Bill Wirtz of 'Young Voices' Says French Citizens Are Fed up With Politicians

Young Voices Advocate Bill Wirtz joined Glenn on radio to share his insights on the French presidential election, faux-conservatism in Europe and the similarities between France and America when it comes to politiicans.

From Young Voices: Bill Wirtz is a Law student at the Université de Lorraine in Nancy, France. After starting off in politics in his home country Luxembourg, and even running for parliament, he reconsidered his view on the role of government and became a local coordinator for European Students for Liberty. Today he blogs in four languages and was published by the Foundation for Economic Education, the Mises Institute, the Wasington Examiner or daily Luxembourgish newspapers.

Enjoy the complimentary clip or read the transcript for details.

GLENN: Thrilled to have Bill Wirtz on. He is from a group, Young Voices. With Young Voices. He is over in France. He's a young Libertarian studying law over in France. He originally was from Luxembourg. We wanted to talk to him about what is happening in France and what he feels the -- the rhythm of the street is, if you will, on Le Pen and -- and Macron. What France is going to do and what it will mean for the next few years. Welcome to the program, Bill, how are you?

BILL: Hello. Good to be with you. There's a lot to talk about.

GLENN: Yeah. So tell me -- I assume you were quite concerned that it might be the communist and the fascist that were going to battle it out.

Does Le Pen have a chance of winning?

BILL: Well, I mean, the first polls came out recently, which gave Macron a chance of winning by 60 percent of the vote. So quite frankly, it is quite unlikely she will win.

GLENN: Okay. Good.

BILL: Now, I've got Brexit wrong as well. So I'm not really going to put my advice forward here, but if it's -- anything could happen at this point. If there's going to be a terrorist attack in Paris tomorrow, it could all change.

GLENN: Yes. Okay. So, Bill, what does this mean for -- as I read France and Europe -- and I've been watching France since I was on Fox News and talking about, you know, The Coming Insurrection in France and the fact that people -- the media and the politicians, same here in America, are not hearing the voice of the people. And the voice of the people, I believe -- and this is where I want you to correct me, where I'm wrong. They are saying, you're not listening to us. We're not uber nationalists that hate everybody else. But we believe in, you know, our borders. We believe in sovereignty. There's a -- it's meaningful to be French.

We want to help refugees, but we don't want to have our country overrun by people who don't want to be here or who are just taking us for what it's worth. And we're tired of being lied to and stolen from by the politicians and the banks.

Is that what you're feeling over there?

BILL: Well, I mean, I think there's two things to say about this.

For once, if you look at the results of the first ballots, Marine Le Pen scored very badly in the big city, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon. In these cities she didn't even get 10 percent of the vote. So the more you go in rural areas where there's less than a thousand people living, she gets very high scores because these people feel left out by Paris. So I compare it to US politics. I guess it's more or less the same. That people in rural areas feel left out.

But the perception that some people in these areas where they live among in the areas with the least immigrants are and where there's often no refugees whatsoever, the perception that these people have is sometimes quite wrong in terms of how bad it really is. Now, I hear these people who -- you know, when I write about the alt-right, they tell me on Twitter, "Oh, I was in Paris a few weeks ago, and it was horrible." And, yes, if you go -- there's a few streets in Paris which you can go to, which are very problematic. But that's not really representative of what's happening really in France. So there's a lot of misinformation I would say.

GLENN: So what is it that the people are fed up with? Are they believing a false narrative?

BILL: Sort of. But it is the classic example of blaming the economic situation on immigrants. France is doing very badly. That's absolutely true.

GLENN: But let's move off of immigrants and move into the section of the politicians and the -- and the banks and the corporations, kind of steamrolling everyone. Are they feeling that? Or is that a myth over there too in your opinion?

BILL: Well, I mean, if you just look at the candidates, you got quite an idea why people are fed up. Now running, you have a former investment banker, who was an adviser to François Hollande, who really screwed the country for the last five years. And also we're running another socialist candidate, the candidate who -- (inaudible), who paid his wife a lot of money to do no work whatsoever. So there's a lot of corruption going on and a lot of -- you know, these people they bailed out the banks in 2008 with taxpayers' money. And nobody, apart from a few outsiders, have really criticized that.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

BILL: So people are fed up with the politicians. But I don't believe that Marine Le Pen has any of the answers to that.

