Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome back and it's time for our weekly visit with Bill Walton. He is the host of the Bill Walton Show, the man who is still recovering from his experiences at the zenith of Wall Street Mavens. He is where he was running Allied Capital for a while. He is also a man who has run the Council for National Policy. Terrific conservative leadership organization, which I'm proud to be a part. He is a man in short, who is in the know, and we're always glad to catch up with him to find out what he knows about what's in the Know Bill. Welcome back. Good to have you with us, sir.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Frank. Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
We were talking in the previous block with Gordon Chang about developments involving China, and I know you follow these things closely. There's one thing that I particularly wanted to ask you about Bill, and that is that there's new news that the Chinese Communist Party has put into place 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United Bill. Let me just say that we are now addressing at last a question that I think has been on our mind for some time. If you've been following what the Chinese have been doing in terms of putting into place this immense shipbuilding capacity, a lot of it has been supporting their merchant ship building, but it has inherently dual use capability. What does this tell us, bill? That they've got something on the order of 230 times our ship building capacity about the war footing that Xi Jinping has the Chinese Communist Party on.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, it's plain that China's gearing up for something and that something looks to be Taiwan, and they've been dramatically increasing their shipbuilding capacity in the last 20, 25 years, particularly focused on naval warships and they now are the largest shipbuilder in the world. They produce about 50% of the ships built worldwide, followed by I think South Korea and Japan. The US is nowhere on the list because of labor, environmental and other kinds of objections. We really don't have a ship building industry, and the US has seen our ships drop from like 230 to roughly 180, ballpark 200. Anyway, ours is dropping and theirs is rising dramatically and warships warships. And the thing to understand about China's ship building is they've got three different areas they put them in. One of them is the blue ocean ships the big, and there they've increased their nuclear submarines from I think they had one 15 years ago, and now they're aimed at having eight.
(03:08):
Within the next couple of years, our number of attack nuclear submarines has dropped by a couple. Our administration is acting like we've already won a war and they're still working on economic engagement. They think we still ought to be doing business with somebody who clearly wants to go to war with this. It's interesting, frankly, they've got one shipyard in China that has a greater capacity than all the ship built shipyards in the United States. The thing to keep in mind, Frank, is that America built its power. People don't realize this as a naval power. We controlled the oceans for a couple hundred years and in particular built it up during World War ii. Interesting historical footnote, and it bears on what's happening today. In 1949, there were a large group of admirals that went to the defense department, went to the president and said, if you don't start building ships to deal with the Soviet threat, we're going to resign.
(04:14):
Yeah. And what happened of course, was that people respond to that. They said, well, look, these admirals are serious people. They know what's going on. We better get into gear. And we did, and we built up defense capabilities on the sea that were unparalleled. Today, we're facing the same sort of threat from China, yet not a single admiral, and we talk about Obama's generals. Well, let's not forget about Obama's admirals. There's not a single admiral that's on active duty now that's raised his hand or her hand to say, we've got to do something about what China's doing and respond accordingly. It's not happening. And so again, you wonder about our military and you wonder, are they really fighting to protect America?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, well, look, I think the problem is, as you say, bill, on the civilian side, the policy is about engagement with China, not we need to prepare for a conflict that the Chinese seem bent on bringing to us a shooting war. And on the military side, as we saw with General cq Brown, who's just been confirmed to become the next chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff, they're much more preoccupied with, oh, I don't know, America's systemic racism and the whole critical race theory agenda and not least climate change is the most serious threat we face. That seems to be the attitude of Lisa Franti, the nominee to become the next chief of naval operations, I should say. This is profound.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
We're going to miss Mark Millie, Frank.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Frank. Well, that's what people say. These characters are going to make him look like Patton. Before we're done, bill, let's talk a little bit about the coal plants that the Chinese now cop to building at a extraordinarily high rate for folks who were told or concerned about climate change.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Well, we've known that we're building coal plants at the rate of at least one a week, which is extraordinary given all the protestations they've been making about reducing carbon by what's their deadline, 2040. They're going to start reducing, and in fact, our numbers have been low. It now looks like they're building coal plants at the rate of two a week, and they're building, I think more coal plants by far, maybe six times more coal plants. I got to check that number than the rest of the world combined, and it's clear the whole carbon emission CO two, they're not buying it and they know they've got to keep their economy going, and with that they require inexpensive energy and coal is one of the ways they're going.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Well, it's not only inexpensive. I think they've got considerable quantities of it as well, so they don't have to worry about trying to import it, particularly through oceans that we might intercept. This is the sort of thing that I think just makes you crazy because again, one explanation for why they're taking this energy security business so seriously is that it's part of being on a war footing bill, and the thing that I guess I'm just so troubled by is, yet again, we see a lack of seriousness about all this by the Biden administration to the contrary, their now intent on making us more dependent on China for energy among other things, solar and windmills and the like.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Every single thing they've done in this administration has done in the last two and a half years has made us more dependent on China,
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And the thing that's so tragic about that is you see that there will be a cutoff of all of those vitally needed supply chains in the event there is a war and it's a predictable train wreck, as I say. But Bill, to the extent that insult is being added to injury here because we're endlessly being told no, no, they really are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. John Kerry being the prime mover behind a lot of this, it's infuriating is the only way I can describe it. Speaking of Kerry, one of the things that he's quite hep up on apparently is the idea that we are going to need to restrict our agricultural production on top of fossil fuel consumption because that is creating another source of greenhouse gases. Is it your impression, bill that they are rather intent on depopulating the planet, not just reducing the emissions thereof?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Well, just to add to the Carrie story, he gave a speech three, four weeks ago. I think I may have mentioned it to you where he said in front of a lot of people, well, we could really solve this CO two problem if we just shut down agriculture. Those are the words that came out of his mouth and between Carrie and Gore, it's hard to know who was, who's more hyperbolic, but in any event, yeah, if you look at the agenda, the sustainable development goals that are coming out of the United Nations, I think they first published them in 2015, everything coming out of Davos, the World Forum, they clearly believe that world has a population problem still, even though in fact the population of China is going to be declining rapidly. Japan's already in that mode. Europe is in that mode, and only the United States seems to be growing through immigration, both legal and illegal. But yeah, I mean these are degrowth people. Frank, if you cut through all the rhetoric about warming and trying to make the earth better, they really think people are the problem, and then if we didn't grow food and ate the world would be a lot better place. And yeah, it's a anti humanist view. That's really stunning, and I've written and talked about it a lot, so have you. I think everybody needs to be aware that this green agenda is anything but good for people.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah, good for people. I would argue it's not probably going to be terribly good for the planet as well. Bill Walton, so much more to talk with you about. There's seemingly no end of outrage coming out of the Obama Biden 3.0 and their friends internationally. I'd like to visit with you about the World Health Organization caper that they've embarked
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Upon
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Next time. Big problem, but that's for another day. Bill, thank you for the work you do at the Bill Walton show. I commend it to all of our listeners'. Going to be appearing with our colleague, Brad Bayer on it in
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, you'll be on in a couple of weeks, Frank. I can't wait. Looking
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Forward to it.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We're going to go deep.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Me too. God bless you. We'll be right back with more. Stay tuned folks.
