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Josh Graham on Politics, Power & What History Shows Is Coming Next

19 November 2025 · 1 hr 3 min

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Josh Graham on Politics, Power and What History Shows Is Coming Next

Would a 50-year mortgage help buyers or fuel the next bust? Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino debate the proposals, then former CIA case officer Josh Graham returns for Part 2 on what history says about power, money and where America is headed.

Are 50-year mortgages and portable home loans the solution to America’s housing crisis — or the fuel for an economic disaster?

Dr. John Oberg, Randy Lorensen, and Anthony Marino break down the controversial proposals now being discussed at the highest levels: 50-year mortgages, 15-year car loans, portable mortgages, and removing credit score requirements. And that’s just the first half.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Josh Graham — former CIA case officer, high school history teacher, and Congressional candidate —we explore how historical cycles, political polarization, failing monetary systems, and generational shifts are shaping America’s future. From ancient Israel to the Roman Republic to the Fourth Turning, Josh offers a historian’s perspective on power, corruption, debt, and why civilizations rise and collapse.

He also explains why today’s economic pressures feel heavier than ever — and how broken money, bad incentives, and mounting debt may be steering us toward a major societal reset.

This is a powerful, thought-provoking episode about housing, economics, politics, hope, history, and the next generation — and why the choices we make now will shape America for decades to come.

Josh Graham on the Roman Republic, the Fourth Turning, and the K-Shaped Economy

What you'll discover:

  • The case for and against 50-year mortgages, portable mortgages and dropping the 620 credit score
  • How mortgages work in other countries, and what a 50-year loan really saves each month
  • Why Josh went from the CIA to the classroom, and why he ran for Congress
  • Who kept power in check longest: Sparta, Athens and the early Roman Republic, and Cincinnatus and Washington
  • Polarization, the Fourth Turning and why civilizations collapse
  • What Bitcoin taught Josh about money, 1971, and the K-shaped economy

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome, and the stir over 50-year mortgages, 15-year car loans and portable mortgages
  • [00:56] Would a 50-year mortgage help? The case for and against
  • [02:52] How mortgages work in Japan, the U.K., Canada and elsewhere
  • [05:04] Could portable mortgages free up housing inventory?
  • [07:46] Would easier lending just push home prices higher?
  • [11:59] Portable mortgages and dropping the 620 credit-score requirement
  • [15:02] Fannie Mae, first-time buyers and the securitization hurdle
  • [17:23] Running the numbers: what a 50-year loan really saves each month
  • [18:15] M2 money supply and home prices
  • [20:26] Briefing wrap-up and a preview of Josh Graham Part 2
  • [20:44] Break: Premium Cabinets business opportunity
  • [21:20] Welcome back, Josh Graham: former CIA case officer and history teacher
  • [22:24] From the CIA to the classroom, and why he ran for Congress
  • [24:47] Disagreeing with civility, and his mission as a teacher
  • [26:58] Who kept power in check the longest? Sparta, Athens and the early Roman Republic
  • [30:05] Cincinnatus and George Washington: leaders who turned down power
  • [32:05] What pushed him to run: Ukraine and idolizing the president
  • [34:21] Running as an independent in red Texas and blue Austin
  • [34:54] Polarization in history and the Fourth Turning
  • [36:04] Ancient Egypt's intermediate periods, Moses and the fall of Pharaoh's house
  • [38:38] A macro analyst's view of the cycle, and New York's mayoral election
  • [40:56] Power, money and why civilizations collapse
  • [42:43] Will today's young people change their politics as they age?
  • [44:52] Growing fault lines, and hope in the rebuilding
  • [46:01] What Bitcoin taught him that economics school didn't
  • [47:05] Postwar generations, and what's missing for people under 25
  • [49:13] His students at Veritas, and a lesson on Moses in the wilderness
  • [52:24] Rent, hope and handouts
  • [53:37] Eagle Scouts, faith and finding his way back after the CIA
  • [55:40] How Bitcoin ties it together: "fix the money, fix the world"
  • [56:44] Work is holy: Genesis 2:15 and money as stored energy
  • [57:49] Money as a system of trust, and what changed in 1971
  • [1:01:04] The K-shaped economy
  • [1:02:00] Wrap-up, and notes left for a Part 3

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About Josh Graham

Josh Graham is a former CIA case officer, high school history teacher and congressional candidate. He teaches and coaches at Veritas, and his first conversation with the show is Ep 32, From CIA to Classroom.

Hear Part 1 and the resources Josh mentions:

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It comes from the episode recording and has speaker labels and time markers, which line up with the published audio. It hasn't been proofread, so expect some errors in names and terms.

Randy Lorensen [00:10]: Viewers, welcome to Tales of Abundance. As always, I'm here with Dr. John and Anthony Marino. How are we doing today, gentlemen?

Dr. John Oberg [00:16]: Ready to rock and roll, man. This is a great one.

Anthony Marino [00:17]: awesome.

Randy Lorensen [00:18]: All right. Well, let's jump in before we get to our guest. We were talking about, you know, off air, some of these things that are happening. And there's been a big stir lately with between Trump and then Pulte are promoting 50 year mortgages, 15 year car loans. They're also talking about transferable mortgages or portable mortgages. And then there's also talk of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or whatever they're called, getting rid of the credit score requirement. So I think all three of these tie together. And so let's start with the 50 year mortgage. And I think we have differing opinions on this. I mean, this is an article from Reuters, but again, I think this is a great question on the money. Would a 50 year mortgage make home ownership easier or riskier? So let's start there, I know you guys have opinions.

Anthony Marino [01:19]: Go ahead, John, I want to hear your conservative side of this.

Dr. John Oberg [01:23]: I mean, look, I think there's pros and cons to this thing, right? Like I have real concerns that my kids aren't going to be able to afford homes. And this makes things a lot more affordable, but there's a risk that it makes it affordable in the same way that college is affordable to people. And you've seen that, know, Sallie Mae coming into the college tuition market has driven college costs arguably through the roof. You know, where you used to be able to go to a public school for, you know, less than $10,000 a year in tuition. You've got the University of Texas right now at something. I'll look up the exact number, but tens of thousands of dollars of tuition. And that's not even, you know, there's more funding from other places as well. And so I think that, you know, the government coming into subsidizing loans that are 50 years. Sure. It can be argued you make people more excited to keep a property for a longer period of time, but I think there's a real danger here to driving up the total cost of things and not in good way for a consumer.

