The Worst Problem We Face
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Darrell Castle talks about what he believes to be the worst, most difficult problem facing America.
Transcription / Notes
THE WORST PROBLEM WE FACE
Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 14th day of August in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about what I believe to be the worst, most difficult to solve problem facing the nation.
What do you think the most difficult or dangerous problem facing the nation is. Perhaps you would say it’s the Iran war. Maybe you think it is the growing menace we call AI and the fear that AI will take all the jobs from Americans leaving nothing but subsidies for them. Well, those are indeed difficult problems and I will talk a little about each of them.
I read quite often from commentators coming from both the left and the right that the President is stuck in Iran and there is simply no way out, but I beg to differ. The two sides in the conflict constantly throw insults at each other and make demands. The latest demand from Iran includes a demand for compensation for the damage you Americans have done to Iran.
The President’s reaction to that demand was “what, we don’t owe you money, you owe us money for the USS Cole and for the lives you have taken. A lot of the time when I analyze a dilemma I use a tactic I learned from Ron Paul a long time ago. That tactic is a moral position that if it is wrong for an individual to do something it is also wrong for the government to do it. It is illegal for individuals to cheat, steal, and under some circumstances to lie.
It is a crime for individuals to lie to congress but it is OK and perhaps even expected for congress to lie to us. Using that analysis for the war when I hear people say it started in 1979 when the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah so that’s about 46 years. My answer to that is that no, it began in 1953 or about 73 years ago. That is when U.S. and British leaders apparently in an effort to gain control over Iranian oil overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mr. Mosaddegh and replaced him with Shah Pahlavi who was out of the country but wanted desperately to return much as his son does today.
In 1967 as a continuation of the Atoms for Peace program the U.S. began giving uranium to the Shah so he could develop peaceful nuclear power for electricity, medicine, etc. or at least that’s what was said about it. In 1979 the Shah was overthrown by a coalition of Islamists, leftists, and of course students. Once again, as Ron Paul pointed out they didn’t come over here until we went over there. The war between the U.S./Israel and the Muslims grows almost daily and tells me quite clearly that there is a very high price to be paid for being subject to the military demands of another country.
I vehemently disagree with the view that there is no way out of Iran. Just tell the Iranians that we admit that we inadvertently, hopefully, attacked a school and killed about 160 little girls. We are very sorry we did that and for that mistake we will pay compensation to their families. Other than that, we have decided to rethink our Middle East strategy and in that regard we are withdrawing and leaving the region to fight its own wars. What will we then do with the hundreds of billions previously spent on this stupid, pointless war. That will become clear when we get to what the real problem is and how a possible solution is available.
The second problem that many see as fatal today is the ever-growing power of AI. I’ll admit that I am no tech expert and in most tech I am barely competent but I’ll also admit that much of what I read and hear about AI is terrifying. The other day I read that some of the tech people in conjunction with scientists and or doctors were using AI to invent new viruses. To me, that’s about as terrifying as nuclear weapons.
We read that AI is growing in intelligence on its own and the simpler or dumber if you prefer platforms are connecting with the smarter ones to learn and improve just as a child would with its parent. This is apparently being done without the parents’ consent or involvement. Recently, an AI system started hacking into information sources both private and public. Could AI launch nuclear weapons and start a world nuclear war. I don’t know but I do know it’s terrifying.
New Orleans is now using AI to answer its 911 calls and I’m sure many cities will soon follow. So, AI is becoming ever smarter and humans thanks to education and propaganda and social media are becoming ever dumber. Therefore, AI is rapidly replacing more and more human workers including those whose work is the knowledge they possess. Those who think for a living are perhaps in more danger of losing their livelihood than manual workers.
Soon, many believe, AI will take over almost all human creative activities including writing of all kinds as well as movies and TV production. Human actors may soon be a thing of the past. The other day I watched a 30-minute movie made by a couple of teenagers using AI and it was just as real as any you might see in theaters but none of the actors were real. The movie was about New York City, but it had some AI tells like palm trees in Manhattan but otherwise was very realistic.
