Robert Armstrong

Because, you know, just put very simply, like if I successfully rob a bank,

I will be richer, and the other guy will be poorer.

And if I do it again, I will get doubly as rich.

But to your point, I think the trouble arises over the long term, and this is, as you say, what historians have studied for years, and that is if you overplay your hand, if you start abusing other nations to a chronic degree, if you're abandoning treaties, if you're threatening populations, it can be really bad.

And this is what

this historian Paul Kennedy talks about, he calls it imperial overstretch.

And that is, we saw it with the Romans, we saw it with the Spanish, we even saw it with the British.

You keep on trying to take, take, take, and then one by one, if you kind of overstep your boundaries, then suddenly you have a colony that's rebelling, and then sure enough, the entire thing collapses.

So from a pure wealth perspective, it doesn't seem a good idea over the long term.

We are, you know, and it explains a lot.

It explains a lot of the behaviors.

And it almost makes me think that we are just doomed.

And history would tell you or not as I'm probably not doomed.

You're probably not doomed.

We're fine.

But grandchildren, great grandchildren.

I mean, I even think of this when we think about the debt cycle.

It's like we just cannot think.

long-term.

All we care about is the next one, two, three, or four years.