Anthony Marino [02:21]: Yeah, I would just jump in with both feet and tell you that's a false equivalency. I don't see any relationship between spending $200,000 on a, you know, basket weaving degree and a home. So first of all, the rest of the world does this. Japan, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Canada. Canada is very...

Randy Lorensen [02:47]: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Whoa, whoa, whoa. United Kingdom has like one year mortgages or it's kind of short.

Anthony Marino [02:53]: Okay, but they also have, they may have one year mortgages too. I don't know anything about that. I'm talking about right now, Japan, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Canada, and in Canada's case, portable mortgages, which we're going to talk about are also extremely common. Now, what's the downside of a long term?

Dr. John Oberg [03:14]: Well, hold on, you're making an argument because somebody else does it, it's a good idea. So let's get to why it's a good idea.

Anthony Marino [03:18]: Hold on, well, that's why if you would let me, I will tell you, okay? So let's do that. the upside is obvious that you have a monthly payment, which enables more people to qualify at existing credit score levels, right? And frankly, guys, let's snap out of it. The average homeowner keeps their first home for less than eight years. So it's not like a person is gonna hang on to this mortgage for 50 years or very, very few people are gonna do that. And yes, if they do, they're gonna pay much more in interest and they're gonna have a slower equity bill and so forth. And if they go long enough, could be upside down on that mortgage. Those are all risks. But when you weigh the risks versus the crisis that we're facing, we've got to do something that changes the calculus. The current calculus doesn't work for economic growth and to your point John, enable people to get into a home and start to build equity earlier and have that sense of self-worth. I mean in the last eight years the average first-time homebuyer has gone from low 30 year old to 40. This is a crisis. and it needs to change. So we can sit on our hands and bemoan the downside, and look at it.

Dr. John Oberg [04:52]: Doesn't this lead to more inflation, Anthony? Like if you drive home prices up by offering 50 year loans, mean, again, isn't that going to do something to inflate real estate?

Anthony Marino [05:04]: There could be some of that, but there could be more inventory. And let me explain where portable mortgages come in. A portable mortgage enables you, after requalifying, you're have to be re-underwritten, you're gonna have to incur some cost to do it. to take that same mortgage and move it to a new home. If you're upgrading, you may have to throw more deposit down to be at the 20 or 25%, whatever the case might be. But if we allow that, more inventory now comes on the market. Because right now, if you ask me, are you to, I wanna move, I wanna move to a bigger home, I wanna move to a smaller home. In one of our episodes coming up, we need to talk about the transfer of wealth, right? The boomer transfer of wealth, it's a big deal. But if I wanted to downsize, I'd be downsizing to a smaller home at a 6 % mortgage instead of the 3 % mortgage I have right now. But if I could, if my mortgage was portable, I'd move in a heartbeat. I literally would move in a heartbeat if I'm trying to downsize. Maybe I want to downsize to a condo, get rid of taking care of my lawn. Right now, the resale homes on the market, is as much of a deficit there as there are in new home construction in high density areas. So I think both of these ideas are worth trying. It's time to change the calculus in the way we operate in the mortgage business. Same old, same old is gonna just end up getting more people elected to office that probably shouldn't be elected to office. We'll leave it at that.

Dr. John Oberg [06:46]: So Anthony, you're, I mean, look, right now, I don't know. Well, look, again, I don't, I want my kids to be able to own real estate for sure. I believe in that a lot. think my guess is we all three believe in home ownership is being important. But the whole like supply thing right now, we went from a seller's market. which I think is anything where you have inventory of less than six months in a marketplace.

Anthony Marino [06:49]: But I'm not passionate about it at all.

Dr. John Oberg [07:14]: to a buyer's market more than six months. We haven't been in a buyer's market for, I'm guessing, 15 years, 12 years, something like that in Austin. I'll have look up the data, but it's been quite some time since we've been in a buyer's market. There is more inventory showing up, at least in the Austin market. And I'm guessing in lots of markets, that's the case. And my guess is coastal markets look a lot different than middle of the country markets. This is all stuff I haven't researched. I'm just, you supposing, you're going to jump in.

Randy Lorensen [07:45]: Well, look, I think that if the government makes it easier to buy homes in any of these three ways, home prices are going to shoot up. just, you know, there's the old Charlie Munger quote, show me the incentive and I'll tell you the outcome. And it's yes, it could create some supply. And when we get into economics, whatever. economists don't agree on, they all agree on supply and demand. And the best way to take the prices of anything down into counter-inflation is to have more supply of, I don't care if it's beef or coffee, things that are really out of hand right now or it's houses, right? And that's why, you know, and I don't want to go into rent control, every city that's done rent control, it's created less incentive for builders to build. And therefore the supply... goes down and rent prices go up even though it's supposed to keep them under control.

Dr. John Oberg [08:46]: So you're saying that this would actually drive to more inventory and less inflation? This would put more buyers in the market.

Randy Lorensen [08:52]: No, I actually, think there's, I think there's yes, I think there's different factors, but I think you're, I'm agreeing with you, John. I think ultimately there's going to be a bigger impact from easier terms. Like all of a sudden, if you don't need a 620 credit score, to get invested, it's easier. If you can transfer your mortgage, Anthony, I agree with you. We bought this house two years ago. I had a 2.625 on my condo. I would have loved to have transferred that here and not been paying six and three quarters, right? I mean.

Anthony Marino [09:28]: Right. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, I could agree with both of you, except you'd both be wrong. One of the reasons why the, one of the reasons why, that's true. Yeah. One of the reasons why there's a, it seems to be a seller's market is because there's a dearth of potential buyers.

Dr. John Oberg [09:39]: We're recording this so we'll know. We'll know in a few years.

Anthony Marino [09:51]: There's just a handful of qualified buyers. when there aren't enough buyers, the sellers have to fight to lure those buyers to them. You just got to look at this. The system is broken. Okay, there's no question about the fact that the system is broken for a lot of reasons. There are municipalities, particularly in dense populations, that have so much regulation that people can't build, or they're afraid of rent control, their environmental things. In California, we're 10 months into the post fire and they haven't built the first home yet. I mean, there's all kinds of issues with creating supply. But we've got to give people hope.