So, AI is terrifying but does that mean that our terror is just Luddite reactions to progress. Ned Ludd lived in the early 1800’s in England during the early stages of the industrial revolution. He led a movement against the rising fear and power of the new machines which were faster and better than simple labor. Machines were especially prevalent in the textile industry and followers of Mr. Ludd would go from town to town destroying machines in factories because they thought they could stop progress.
Luddites became such a problem for the British government that factories were guarded by troops and many Luddites were killed. We can’t allow ourselves to become Luddites by trying to stop the computers because it will not work. They are coming for us and our jobs so the best course of action seems to me to be learning to live and work with them and to use them for good purposes. Naïve of me, perhaps but it seems like the only way.
The Iran War and AI are both serious problems but both have solutions or at least ways to lessen their damaging impact. The most intractable problem of all is barely noticed by most people and yet is going to destroy their lives relatively quickly. When Donald Trump was elected in 2024 the US empire was in serious trouble and headed for bankruptcy. The era of spend all you want and I own all the money and there is no end to it is over or rapidly dying. Without the counterfeit money machine now probably run by AI there is no empire.
Trump has simply accelerated the process toward bankruptcy to warp speed which is the opposite of why people voted for him. The federal debt is now very close to 40 trillion and half of that has been added in the last 10 years or since Trump was first elected. Since July 1st of this year U.S. debt has already increased by $450nbillion. Over the last 13 months it has gone up by $3.6 trillion. It is increasing by $7 billion per day and at that rate by 2030 it will hit $60 trillion.
Who cares, the people shout just give me mine and borrow to pay interest. The problem is that very soon the interest on all that debt will be the largest item in the budget and threatening all other terms. Currently about $1trillion per year in interest and growing to destroy the standard of living of our children. The debt has reached an impossible level and that means the U.S. government and that means you and me is a debt slave for life.
That’s not even the worst of it folks because I’m talking about the effects of this credit based, no cash economy on Mr. and Ms. Average American. I submit to you that I am very qualified to discuss this subject because I was a bankruptcy lawyer for 46 years until I retired at the end of last year. I have literally been involved with thousands of people who got in so deep they could find no way out. I became pretty good at helping clients out of financial trouble and even wrote a book about it.
Just listen to this one example to get an understanding of how debt affects our lives. Take a family with husband and wife working and they have one child but they plan others. They are doing well with good jobs so they buy a $500,000 house at 6.8% interest. The bank approves the family for the loan and simply creates the money out of thin air to pay to the original owner. The bank doesn’t go in the vault and get $500,000 it creates on its computer and it has a license to do that from the Federal Reserve.
The deal is typically for 30 years but the nice family doesn’t care because they can afford the payments. The payment would be about $3,260 per month, not including taxes and insurance. In my city that $500,000 house would be charged about $1000 per month in tax plus insurance of maybe $250. So, over the 30 years mortgage payments alone would cost $673,000 just for interest or more than the value of the house.
Real estate on that scale is to provide shelter not an investment because so many things can happen. The most common would be one of them loses a job and payments could no longer be made. They try to sell but the market is down and interest up. They are 3 months behind so foreclosure is the next step. Unlike the federal government or Federal Reserve, the nice family has to make payments with their labor which AI has probably taken from them and they cannot just create it out of thin air and take the interest from other people.
I could go on and on with how this terrible problem of debt affects people but I am out of time for today. In my opinion it is the worst and most unsolvable of problems. For the government it would take a reduction of about $2 trillion per year to keep it from going higher and that would be a good place to start.
Finally, folks, I think I could cut $2trillion from the budget first by cutting the $1.5 trillion defense budget by perhaps half. Other federal programs could meet the same fate.
At least that’s the way I see it,
Until next time folks,
This is Darrell Castle,
Thanks for listening.
