't a recent phenomenon. This has been this, this kind of back and forth or, hey. Or, you know, you're acting like what people consider, again, because it's all about impressions, really. What people consider a government a lot of times has more upstanding. But you go in many places of the world, you know, like when we did. When we did, you know, like, we've looked at books talking about how, you know, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, for example, and the things that were being described in that book that were being done by either agents of the United States or of corporate entities in the United States were all. It was all criminal conduct depending on the context that it's done. But criminal context not supposed to depend on the context of what it's done and who it's being done to. But, you know, that's just, That's. That's in many cases, that is the kind of the blurriness that you talk about. I do want to keep us moving, man.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there was.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: The book gave a lot of historical background. Like, it was the word I used with you when I was like, man, you know, like, what are we going to talk about? I was like, man, this book is cumulative. Like, it just. It gives example after example, you know, smuggling, counterfeiting, like, all of these different things and how they interplay with, you know, how they. How they. This line between legitimate and illegitimate, quote, unquote actors is, you know, people are on both sides doing the same kind of stuff.
And then also, though, how the people that are on one side of that line actually still play a big role in how societies operate and unfold. But with all this historical background on various forms of organized crime in society, was there anything that it talked about relating to maybe organized crime more recently that you took note of or that you found to be pretty interesting?
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah, so there was a few, and I'm looking in the book now, because there was some good examples, like someone like Pablo Escobar, they said, the famous cocaine dealer from the 90s that we grew up, you know, knowing his name, that he had built schools, public, you know, hospitals and things like that in his. In his area of Medellin, Colombia, talked about the Russians and the transition from the Soviet state to kind of modern Russia today. And in the 90s, the kind of blurring of the lines between the Russian gangsters and those who became, you know, influential in the Russian government. So there was a lot of those type of examples.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Gangsters became industrialists, you know, because they
[00:22:51] Speaker B: were the only ones.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: But they were the only ones who, again, who wielded sufficient power to say, hey, if you make this deal with me, you better come through with what you promised, because.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, and. But go ahead, James. But also, I think you made a great point, and just to allude to that real quick, and then I'll continue. My thought was, because as you were talking in that last bit, it made me think of the. Specifically the movie The Godfather Part 2, and Robert de Niro's character when Vito Corleone was young, and they showed him that he became the Godfather by just solving disputes. He wasn't out there shooting people and all that. At the beginning, it was about him being the trusted guy and all that stuff. And so.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: But that, to me, was the power to make people adhere to what he said, though. Like, the threat did exist.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Like, hey, well, because remember in the film, he did take out that big dog dude that showed every old buddy on the block that he's the man. So you're right about that. And I think that, to me, was an example specifically of where you're going with the Russian situation in the 90s, which was the Russian gangsters also had the ability to solve disputes because they were used to dealing with the public in certain ways, in certain sectors of the economy and also the government. So I found that very interesting context for the audience.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: This is in the period post Soviet breakup where the economy and the government are all trying to reorganize themselves, but people's lives go on and business still happens and so forth. And so during that time period, this is who are going to be the new winners and losers. When you have this, all these. These cards and the whole deck gets thrown up, you know, who. How are these things going to get picked up and organized moving forward? And, yeah, you know, like, the book talked about that. And as far as how the people who are part of the organized crime actually had a head start in terms of being able to try to put things back together, like you said, because they were already there with the power and the ability to adjudicate disputes.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: Yep. And by the way, I just want to say I appreciate doing the show with an attorney, because that word adjudicate is. I don't hear that from anyone else. It's got to be in your profession.
But no, but to continue on is.
So the story that really stood out to me was one that I think many of us, I think all of us listening, because I think everyone listening to us is over 20 years old, would have experienced, which is the great financial crisis of 2008 through kind of 2010 period. And in 2009, there was a person, her name was Antonia Maria.
Sorry, Antonia Maria Costa, who was the head of the UN office on Drugs and Crime. And I'll quote her. She said that, quote, it was criminal funds that stopped the global financial system from grinding to a Halt during the 2008 financial crisis. And that really intrigued me because I thought, especially as a guy that does what I do for a living, I do financial planning. I'm involved with the capital markets all the time and banking stuff. And I've never heard of that.
And so I'll just. Yes. Like, that wasn't in the Bloomberg terminal.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: You always were throwing out quantitative. Easy.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. They didn't tell me that on CNBC when I was watching back during the height of the crisis.
So I'll read here real quick because it's a good quote, the lady says so. Quote. Their dirty money was the only liquid investment capital available to many financial institutions tottering on the edge of collapse.
End quote.
The system was basically paralyzed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. And I was like, yeah, I remember that.
But a number of institutions were rescued by interbank loans funded by money that originated from the drug trade and other illegal activities. In the process, most of some $352 billion in profits from the narcotics trade alone was absorbed into the economic system. The underworld laundered its cash on a gargantuan scale. The upper world got through the crisis.