Randy Lorensen [10:34]: Here.

Anthony Marino [10:37]: And if you don't have hope, what do you have? you could put out, all of us have been young, first time home buyers. And that excitement wasn't just about the house. It was about your future and what your future was gonna be like. Getting the dog, having the kids. This is our first home, buying that furniture.

Dr. John Oberg [10:57]: What? So those are great emotional arguments and I don't disagree that they're important, but like, what if you let the free market handle it? What if you said, hey, look, banks, if you want a 50 year mortgage on a home or a 15 year payment on a car, like let's not get the government involved to subsidize that and protect everything. Or is that not work?

Anthony Marino [11:16]: Now we agree on something. I'm not suggesting for a second that the government should be the one doing the lending.

Dr. John Oberg [11:25]: But the government doing the lending is what will drive the prices up, in my opinion. If you let the free market handle the rest of it, then we're fully aligned. Like I think whatever product a bank wants to use, they're going to do a great job of underwriting, understanding risk and pricing it appropriately.

Randy Lorensen [11:40]: Well, okay. Anthony, I'm just going to ask you this question. When the government institutes a program to bring prices down or to have an impact, what happens pretty much 100 % of the time? What's the actual outcome?

Dr. John Oberg [11:43]: actually ship.

Anthony Marino [11:53]: It's not good. That's for sure.

Randy Lorensen [11:55]: Yeah, it's usually the exact opposite of what they wanted, right? So here I got a few things. I'm going to share it just real quick for those of you watching or just the CNN article talking about the portable mortgages. And I don't know that we've clarified that. What that is, is kind of what Anthony and I alluded to. If you have a mortgage, you buy a new place, you can sell the old house and take the mortgage with you to the new place. Or they're suggesting you can. you have the choice to do that or give it to the seller. And then the Fannie Mae, you know, this is just, they're, you know, they've got a 620 credit score, which is a pretty low credit score. has been the minimum to qualify for a mortgage. And they're also saying they're going to do away with that. So these are the things.

Anthony Marino [12:24]: Yep.

Dr. John Oberg [12:29]: before you go on though, Randy, hold on. Can we just go back to the first one? Because I these are really two different things, Randy. But like here on this one, the portable mortgages, like if you look at like the normal kind of like loan from the Bank of London back to like 1700, 5 % is pretty much the norm plus or minus. When you get into like twos and three percents, that's happened once for a period over the last, you know, whatever it was, 15, 20 years. And of course, everybody wants to keep that. That's the lowest it's been in like 300 years. The reality is that that portability, don't know how that, I think you're trading on the emotion of what's happened the last 15 or 20 years maybe versus like, I don't know how important that is. Is this just a tactic to get people excited again? I'm really asking, like, mean.

Randy Lorensen [13:26]: But well, back to the incentives, right? What are the incentives that all three of these things cause, right? A 50 year mortgage, they're trying to let people get more house. And how do most people buy a house, right? They go in, I'm not asking John how you buy a house. I'm not answer the logical. I'm asking for most people, right? I mean, they go and they say, how much payment can I afford?

Dr. John Oberg [13:45]: Yeah, sure.

Randy Lorensen [13:52]: And therefore the incentive is going to be to buy a bigger house, probably than they can afford. Right. And go a little more. The same thing, the adjustable more or the portable mortgage will do the same thing. Not needing a six 20 credit score. It gives more people incentive. I actually read this yesterday morning. I was going to show you this newsletter from James lavish. I want to give him credit. He's got a great newsletter. If people are interested in macro stuff, but look at this chart. 1980 for those of me make it a little bigger But from 19 and 1980 first time home buyers were 30 all buyers looked like they're what 31 and repeat buyers were about 37 38 First time buyers has gone from 30 to 40 years old All buyers has basically doubled pretty much from 30 to 60

Anthony Marino [14:39]: I

Randy Lorensen [14:43]: So that's the concern, John, that you talked about at the very beginning is how are our kids going to be able to afford a home? And I think we all agree that's a crisis, right?

Anthony Marino [14:53]: So if we kept this, if, you know, the reason we don't have a 50-year mortgage is because Fannie Mae won't buy them, right? The banks still do all the underwriting. but Fannie Mae buys it. if they, let's test this with first time home buyers. First time home buyers can use a five, I think a five, they used to be able to use a 5 % down payment to buy their first home. They still have to qualify in terms of the monthly payment, which obviously goes up with a smaller down payment. But if they spread that out, maybe we could, know, again, I'm all about the emotional side of things and what it does to drive so many other behaviors. that have a positive impact on society when you have people invested in their future with a reason to feel good about the money that they're making in their job, where it's going, that even if it's a slow burn in terms of the equity growth in a market for that homeowner, I just think there's tremendous opportunity for it.

Randy Lorensen [16:02]: Well.

Anthony Marino [16:04]: And the securitization issue, that's the biggest issue with portability because in the United States, portability, the mortgage, the property is what's securitized. Across the world, what's securitized in other countries is the person. So that's a huge hurdle for us in the United States to deal with in terms of portability. So that's a bigger bite. The 50 year mortgage is, if Fannie Mae would just buy them, it's easy to do. You do it starting tomorrow.

Dr. John Oberg [16:37]: So what's interesting though is if you take a $400,000 home at roughly 6%, I looked at today's rates, 5.98%, 20 % down, your monthly payment is $22.89 on a 30-year and $2,054 on a 50-year. So you're dropping the payment by about $244, $45 a month.

Anthony Marino [16:58]: Yep, 10%. Yep.

