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.

Well, Steve and Bill, thank you so much for being with me today. I asked you to join the podcast so that we could talk about two very important topics. One is what we just saw happen with the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. And then also we’ve got a debt ceiling battle ahead of us with Congress, and I wanted to talk about that. And how the economy is affecting the banks and how the debt and the spending and the printing of money is affecting the economy. Just small little topics.

Let’s start with this topic that I touched on with Gordon a little bit. This company called Gotion, which is a big Chinese outfit that is explicitly tied to the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, it’s baked into their articles of incorporation and so on. And they’re going to take over 400 acres of pristine land in the heart of Michigan with $700 million plus subsidy from the government of the state, tax dollar money, obviously. Bill. This would seem to be ill-advised on a lot of different levels.. And I just wonder, is this obviously a problem in the microcosmic sense, but we’re seeing stuff like this happening across America. And I just wonder what your thoughts are about the folks who are enabling it.

And a question that we often ask is whether it is advisable, under present circumstances, to have your money invested in China. You may not think you do. If you have money in the stock market, you almost certainly have some of it tucked away in Chinese companies because that’s what people Bill used to work with think is warranted, in terms of perhaps your best interests, but certainly theirs.

Let me start by asking you to work through with us, Bill, what seems to be growing pressure on the reserve status of the dollar, the reserve currency status of the dollar, notably as a result of Chinese machinations with Saudi Arabia and Iraq in recent weeks that have agreed to buy, rather sell to China, china being the buyer, oil and gas in renminbi rather than dollars. What’s up with that and is it a problem, do you think, for the reserve status of the dollar?