That, to me was fascinating, man, because think about it, $352 billion back then, I mean, that's a lot of money right now. But with the inflation we've had since the pandemic, that was probably, you could say, almost worth a trillion dollars worth of money back then in today's dollars. And then the other one that says on narcotics alone. So we're not including human trafficking, gun running, all the other illicit things that can build the coffers of gangsters.
And that, to me, James, was a very interesting revelation, that the system may have actually collapsed if it wasn't for the banks turning the cash of the drug dealers and the cartels and the illicit money into loans that they could then be confident another bank could say, oh, I see you've collateralized this loan now with this cash I'll, I'll do business with. Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Well, it's, it's the, it's the grease, so to speak. Because also what was talked about is how, yes, the government's poured trillions of dollars, but that a lot of times went to the bigger banks, you know, but yeah, what about all these middle, you know, mid tier players, you know,
[00:27:44] Speaker B: smaller, those private equity.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Lines of credit. Yeah.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: And those mid tier players were not getting bailed out by governments or anything like that. And so, yeah, you put in a third of a trillion dollars in cash, you know, into these places and you, you, you float a lot, you know, so to speak. And I think that it's important to realize, though, this wasn't done out of the graciousness of people's heart. Like the organized crime, as it's discussed in the book, is always looking for ways to clean their money, to launder their money. They've got all this money. The bigger problem isn't getting the money. The problem is getting the money clean, getting the money so that I can use it in places, getting it into the government financial or the legitimate financial system and not just having it sitting around in cash at home, you know, or in some, you know, some, some safe somewhere, you know, or some mini safe somewhere, like. So this was a boon for them as well. Like this was, you know, and a lot of times, you know, like laundering money, you don't get to keep all of them or you don't get, you don't put in 100 and get 100 back, so to speak. So being able to do this and the Value proposition being much better for them. It was something. It was, I mean, truly a win win, so to speak. But the other thing that stuck out to me about this is just the scale. If that's just what got laundered that they know about at that moment, because it's just what they know about, you know, it's going to be poor, you know, and like just how big a business we're talking about here?
Because listen, man, that's just the stuff that we know about that got laundered at that moment. But this is stuff that's happening all the time.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: So those files that were released by the Department of justice, remember before 2019, JP Morgan said that that gentleman's one bank account had $4.3 million of fraud that they identified after he was imprisoned again. But before he died in prison, they corrected themselves, I guess, because he was back in jail and they had the spotlight on him and they said, oh, we made a mistake. Now we actually come back, it's $1.2 billion in fraudulent transactions that we flagged in one account.
So that's what I'm saying. That's why to me, this book was so interesting in the era we're living in with all these realities being uncovered about. And then that same guy was threatening Bill Gates with an email because of his affair, and he's hanging out with presidents.
So it's like, all right, so this guy clearly was operating in a criminal way, in many ways that we've all been privy to.
But then he's also in proximity to the most powerful people that run our world. And his girlfriend, who was doing his crimes with him, was invited to the wedding of the former president and former first lady in 2010. The daughter's wedding. So this is like the lines being blurry is not a joke. You know what I mean? I mean, this is real stuff. And so to this day, I know
[00:30:43] Speaker A: for you, because you were much more interested in following the things, the contents of those files. And that was the thing you always said to me was just like to see all of the connections between the Overworld and this is. Before we read this book, we were just like, yo, it's fascinating to see all the money.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: So got me fascinated about the book.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah, all the money and all the connections that are made between these people that are on one side of the line and these people that are on the other side of the line. And then also how people seem to jump back and forth on which side of the line they're on. At least some people not Everybody, but. So it's dirty cake.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: I wanna say this real quick based on what you were just saying, James. I was gonna make a joke, especially with what I do for a living, I was gonna say. So you're telling me now that I gotta go talk to the family office of Pablo Escobar, Basically, like, when you're talking about.
Because I could see that these guys are so wealthy that they have chief investment officers also, right? And they do make these capital investments into legitimate businesses and they buy real estate and all that. So, again, money being fungible, it just kind of goes back into the system and it allows the underworld and the Overworld to just. They're symbiotic. And I think that what I learned in reading this book and thinking about it and having this kind of conversations in private, like we're having here on the show, is. Is it's really amazing how.
I guess it's like the Matrix meeting.
It's all happening in front of us. But because of the way our culture is and the kind of we've been talking about, like you said about those files, the way we look at people, we recognize the behavior of some and not the behavior of others. And that's based on how we're kind of programmed culturally. And I just find that all interesting, which is why.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: Well, you know, I have a phrase for that, you know, because this isn't 100%. You know, there are plenty of people that still do try to be principled on things, but a lot of people in our society are really playing the game or are played by the game of heroes and villains. And that's it, you know, like, it's all about, who's my hero, who's my villain? And then once you decide that, your brain does the rest, so to speak, you know, these cognitive biases that exist that will orient your brain in certain ways. Once you decide that so and so is my hero, then your brain will notice every place that you could potentially exalt him. And your brain will unconsciously disregard the places that you probably should question that person a little bit.