GLENN: So Farage has come out. I mean, he's an amazing guy. He loves Margaret Thatcher, is quite smart. But he's come out -- he's endorsed Le Pen. He's endorsed Donald Trump as well. What's your take on what's happening there?

BILL: I believe it's very disappointing. I like Nigel Farage an awful lot, but he's very wrong on this. And I don't know where this comes from. I always believe that people like Nigel Farage and others, American conservatives, are very principled. But now they turn out to be just contrarians. Because Marine Le Pen disagrees with the status quo, she disagrees with Brussels, and that's apparently now reason enough to just support her? No, she's a big government socialist. And her policies would lead France even further into disaster.

So why these people start endorsing her, I don't really understand. And that's what I've been warning about in -- in a piece for the Washington Examiner.

GLENN: Yeah, well, good luck with that. Because that's what we tried to do with Donald Trump. And we felt the same way about many people, but, you know, they were up against a horribly flawed candidate in Hillary Clinton, who Donald Trump didn't beat Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton beat Hillary Clinton. He just happened to be the one standing there, while she imploded.

How is -- how is the United States, conservatives, and Donald Trump -- separate them if you can -- viewed overseas in Europe?

BILL: Well, apart from the elections, in the same that the US only is interested in France when there's an election going on, people are now sort of disconnected from the discussion that is going on in the US. People are quite concerned with the discussion about North Korea, on foreign policy. People are quite interested. But in that sense, people don't really see a difference now. Now that Donald Trump is rising in the polls again, as soon as he starts bombing countries -- for people, there's no real difference. That's what we had for the last five years. And that's what we're going to get for the next five years.

As long -- France really is fed up with being called for interventionism. The French people don't want to intervene in foreign countries anymore. And that's why Marine Le Pen is also appealing to them. Because she -- she claims to be noninterventionist. She doesn't want to intervene in Syria, and she wants to get along better with Russia.

GLENN: She actually wants to switch the allies from the United States to Russia. What's the influence of Russia in France? And how is Putin viewed?

BILL: Well, I mean, there was -- I read this article in the Washington Post, where they claimed that Russia is now trying to influence the French election with paid news as well.

Here, people don't believe in these kinds of stories, as long as there's no proof for it. So the discussion is not as big as compared to the United States. But what is true is that Marine Le Pen has been getting loans for her campaign finances by Russian banks, which has been a concern in the past. Because she has been invited to the Kremlin as well. She obviously has close ties to Russia. How is that influencing her policies? I wouldn't be able to immediately tell. But some people are concerned. But it's not a major topic.

Her disastrous economic policies are far more interesting than people's interest in what she could have to do with Russia.

GLENN: Bill Wirtz from Young Voices in France.

Bill, the -- if I were to take us back to World War I, when the world was in more turmoil than it is now, but in the 1930s, it felt kind of like this, I think, you know, I could point out Franco and Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin. But I could also point to Churchill being number one. And, you know, FDR. The allies. And the resistance.

And you had a balanced table of good guys and bad guys in many respects. I don't see that now. Do you see anybody worth rooting for, coming up in Europe or America or anywhere that you think, "Oh, finally, this some guy showing up?"

BILL: Not really. The French people are usually looking for such a figure. Because they look for somebody like Charles de Gaulle. And Charles de Gaulle was sort of an authoritarian, but he was a symbol of the French Resistance. Now, today's politicians in France, they claim to be in his image, but obviously nobody comes even close in terms of popularity. Now in Europe, most countries are mostly occupied with themselves.

GLENN: So how is it going for a Libertarian? I mean, if I'm not mistaken, can you write for the Mises Institute. I mean, is that growing, or is that diminishing?

BILL: That's -- I mean, it's definitely not easy being a Libertarian, especially not in France, where almost everything is done by the government and highly regulated.

More people are getting interested in it because -- it's mostly young people who are interested in these ideas. There's no real Libertarian tradition. Nobody here is a Libertarian because their parents were. It's very rare.

