Drawing on your experience in Wall Street running Allied Capital, a $6 billion venture up there for a time, I wanted to draw you out, as we often do on some developments that seem to be further eroding the advisability of China investments for Americans, whether they’re pension funds or mutual funds or index funds, or any other investment vehicle for that matter, despite the continuing determination of your former colleagues on Wall Street to make such investments. Walk us through some of the developments, Bill, that are making China, as you’ve said here, increasingly uninvestible for foreigners.

Bill, one of the outfits that has been shamelessly and relentlessly promoting that image of the girl with the parasol, the beautiful damsel, has been the US Chamber of Commerce. When it comes to China, they could see no evil. They were relentlessly flacking for their members, to be fair, who were under that illusion that you mentioned. Even you may have been the subject to a decade ago. Till now, as best I can tell, the Chamber has never deviated from that pro-engagement line, but there’s been a development that I wanted to make sure our listeners and audience were aware of. Tell us about it.

This is the book. It’s called The Indictment, and I think you undersold it, Frank. I mean, this is about a 180-page book, including footnotes, appendices, charts, that sort of thing. My favorite kind of book. It’s short. But most importantly, if you want a one volume reference about why we need to focus on China, what’s at stake with China, what to do about it, this is it. I mean, Frank mentioned there are 9 basic areas where he focuses on… I guess we have together different points, what the Chinese Communist Party is all about, elite capture in America, their impact on our economy, what they’ve been doing work to undermine our energy security, and on and on. The information warfare, concern about the silicon chips and that sort of thing.

Bill, excuse me. Ray Dalio, who has gone from creating an investment firm in his bedroom decades ago to becoming a billionaire, I gather several times over perhaps. But China played a prominent role in that transformation, did it not? And what is he saying about it now?

A lot to talk about. I thought I might start with a financial sector issue, and that is the meltdown of yet another regional bank, this one, First Republic. Jamie Dimon’s JP Morgan has stepped into the breach we’re told, and it will only cost taxpayers $13 billion or thereabouts. Give us a sense of what is going on here, Bill, and whether what’s really afoot is much bigger than just these three banks that have now failed, and First Republic the most recent among them.

We’re back. Bill Walton is in the house, I’m pleased to say, virtually. We’re always delighted to catch up with him, but especially at a moment when there is still further evidence that the Chinese Communist Party and its friends are making headway in laying siege to the reserve status, reserve currency status that is of the US dollar.

Tucker Carlson, a valued colleague in this line of work, has been removed by Fox News from his perch as the anchor of its evening weekday programming for reasons that are not entirely clear as we speak, but the implications of it are pretty clear and likely to really be devastating to those of us who looked to Tucker for clarity and courage about many of the most important topics of our day. One, needn’t have agreed with him on everything he said or espoused, and I didn’t, to recognize that his voice was incredibly important, not just for conservatives, but for, well, patriots, yes, but I think for the country as a whole.

We were talking a bit about China’s financing of things. One of the aspects of their global ambitions has been this Belt And Road Initiative, and it has been fueled basically by, well, payday loans for one of a better expression. They make these offers you can’t refuse to these mostly developing nations, and oftentimes they can’t make the payments. Talk a little bit about bad loans that are now turning up in this portfolio, and what China’s doing in response.

Lots of things to talk about. Dollar displacement Bill, is top of mind. We’ve been talking about this for a long time. I think you’re among those who think it can’t really happen or really happen anytime soon if I’m not mistaken. But it won’t be for want of trying, that’s for sure. Talk a little bit about this latest development with the Brazilian Marxist president, Lula da Silva, who was in Beijing in recent days talking up the idea with his allies in China.

In the last episode of The Jenny Beth Show, I sat down with former Trump economist Steve Moore, and finance guru Bill Walton to talk about bank bailouts and the debt ceiling. Today, we continue the conversation and discussing like Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC, how wokeism is destroying capitalism and the real struggle of small business owners to survive in this economy.