I think that along this line, the piece that I think can't be lost, the book said something that I found to be just very, very interesting on corruption.
And he talked about how the point of corruption is monetizing privilege.
And so if you look at it in that frame, then all of the stuff we're talking about makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of the quote, unquote, legitimate actors. The legitimate actors. But I say, quote, unquote, the legitimate actors, though, because clearly they're dancing on this line back and forth. Because if you're not going to monetize, if you're a government official, you have a certain level of privilege, then if you're going to behave honorably, then you aren't going to be take bribes and all that kind of stuff because you're not trying to monetize that privilege. But as soon as you put people in power that see that power, that privilege as an opportunity to make money, more money, then that's where you get the corruption. And that's the corruption that we see. That's the corruption that was taken as part and parcel in certain parts of the world, whether it be Russia or something like that. Like, oh yeah, that's just what's happening there. And in many respects that's the c. That's what we see. That's why there was an emollients clause in our U.S. constitution. And you can see people now that ignore that, that say, hey, we want to monetize our privilege, we're going to ignore the emollients clause and not force people to not monetize their privilege. Another place you can see this, and maybe this is why the emollients clause gets ignored, is because in Congress, they want to monetize their privilege. They're privy to information beforehand and then they trade stocks on that type of stuff, and so they're monetizing their privilege. All this rampant corruption. And ultimately, in a government like ours, we can't just say that these people are just doing it to us because we apparently keep voting for people that have demonstrated a level of corruption, that they will take the power that they get and monetize it. And that is the corruption. The corruption is monetizing the privilege and the power that they've been given by us, the people. So to me, one of the takeaways here was is that a lot of this stuff ultimately comes down to. And it comes down to what the society expects of themselves and is willing to accept, you know, whether it be the criminal organizations, whether it be the quote, unquote, legitimate organizations. The legitimate organizations will lean into the criminality stuff if needs be. We have corporations that, you know, do terrible things. You know, they're trying to, you know, internalize their profits, externalize their costs, you know, and doing things that in some context would be considered criminal as well. So what are we going to put up with, you know, as people, as long as we have a government that's supposed to be responsive to us?
[00:35:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, who knows? That's what people will figure out at the next election, what they're going to put up with. I'm done trying to figure that out. But I will say this.
No, you bring up an interesting point. This is.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: And yeah, let's, let's wrap, you know, like
[00:36:08] Speaker B: with Congress because, I mean, that's why I want to focus on that for a minute here. You're right that Congress has access to information that the public doesn't have and they're allowed to trade stocks on that one president in my lifetime tried to deal with that and his name was Barack Obama and everyone hated him. So I guess he wasn't able to do it.
He was seen as a commie when he proposed that. And now everyone hates that Congress does that. But this is how interesting of a timeline.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: But that's that heroes and villains thing, you know, like people had decided he was a villain. So if he tries to do something, I know they're just.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: We can keep it moving. Yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to get focused on that. I just think it's the. I just said it just to say it. But, but you're right, but the point is, is that insider trading is against the law. They're obviously have inside information because they're talking to corporations, is legislating on what these corporations are telling them they want to do and all this. So clearly they should not be trading these stocks. But think about this, James. I brought this to your attention a few months ago. There are two ETFs that all of us in the public can go by. I'm not here selling these ETFs, but just to mention, one is the symbol is Nanc.
Nance. And the other one is titled gop. And the Nance gives you the stock picks of the Democrats in Congress and the GOP one gives you the stock picks of the Republicans in Congress. So my point is, is that we're not allowed to do insider trading as the public, but we're allowed to passive, be passive investors on the corruption of the insiders in the government.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Like, think about that. Yeah.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Think about how crazy that is. Just as a society that we say we can. That's like if I could go buy drugs passively, right? Like I could just go buy some cocaine but. Or invest in it, but it's illegal. And you know, it's just weird. Like, so anyway, I don't know, that's to me like this weird thing where, I mean, it's like, it's weird Corruption is now available in my, in my ira. I can just buy the etf.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, I mean, maybe the point of that is further desensitize people to it, you know, because that's been so jarring to me is that I thought that generally speaking, people agreed that corruption was bad. And I see that that's not really the case, that a lot of people view corruption and in the light of who's doing it, you know, and that
[00:38:24] Speaker B: you're in a bad.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: But the point. Tie that back to the book, though.
That is also apparently how a lot of times crime is viewed, you know, is a matter of who's doing it and that. But that's not. We. We've looked at it a lot of times. A lot of people. I've looked at it as being more of a modern phenomenon. What this book made pretty clear is that that's been pretty consistent as long
[00:38:46] Speaker B: as it's a human phenomenon, you know,
[00:38:48] Speaker A: like who's the criminal and who's the. The statesman? That's been. That's been fuzzy for a long time. So.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: But no, it was a really good book. We definitely recommend checking it out if that's the kind of topic that, you know, that intrigues you. So we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: I am Tunde with Lana. Please give us a comment and a like as James said. All right.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
I.