Randy Lorensen [16:59]: Well, here's if you look at what I'm sharing on the screen, this is again from the James Lavish newsletter. He compares and I think this is exactly right. If you notice up here, he's saying a 30 year mortgage at 6.3, a 50 year mortgage at 6.8, and it might be a bigger spread like like you cannot assume the same mortgage because right now you save about half a point on a 15 versus a 30 year. So you got to assume it's going to be at least half a point going from 30 to 50. So if you notice his numbers, this is, I don't know what size house, but it's a 2476 to 2346. It's only saving $130 a month, which, and then if you look at the interest paid, the interest goes from more than doubles, right? It adds half a million dollars basically. to the total paid. I'm going through these pretty fast, but Like look here, equity after 15 years on a $400,000 on a 15 year mortgage, the house is 100 % paid off, right? On a 400K. On a 30 year, you've got 112,000. On a 50 year, you've only got 24,000 in equity. So I think that's interesting. And then you can see total interest. Let me scroll through that. this is what I really, well, here's another thing. You can see M2 money supply and the house. Home price index. Basically houses are going up in value because we're printing money. They're going up at the same rate. And what's

Dr. John Oberg [18:30]: Going up in price to be fair. I said going up in price. I don't know about value. If those two things are in parallel, the value is roughly the same,

Randy Lorensen [18:38]: Correct, that is correct. Yes, they're keeping up where people that have cash are losing. But here's what I found really interesting in here. And I won't go through all of this math, but he talks a lot about the debt because of all that money printing, the debt getting inflated away. And by the end of 50 years, whatever payment seems high now will be nothing in 50 years. They're not gonna stop printing money. But here's where he talks about investing. this $130 a month in savings at 10 % annual returns, which I'm not sure everybody can get 10%, but for the argument of his thing, taking $130 a month and using 10 % or getting 10 % at the end of 50 years will create $2.255 million, you know, over a $2 million in net worth on top of whatever's in the house. So I... I think that if you're going to spend the extra $130 on blowing it, right, or whatever, you're just going to waste the money, it's probably hard to justify it. But if you're going to invest it, it might work.

Anthony Marino [19:49]: Well, we're running out of time, so obviously we're going to have to come back to this topic, but I think it's a great topic to dig into.

Dr. John Oberg [19:50]: If you take, if you take... But if you take a loan at 6 % and you invest it and get 10%, of course you're going to do better. That's easy math. Look, I think we should keep tracking this over time and see what happens. I think there's a lot of positives for people who are coming into their first part of their career. I think there's some big risks. And for me, I really want people to understand the risks they're taking. And I'd like it if the government didn't change the risk profile for people so that we have the real price of what it is people are consuming.

Anthony Marino [20:26]: Great job guys, mean, a lot to talk about here.

Randy Lorensen [20:28]: All right, listeners, when we come back, we are going to have Josh Graham back for a part two, ex CIA case officer. We're going to be talking about him running for Congress amongst other things. So we will talk to you after the break.

Randy Lorensen [21:19]: Listeners welcome back to tales of abundance why settle for less we have Josh Graham back with us if you remember Josh is a ex CIA CIA case agent and and he is He teaches high school In the first episode that he was on we talked a lot about the CIA It was great John geeked out over all of his types of questions and we might have more of that today because I enjoyed watching Just watching him like a kid in the candy store

Dr. John Oberg [21:42]: You

Randy Lorensen [21:48]: But Josh also, along with teaching coaches basketball, but you teach ancient history, right? Which, so we talked about that in the last episode. So if you didn't hear episode one of Josh, go back and look for Josh Graham. Today we're going to go, we're going to go into some other things. So Josh, welcome. And as always listeners, I'm here with John Oberg and Anthony Moreno.

Josh Graham [21:56]: I do. Yeah, it's a great privilege to be here with you all again. Thank you.

Randy Lorensen [22:15]: Cool. let's jump in. I know when I first met you, talked about you were running for, I believe when I first met you, you were running for Congress at the time. So it wasn't your, I also know it wasn't exactly your plan. So do you want to just kind of tell the story? How does that happen?

Josh Graham [22:24]: That's right. Sure. So to recapture a little bit from our past episode, when I went to college, my plan was to be a high school history teacher and a basketball coach. But as I traveled around the world, I realized I could not, how could I teach about the world if I hadn't experienced the world? And so I had a change of heart and went to DC to be an intern focusing on international human rights for the US Congress. And so that introduced me to kind of the larger conversations, policy and current events, public service in a different light than, you know, just on the other side than teaching. And 9-11 was my first day. And so, you know, my, that exposure to national level politics and policy conversations, you know, and, you know, all the DC culture and, you the desire for service, but the corruption of power, I guess, infected me. Less the corruption, more the desire to serve. And so after kind of being out of public service and national security for about a decade and establishing roots here in Austin, Texas, there were a lot of things happening in the world that inspired and provoked me to dip my toe back in the water of a different type of service. And so I had become frustrated with the level of conversation that was happening across party lines. I had become disenfranchised with the political establishment and seeing that there wasn't a real desire to serve Austin or central Texas or other localities. And so my desire really came back to, you really two things, I think. One is to inspire others to care about the public arena. And part of that inspiration was to educate on the more important conversations and less on kind of what the talking heads were spending a lot of time on. And a lot of that goes to my students and my children and wanting a better life for them, wanting to learn how do we can disagree with people with greater civility. and perhaps looking towards the end without wanting to assign our complete identity in politics. And so that was the real motivation to inspire and educate and hopefully bring a little bit more civility into the public arena.

Dr. John Oberg [25:16]: It's funny with history, think, you know, history is a little bit lost on me in high school and I kind of think that I would do much better in history classes now because what little I know about history, it seems like, you know, we're doomed to repeat ourselves and it seems to be like cycles over and over and over again. We've talked on the show about, you know, the four turnings and we've talked about like all the different cycles that people watch happening. Are there some things, right there in front of you, love it. That's great, I love it.

Randy Lorensen [25:38]: Ha ha ha

Josh Graham [25:40]: turning here. Yes, my wife and I are going through it.

Dr. John Oberg [25:43]: That's great. So are there any things that you feel like, man, this is so obvious to me as a history teacher from ancient times until today, like if I could just like help people see this one thread, it would give them so much clarity, regardless of which side of the debate they ended up on, right? Because you can disagree with civility, but like if I could just help people see that one thread, is there like one or two threads you really wish everyone could see more clearly than they do because they're not history teachers?

Josh Graham [26:12]: Yes, I think the desire power is both magnetic and in terms of its attraction. And also there's a tendency of the powerful to want to pursue that power and wealth eventually for their own end and not for the end of the governed. And so the more that we are able to hold and check the powerful, and the more that we are able to love our neighbor, then those two different pursuits can strengthen society. And I think that's part of my desire and my mission.