We're mostly lacking -- what is mostly lacking is funding basically for Libertarian think tanks. Because there are people who want to start, to get something going. But it's not really easy to get it started. I have a small Libertarian group in my city here. But the university doesn't give me any funding. And doesn't even provide me a room, basically to hold conferences in my university. It's just -- it's really difficult to get started.

GLENN: Bill Wirtz, thank you so much.

What are you expecting? Your prediction for May 7th?

BILL: Oh, that's very difficult. I mean, if I would have to bet my money on it, it would definitely be Macron. But for those interested in the French election, I'd say look for the parliamentary elections next month. Because whoever becomes president this time means the majority in parliament. Otherwise, they can't do anything. So that's definitely something to look into.

GLENN: And which way --

BILL: Right now, it would be Macron.

GLENN: And which way does it lean? Does it lean more fascist? More communist? More status quo?

BILL: Well, the last poll was done a year ago. But Marine Le Pen would definitely not get a majority in parliament. So no matter what, she would be a president without power. Macron, on the other hand, he might be able to rally moderates of all sides, but that's uncertain. The party which is most likely to get a majority in parliament is the Republican Party, an establishment, center right party. And so, yeah, whoever becomes president is going to be very difficult to govern.

GLENN: Thank you very much, Bill. I appreciate it. And stay safe in France. Back in just a second.

RADIO

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Around the same time the China weather balloon made its appearance over the U.S., mysterious, green lasers were spotted in the skies of Hawaii. First, government told us the lasers were part of a routine NASA exercise to measure the size of the earth. But then the story changed. And now, in this clip, Glenn presents more information about what China potentially could’ve been doing with a duel-purpose supersonic sattellite over Hawaii…

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Glenn explains: THIS is how Silicon Valley Bank COLLAPSED

Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by regulators last week, marking the biggest bank failure since the 2008 collapse. So what happened? And what does this mean for YOUR finances? In this clip, Glenn explains exactly how SVG collapsed, why the Fed is to blame, and why working with a FDIC insured institution is IMPERATIVE.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Here's what happened. A couple of things. First of all, we're raising rates.

We had the COVID money coming in, right? To have

And you just heard there, all this COVID money. Well, they wanted to invest it. They needed to put it in some place. And invest it.

Silicon Valley. They had so much money coming in from COVID.

And so what did they do?

They bought treasuries. And at the time, you could buy a ten-year treasury, and you would get 2 percent interest. Guaranteed, at the end of ten years.

That was pretty good back then.

But now, treasuries are selling for about 5 percent interest.

And you don't get that, until the end of the ten years.

So when I buy something, a ten-year treasury, you're buying it for ten years.

If you have only eight years on it, you can sell it, but you're going to probably have to sell it at a discount if the new ones are paying more. So they invested the -- the money in treasuries, at 2 percent.

Just let's remember that. What they had in the bank, if you will -- they owed $195 billion. That's to the people who have put their money into checking accounts and savings accounts, mutual funds. They owed $195 billion. They had 208 billion, on the books.

That's a 17 billion-dollar -- when you have people all over the world starting to say, I think the bank is starting to collapse. They start to take their money. $17 billion can go that fast.

There was a clog in the system, that couldn't get the money wired out fast enough.

So they decided, they needed to sell. And then they announced, we're going to sell some Treasuries.

Well, once they saw that they were selling ten-year bonds, at 2 percent interest, and the market was saying, well, that's only worth 75 cents on the dollar in you.

And Silicon Valley bank was like taking it. They knew, this is a fire sale.

This bank is in trouble. That's what started all of the run on the bank. Now, you probably have FDIC insurance.

If you have FDIC insurance, it's to stop runs on the bank. However, Silicon Valley bank is different. It's very different.

I think it's 88 percent of their accounts, are not covered by FDIC. Why?

Because they're giant companies that are using payroll and keeping their money in the bank, as -- as the place where they can run their company.

So they -- they have more than 250,000 dollars in account. If they also, use the bank for a mutual fund, they found out Friday, they were also screwed.

See, this bank, loans money to these companies. These tech companies.