Dr. John Oberg [26:58]: So not including the last 200 years, if you looked at all of ancient history, where would you say that's been done the best for the longest?

Josh Graham [27:05]: And you're specifically asking about ancient history?

Dr. John Oberg [27:08]: Yeah, not the last 200 years. That's too easy an answer.

Josh Graham [27:12]: Sure. You know, I think there are wonderful moments in the time of, I'm teaching my students on ancient Israel right now, specifically during the time of King David. There's a lot to learn from him. More the beginning of his rise to power and less when he was already established in power. Power even corrupted King David. He was a horrible husband and horrible father. But there was justice in the land. And then other times, if we're only speaking about Sparta itself, I think the Spartans treated fellow Spartans incredibly well and they were able to disagree and serve Sparta well. Of course, they treated others pretty poorly. And then the Athenians, despite their raucous behavior and kind of the... disruption at the local level, it does produce great ideas. And so they were able to work through all their ideas through radical democracy, one man, one vote, and kind of let the free marketplace of ideas rise to the top. And so those are a couple of different things. I'm a big fan of the Persian Emperor Cyrus. He's even mentioned in the Old Testament as a messiah. because he frees the Jews. He greatly values religious freedom and freedom of speech and freedom of thought. And so there's a lot to admire about him as well.

Dr. John Oberg [28:48]: Has anyone for a long period of time done a great job of keeping power in check for, let's say, more than 250 years?

Josh Graham [28:58]: I, their early Roman Republic, uh, was, was brilliant in that, I think, uh, they had set up, uh, the, um, you know, uh, a separation of powers beautifully because they, they hated and despise the tyrants of the kingdom of, of Rome that came before them. And it hadn't gotten to the point where, uh, there was, uh, you know, eventually the, Republic of Rome gets to a point that I label for my students, Mike makes right. And because there wasn't justice for the soldiers, for the common man, eventually the Roman Republic generals, or the consuls, the chief politicians, sponsored their own soldiers. And whoever could get the largest militia or the largest private army was able to do whatever they want. And so that period, the late Roman Republic, after political violence was introduced into the society with the Gracchus Brothers assassinations. It really devolved quickly until of course the rise of Caesar Augustus after the assassination of Julius Caesar. But there are so many wonderful Roman leaders. Cincinnati is what the city of Cincinnati is named after here in the United States. And he was so remarkable, he turned down power multiple times despite given absolute power for one year increments at different moments. in order to save Rome from a crisis. It is. And there's a lot of historians that make the comparison between George Washington and Cincinnati because they were both farmers, they both loved their country, they were both patriots, they both served in moments of crisis with great courage and fortitude, but they had the wisdom to turn down power and just go back to their land and reconnect with their roots instead of hold on to power tight.

Dr. John Oberg [30:28]: It's hard to imagine.

Josh Graham [30:55]: which is what so many powerful men do.

Dr. John Oberg [30:57]: Alright Randy, I'm going go look for history classes now.

Randy Lorensen [30:59]: There we go. mean, that really is amazing. So I did not know about about Cincinnati's. Is that how you say his name? Yeah, I've literally never heard him talked about, but you know, one of the most amazing things to me about George Washington is that, you know, this country tried to make him a king and he said no. And then they tried to give him unlimited terms and he said no, right? So I've always found that amazing. So now I'm going to have to go in and research, read about Cincinnati somewhere. Do you have a book you recommend about this guy?

Josh Graham [31:06]: Thank you. That's right. That's right. Well, I was first introduced to him by a great podcast by Mike Duncan and it's just a history of Rome podcast And he is a professor. I think he's recently moved institutions So I've lost kind of track of where he is presently But it's a phenomenal podcast and he has some wit and humor that is tied into it So and I know he has some books also, but but yeah, I'd highly recommend anything by Mike Duncan

Randy Lorensen [31:38]: Good luck. So let's go back to the run for Congress. And you talked about the desire to serve. Was there a spark though or a straw that broke the camel's back or was it just that desire to serve?

Josh Graham [32:10]: I think part of it was the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And at the beginning, it looked to be incredibly unjust and a number of other things, right? At the beginning, like so many incredible conflicts. And because of my background, had very much, I wanted to get back in the fight. I wanted to be involved. I wanted to serve. But a wife and three young children at home and... my other roles and responsibilities with my church and my school and in my community. That didn't make sense for me to just pack my bags and go over to Europe and do that when I could serve here. And I think that was one of the incidents that inspired me to consider getting back in the arena. There was also the rise of President Trump in 2016 and the idea of you know, the visceral reaction towards him, but also the, the, you know, it's kind of the incredible fanfare in favor of him. And, and it, it seemed regardless of if it was President Obama before that or President Trump or eventually President Biden, and now of course, President Trump again, we had become idolizing the president of regardless of which side of the fence you're on and demonizing the other and that strong. absolutism, absolutist language, I felt was dangerous. And so we could talk about the issues. There are things that I agreed with about President Trump and things that I disagreed with in terms of at least some of his moral and ethical decisions or some of the language that he would use that was a little more inflammatory. And so that conversations or those conversations at that moment were a part of what inspired me to say, okay, I want to be an independent, especially in Austin. Austin is such a unique place, you know, where we're kind of this, you know, hodgepodge of different communities and living in a place that loves the locality, but we have very strong feelings on either side. Texas is incredibly red, you know, Austin is incredibly blue. How do we live together? And that's And so all those reasons are why I wanted to ran as an independent. So we didn't worship the party or demonize the other leader. And we could find a way to kind of split down the middle.

Dr. John Oberg [34:46]: So you talk about, I'm gonna use a different word, but kind of a polarization politically of a society. And I think if that's a good characterization, I would say, have we seen in history a time where that polarization, know, the fourth turning, talks about kind of a radical change back to the first turning, right? Where it's a fairly, you know, it takes a radical moment to go from the fourth turning back to the first turning. Is there a time that any society has kind of gone into this polarization but come back to the center without that kind of radical ripping of the band-aid?

Josh Graham [35:23]: Not that I'm aware of, I don't have exhaustive knowledge of every historical event, but in my education and in my teaching of history, I'm not aware of one. And of course, the authors of The Fourth Turning do such an incredible job of illustrating and detailing the last 500 years of history, going back to, what is it, the Glorious Revolution. in England and so at least for the United Kingdom and for the United States and other similar countries, I'm not aware of one. And even if you look at Rome and the ancient Greeks, it's comparable. So I even teach in my ancient history class about ancient Egypt, the main periods of flourishing are called either the early kingdom, the middle kingdom, or the late kingdom. And each of those are somewhere between three and 500 years, so the timeline kind of matches up. And inside each kingdom, there are dynasties. And it could be like four or five dynasties of each larger epoch of a kingdom. But in between those kingdoms are called intermediate periods. And it's a time of how I describe to my students, Hell on earth for the Egyptians. That's when foreign invasions came. That's when civil war occurred. That's when famine and destruction and other horrible things from an Egyptian perspective happened. So, you know, that the Hyksos were famous for introducing the compound bow and the chariot and they were foreigners who governed Egypt and they came in and just kind of used puppet regimes to do it. There were Of course, Joseph was a foreigner who had a lot of control in Egypt, if you remember your Old Testament lessons. And he was a foreigner. And so that was likely during the intermediate period. Moses and his combating of Pharaoh ended a dynasty. All of Pharaoh's military was destroyed by the Red Sea and by the plagues. so the great house of Pharaoh, which is what Pharaoh means, great house, was Was destroyed by the plagues and and that likely ended his dynasty because his air was removed which probably onset Intermediate period or hell on earth for them so regardless of which Civilization we're looking at and we care most about our own in the here in the United States and Any any epoch change will be incredibly disruptive you have the old vanguard wanting to hold tightly to the values that kind of prop us up into power. And then you have a rising generation coming afterwards that it is unjust, it is not good. And so they inherently want to destroy all the pillars of what was old in order to rebuild something that they believe will be more beneficial for all. One of my favorite analysts, that I was introduced to from the Bitcoin world, he does macro economic analysis and investing. His name is Luke Roman. And I listen and read almost everything that he puts out. He recommended a book called In Times and he compares it very comparably to The Fourth Turning, but he looks specifically at the idea. I read it a few months ago and he looked specifically at the ideas like as a society becomes increasingly reliant upon credentials, you have the middle class over pursue those credentials because it puts them into the next strata of the economic elite or the power elite. But then there's not enough jobs to satiate those individuals. And as a result, you have all these disenfranchised, overeducated and and well-trained individuals with broad networks, then say, well, this is not good and we're going to remake something. And I think that's partially what is a result of the recent New York election with Mom Donnie becoming the mayor there. He's incredibly well-educated and trained along with so many other New Yorkers. And the system wasn't good, at least from their perspective. so despite all the Odds from our perspective, he won in a landslide.

Dr. John Oberg [40:09]: Yeah. What was the book again? was End Times by...

Josh Graham [40:16]: end times and then I'll have to look up the author. Yes, that's right. Yes.

Dr. John Oberg [40:19]: Is it Turchin? Peter Turchin? Yeah, okay, I found it, so that's great. Seriously, Randy, you're giving me more homework on a podcast than I'm comfortable with. I'm gonna end up taking Josh's class and reading a bunch of books and probably gonna miss a bunch of meetings with you now.

Randy Lorensen [40:32]: Hahaha

Josh Graham [40:34]: Yeah

Randy Lorensen [40:35]: I'm pretty sure that if you show up to his classes, there's going to be problems. I'm not quite sure you fit the demographic.

Josh Graham [40:41]: Hahaha

Randy Lorensen [40:43]: Not that they're aegis or anything, likely you might stick out in high school. What did you, what?

Josh Graham [40:49]: Maybe you can come be a guest speaker.

Dr. John Oberg [40:52]: I'll sign up for that for sure.

Randy Lorensen [40:54]: Anthony, were you saying something?

Anthony Marino [40:57]: I was going to, I don't know how to frame it. I'm listening, listening intently to the historian. It was really the only, only class I did well in, high school. I had a foil for a teacher. was my football, one of my football coaches and he didn't like me and I didn't like him. So I just insisted on getting A's in his class just to, just to bust his chops. know, it's showing crazy. But, you know, I don't know if you're familiar with Dalio's new book, you know, How Countries Go Bankrupt. I'm struck by, you know, the crashes of civilizations over the years and the economic link to that, you know, power corrupts. power, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yes, that was a big part of the reason why the civilizations collapse, people want to hold it on the power. But power equals money then, and it equals money now. And I'm more of a question for you. You know, where do you where do you think we are? Do you think we're in the end of the third? Are we in the fourth turning? Are we hopelessly in debt? Is there, know, Dalio believes that you can work your way out of it, but there will be a crash of sorts, big, the end of the cycle. You know, so what's your take on the economics, where we are historically, and if you could maybe frame it around, you know, where you think your students are gonna take us in the future. I mean, they're, you know, this. Mamdani group, and 25 and under, they'll be in power at some point. will they, like the rest of us, become Republicans? I'm born in the 50s, and I was a child of the 60s and 70s, and I was a liberal.

Josh Graham [42:41]: Yes. Yes.

Anthony Marino [42:59]: Hippie draft burner, draft card burning guy. By 1979 when I graduated college, I did that, couldn't get a job. Quickly tried to become a Republican, right? So where do you think it's headed?

Josh Graham [43:13]: I definitely agree with the authors and so many others that we are in the fourth turning. My understanding is that all the better analysts than me, it eventually began with the great financial crisis in 2008. And I'm expecting the precipitous moment to happen somewhere between 2028 and 2032, just based on the math of the book and the rising tide of politics and civil strife. That's only essentially two years away since we're at the end of 25. But I am so overwhelmingly impressed by my students. They are uniquely gifted and a really special group of individuals. They give me hope for a better future. And so I can only speak to the students and the basketball players that I've taught and coached over the last eight years or so. if our future is reliant upon these individuals, I average about 45 students per year, then I'm incredibly hopeful. Of course, we have to get through some dark times ahead. you because the conversation's not, you know, it's not getting better. We're not learning how to love each other instantaneously. And so we, you know, the fault lines are getting larger and not smaller presently. And according to the book and many other, and many other incidences in history, that's going to lead to a cataclysmic event. But the rebuilding afterwards is what is, you know, what will be beautiful and inspiring hope presently. So, I mean, I definitely think, I mean, that's if we just look at the economic situation, I mean, we're what, 120 % in debt presently about debt to GDP ratio. We just crossed the $38 trillion debt mark, the deficit mark. We, think the...