And they loan them out, venture capital.

And so they loan them the money to operate, and to be able to do everything they can, over the next year.

Well, they've got to put that money somewhere.

So the bank loans it out.

It's basically the depositor's money.

They loan that savings account of yours, per se.

And loan it to this venture capital firm.

Or, or -- the tech startup. And the tech startup then says, where do I put all this money?

And Silicon Valley bank says, oh, just in my other hand. Just give me my money back, and we'll invest it in mutual funds for you. We'll invest it in very safe things like BlackRock. So they did. And the tech companies thought they were safe.

Because it's invested in very secure places like BlackRock.

Except, what the bank didn't say, except in fine print. Is that all the money that you had invested, in BlackRock, was not yours anymore.

It was -- it was under the name Silicon Valley bank.

So when people started to call and say, hey, BlackRock, my money is safe. They said, you don't have any money.

Your money is invested in Silicon Valley bank. And because their name is on it, they're counting that as an asset. And now that asset as has to go to pay creditors.

So they lost their money. This is a giant shell game.

We have created nothing, but a shell game.

And the fed is the one that is causing this collapse, by the raising of the rates. But if you don't raise the rates, what happens?

Inflation goes out of control!

Why?

Because we have printed and loaned too much money out.

Okay. We'll pull it back in.

Well, the way you pull it back in, is raising interest rates. If you raise the interest rates, bonds have to pay a higher yield, and so when you buy a bond, you get more money back. And if somebody gets into trouble, they have to sell their bonds, exactly like Silicon Valley. And they have to take a hair cut. And then the entire thing collapses.

But here's the scariest thing.

This is what the fed has set out to do.

They want to see risky things, go away.

They want to see failure.

They need to people who are not stable to go out of business. Stop spending money. So we can suck all that money back in. But when they do collapse it. And our economy is in this kind of shape. You then have a domino effect, because nobody is in great shape.

And thing banks are playing a giant game.

So then people can't pay the paycheck. And then that paycheck falls -- causes you to default on your auto loan. Or your house loan.

And that makes another bank fail.

We're at the place, I told you in 2008. We would be. We have made the 2008 problem much bigger, and there's no way out.

Once you start printing money, there's no way out.

And what did we do?

Well, the fed said, we're not doing TARP. No, no, no. We have something entirely different. It's got a different name and everything. But we're going to cover all of those accounts.

Oh. Oh, okay.

So we're backing -- we're backing that now.

Yeah. But it's not your money. It's not your money. It's the fed's money.

It's the fed's money? Yeah. It's the money that the banks gave to us, to put aside for insurance in case something like this happened. Oh.

Where -- where did the banks get that money? Well, I don't know. Doing business.

Well, I mean, aren't these the banks you bailed out?

Well, yeah. And weren't you just giving them trillions of dollars is if

Well, yeah. Of course, we did. But they were paying in to this account.

Oh, okay. So the money you printed, that I'm on the hook for, you think to the bank, but they didn't use any of that money for that insurance?

No!

No. This is totally different.

Okay.

So now they're going to be protected, and I don't have an answer for you. Today.

Because all of the answers are bad answers. Should we back that?

No. No.

The constitutionalist, capitalist in me, says that's really bad.

Okay. So we don't back it. Well, no. No.

Because the guy who would like to see the entire western world not burn down to the ground, would like you to bail it out, just to give us some more time.

But that puts us right back where we were.

So I don't have -- I prayed hard today. What do I tell people?

Work on your spiritual health.

Because this is coming. At some point. It's coming. It has to. It has to. Now, the Washington Post said today, that the baggage's death marks both a sobering and salutary moment here.

The central bank has sharply increased interest rates over the past year, hoping higher borrowing costs would slow the economy down, and take the steam out of high inflation.

This is what the fed wants to see. They want to see a tightening of the financial conditions.

Great! They're on it. The Washington Post. With $209 billion in assets, the bank was just 118th the size of JP Morgan Chase. The nation's largest. Still Wall Street Journal was rattled by their abrupt end.

Bank of America was down nearly 12 percent in the past five trading sessions. They're down another five or about four and a half percent today.