Randy Lorensen [45:17]: So.

Anthony Marino [45:19]: Thank

Josh Graham [45:36]: OMB for the government is expecting somewhere around $54 trillion in debt in the next 10 years, but we're going to blow that out of the water. I've learned all my education in terms of macroeconomics and kind of fiscal discipline through different Bitcoin podcasters and thinkers. I mean, despite having a graduate level education in international economics and international economic development, despite having business, know, a graduate level education in entrepreneurship and business, they didn't teach me anything. And in my opinion, I learned it all from, you know, James Lavish and Jeff Booth and Jack Maulers and, you know, you know, there are so many others, Natalie Brunel and, you know, Lynn Alden. I mean, you know, all these incredible individuals, Luke Roman, I've already mentioned, but I'm just like sitting at their feet. And it keeps making more sense each month that passes by. And so it's easy to poke holes in false prophets. But if the prophecy or the predictions remain incredibly consistently accurate, then there's a reason to keep going back to the wells of the of individuals that I just spoke about.

Anthony Marino [47:05]: I have an observation about today versus the post-World War II series of generations, if you will. We were in similar economic situation at the end of World War II, right? Because we'd blown everything to save the world. What I don't remember growing up and at the different stages of my life was ever... feeling helpless and hopeless about the future. Our parents didn't feel that way. They came out of the depression and somehow fought their way to the great 50s and early 60s. it was all, even when they were trying times like the late 60s, the battle about Vietnam and the injustice of all that. We always felt hopeful that we would be able to survive and do better than the previous generation. And there was an innate work ethic, I felt like, that I feel like it's missing from this under 25 generation that instead of... feeling like, okay, I'm gonna, yeah, my rent's really expensive and I gotta live with three roommates and all that, but tomorrow, I'm gonna only have two roommates. then in six months, I'm only gonna have one. And so this doesn't seem to be that drive to overcome. It seems to be, this is unfair, give me something. Like Mamdami said out loud, there's no problem the government can't solve. And I'm extraordinarily worried about that and I hope I'm wrong.

Dr. John Oberg [48:35]: and

Anthony Marino [48:48]: But it feels that way. And you teach the youth, you have great hope for them. Are they old enough to have developed that hopelessness yet? do they still have hope that might be false hope at this point at their age?

Josh Graham [49:07]: Sir, I mean, I think Veritas students are unique. I think I'm incredibly blessed to partner with the families at Veritas in order to teach my students. And I think they are a fascinating subset of the larger generation of youth. Everyone from kind of 14 to 25, I think, is the oldest of what my former students are. Uh, because one aspect that defines the Veritas community is that, uh, we're gritty, uh, you know, we are willing to work, uh, in order to get things done and build a better society and build a better community for us. Uh, you know, families at Veritas installed our own football field, uh, families at Veritas, you know, teach our youth. I, you know, I taught my three young ones earlier today before this podcast. And before I'm going to coach an intense basketball game tonight. and so that willingness to kind of keep pouring into the youth and keep partnering with others, you know, we're locked arm and arm in order to make a better world. but I, you know, I, I do think that that's unique. I mean, they have friends through, other sports teams, you know, outside of Veritas, or they have friends in their neighborhood. have friends through youth groups and, and. they are very much aware, whether it's social media or otherwise, of the larger conversations at hand. And my lesson yesterday to my students was about Moses traveling through the wilderness coming out of Egypt, and the Israelites grumbled and complained constantly. And going to your point, Anthony, the idea is like, once a spirit of disgruntlement enters into a community, it is incredibly hard to purge that spirit. And so the Israelites, despite being given heavenly honey bread called manna and quail just being dropped out of the sky and water spouting out of rocks and, you know, like seeing all the miracles of Egypt, they just grumbled and complained. They tried to overthrow Moses multiple times by false accusations. They tried to go back into slavery into Egypt. you know, it was like every single day it seemed like it was another complaint. to the point that it eventually drove Moses so mad that he openly rebelled against God and struck the rock in anger and stole glory from God. And then, you know, and that he was commonly called a friend of God. So I think that's one of the issues that's facing the youth presently right now is that it's so easy to complain. It's so easy to be disgruntled. And so that is inhibiting a spirit of work and a spirit of hopefulness. But I can't necessarily blame them because, you know, going back just five years, you know, the value of the US dollar has depreciated by about 50 to 75%. And it's about to be devalued again because we have to increase the liquidity in the system. So if they can't actually pay rent, then it's going to be hard to have hope. And eventually they're going to have to look for handouts because whatever they're earning, they doesn't allow them to pay the rent. And there's only so many hours in the day. so they can only work so many jobs. I have a number of, former students and players who are working like three different jobs. So it's not a willingness to work. It's a, it's the, the lack of ability to make ends meet despite great work ethic. and, and.

Dr. John Oberg [52:57]: Then there are a lot of people that want jobs right now that can't even find like can't find one job little three I mean, so are they coming to you for advice? And what are you saying?

Josh Graham [53:00]: That's right. That's right. Yes, I mean, some of my former players and students do come to me for advice. You know, I have a habit of gifting them small pieces of Bitcoin, you know, on their high school graduation or college graduation or on any of their engagements to their future spouses and other significant moments. I just gave one of my students some Bitcoin and the book, Thank God for Bitcoin.

Anthony Marino [53:22]: Thank

Josh Graham [53:34]: who's written by a number of Austinites here. And, you know, because he became an Eagle Scout. I have a number of Eagle Scouts amongst my former students and that's not common anymore. So I think they, you by being a little bit educated in Bitcoin, it does provide some economic hope. But then apart from that, You know, I think, you know, I'm of course biased, but it comes out of my own personal experience. Our hope can't be in the political system. Our hope can't be in the U.S. dollar or in the economic system or whatever. It needs to be in the larger pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty. And in my opinion, that is only found in the Trinitarian God as expressed by Jesus and his death and resurrection. I shared with my students that I rebelled against God for five years coming out of the CIA. I mean, it was a dark, time for me, but God is awesome and God is good. And so eventually I found my way back because of that goodness. And for many of the students and many of the families, that remains their hope also. And so if our hope is in... whatever political party or whatever political platform or in the US dollar or in a job, any of those things are going to fail. But if it's something that represents truth, which I think Bitcoin does, and all truth, in my opinion, is God's truth. so eventually the pursuit of truth, whether it's through Bitcoin or great philosophy or whatever, will eventually lead to the ultimate truth.

Randy Lorensen [55:22]: Josh, let's go deeper in that Bitcoin thing. How does it intersect all this? We've talked about money, you've talked about different things in history. Two or three times you brought up that people have the wrong incentives and therefore a lot of the problems come from that, which I think comes down from broken money is the cause of having those incentives. But all these different things you've been talking about, how does Bitcoin intersect all of that?

Josh Graham [55:51]: Well, there's a famous Bitcoin saying, if you fix the money, you fix the world. And, you know, I'm seeing that also. I think it's incomplete, but I think it would be a beautiful start. There are so many, I think, I believe there are 25 different passages in the first five books of the Old Testament alone, and I might be shortchanging that. of the importance of having just economic scales and how you need to have a fair economy so that people feel valued. And we feel that our time, that our energy, that our identity is secure and that there is a hope for all those things in the near and distant future. So I describe work for my students. We talk about it in the first couple of weeks of class because God commissions work in Genesis 2.15 before the famous fall of Adam and Eve. So work is holy, work is good. And work is, I define it as the expense of energy to produce value. And now value can be debated. Value can be, you like you're making a widget to benefit society, or it can be parenting. or it can be coaching or teaching, or it can be an awesome family meal with a neighbor down the street with great conversation, with great wine and cheese. So that value is more nebulous than just the dollar, if we can redefine it that way. And so if you're, go ahead. So if you're spending energy to create value and eventually that, you know, the value does need to translate into some type of currency or monetary asset. So you can

Randy Lorensen [57:31]: You, go ahead.

Josh Graham [57:44]: go out and you're not using the barter system, then we have a system based on trust. And even if I don't know you, it's still a trustworthy system because we can both trust the currency that's being exchanged. But that changed in 1971. And if my time and my energy is incredibly devalued because the cost of the US dollar is decreasing, they're taking of my time, they're taking of my energy, and that essentially enslaves me to a small bit or to a large bit. But my time, my energy is somewhat what defines me and how I do those things. And so if they keep shifting the goalposts on what my value is, then they're robbing me of my own identity. And since 1971, the US dollar has only been built upon the full trust and worthiness of the United States government. Well, that was right in the middle of the Vietnam War. And then eventually there's the oil crisis in the late 1970s. And then we keep invading Iraq for some reason ever since 1991 and a whole bunch of other places. So, well, what is the good of all this war and destruction if it doesn't create a more flourishing society. We're not better off now than we were then. I think the dollar or a currency, the fundamental monetary asset defines so much of the values for a society. And the dollar is not trustworthy.

Randy Lorensen [59:39]: I think broken money has created, you earlier you talked about bad incentives, not just for politicians, but in education and healthcare, in food, even war, right? Like it would be much harder for them to keep fighting these wars if they had to raise taxes every time or they had to pull gold out of the ground. But when they have control of the money printer, it's human nature unless they're Cincinnati's or George Washington, they're probably gonna use it, is my experience.

Josh Graham [1:00:08]: That's right. Every single foreign venture since 2001 has been paid with debt, not through seeking the permission of the American populace. And that's unjust.

Randy Lorensen [1:00:25]: John, Anthony, do you guys have questions along these lines? Because I know I'm a much... I don't know.

Anthony Marino [1:00:29]: Yeah, when is he available for part three?

Dr. John Oberg [1:00:33]: Yeah, that's right.

Anthony Marino [1:00:35]: There's a lot to talk about in terms of the what ifs that are likely or hypothetically going to occur in the next few years. The currency going to zero and what happens and who besides people that have hard assets in Bitcoin, what becomes of people that only have currency in hand or in the bank, what becomes of them. And I think there's a lot more to talk about here.

Josh Graham [1:01:04]: I mean, to that point, we're, you know, a lot of people are defining this economy as a K shaped economy, where if you do have some assets, then you can keep going out to eat and you can keep, you know, going on vacations. But if you don't have assets, it's just, life's becoming increasingly hard. and again, that's unjust. and I think a, a, just society is, is worth pursuing. and. And I am very passionate about justice. There's a lack of it now. And so, yeah, I would inspire as many people as possible to pursue just ends for as many people as possible.

Randy Lorensen [1:01:53]: All right, well, we have a hard stop coming up here on our end, Josh, but I love Anthony's idea of a part three, because by the way, we continued our notes that we had for the first time and we didn't get through them. Well, we didn't get all the way through them today either, and it was fantastic. So I definitely think we could do that. By the way, one of the things I just want to say to you that... impresses me is that you do something. And this is one of my pet peeves. John and Anthony have heard me talk about this, where sometimes people are, they're criticizing something and saying, this person over here that's trying to solve the problem, they don't like how they're doing it, right? And they just bitch about it. Well, you joined the CIA. You are teaching kids and coaching kids and you ran for Congress and all of the, like you're doing something about it. So. If I bitch about people that do the opposite, I need to give you your flowers for actually standing up and doing something. So thank you for that.

Josh Graham [1:02:52]: Well, thank you very much and most welcome. We, you know, we just celebrated Veterans Day, and I got to share my own story. And, and so a lot of it is like, well, if not me, then who? and if I don't, if I ask others to do it, then I might as well be willing to get my own hands dirty also.

Randy Lorensen [1:03:11]: Love it. Great way to end this. Josh, thank you. Anthony, John, as always, listeners, download, subscribe, go to the website, tell your friends, tell your neighbors, and just keep listening. Yes, go do something. I love that. If not me, who? So thank you, gentlemen.

Dr. John Oberg [1:03:23]: and do something. Go do something.

Josh Graham [1:03:32]: Thank you. It's been a privilege.

Dr. John Oberg [1:03:33]: Thanks Josh.