Some banks are down as much as 10 percent today, before trading even started. The banks that served the riskiest part of the country and the economy, are the ones in trouble. Now, this is the Washington Post. I want you to listen to this.

Banks like SVB and Silvergate Capital, a San Diego-based bank that catered to cryptocurrency users, are the ones that are getting into trouble.

Oh. It's not a run -- it's not a run on the business model of the bank, it's -- it's not -- I'm sorry. It's not a run on the business model of the banking industry, in general, it's just the business model of this bank. So, in other words, if you are making risky loans, to -- to tech, or if you're investing and doing anything at all with cryptocurrency.

You're the problem. Hmm. That's interesting.

I'm going to tie some of this together here. We have a lot to go over, in just a second.

Sadly, it probably comes as no surprise, that anyone after the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Abortion is still the number one killer among infants. We're still killing nearly a million of our own children, every single year.

And that is still here, in the United States.

I asked you, by the way, if you had had an abortion. You knew somebody that did. And they regret it.

Or you're F you're a child. That somebody tried. Mom tried to end your life. And you lived. Or she changed your mind. Will you write me a letter, and tell me your story?

I have something coming. That I'm working on.

And I will keep your name out of it.

You can use an assumed name. We just need your phone number, so that we can call and verify that you're an actual person. But all the details are at GlennBeck.com.

But we are fighting the good fight. I don't think there is anything we could do that would be more important than standing up and stopping the slaughter of our children.

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Ten-second station ID.
(music)
Okay. So here's something you probably didn't know: The New York Times is reporting today, that good thing this bank has been saved. Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways, a climate bank. When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there will be a lot of collateral damage. Community solar projects appeared to be especially hard hit. Silicon Valley banks said, it led or participated in 62 percent of financing deals for community solar projects. Their smaller scale solar projects also serve lower income residential areas. Don't worry. Don't worry. The fed is covering all of this.

The devastation comes at a critical moment.

It is central to cut the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet, says the New York Times.

The federal government depends on climate technically companies to develop the innovations needed.

This is going to set the climate change industry down and set them back, for years.

Hmm. Gee. Well, good thing we're not drilling for oil. Good thing we're getting rid of all of our backup power plants, isn't it?

Home Depot cofounder said, the global lending firm, Silicon Valley bank, went broke because it was woke.

Now, the rising interest rates are really -- really why. But if you want to look at their business model, these guys are woke activists. He said, instead of protecting the shareholders and their employees, they're more concerned about the social policies.

As recently as this month just days before it went into receivership with the FDIC, the Silicon Valley bank discussed decarbonization, gay rights, the black venture ecosystem. And so much more.

Well, they were woke. Good thing.

Good thing. By the way, they were purchased this morning. By a British bank. Because Great Britain was worried about their tech industry. As SVB, funded a lot of their stuff too.

So that's good news

RADIO

Bill O’Reilly: THIS Jan 6th prisoner could be released TODAY

Bill O’Reilly joins Glenn to detail some of the ‘stunning’ revelations from the previously unseen January 6th footage that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson aired last week. Some of that footage could even exonerate at least one Jan 6th prisoner TODAY. In this clip, O’Reilly explains why. Plus, he and Glenn discuss the January 6th committee’s ‘petty’ tactics used against Josh Hawley and when we should expect to know the FULL truth of what happened that day…

BREAKING: Big Bank FORCED to Close: What It Means for YOU | Glenn TV | Ep 259

Regulators just forced a massive investment bank to shut down in what is being called the “second largest bank failure” in U.S. history, according to the Independent. What does that mean for the economy and for you? On today’s Friday Exclusive, Glenn speaks with former investment banker Carol Roth, who breaks down what the shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank means and how it will affect the average person’s bank account. But first, Glenn tackles the latest Facebook suppression his social media pages are facing for daring to question the events of January 6 after Tucker Carlson released shocking footage that the January 6 committee desperately tried to keep the public from seeing. This is just the latest example of the corporate media suppressing stories from the general public. Finally, Glenn reacts to Vice President Kamala Harris sharing her unique wisdom on how “climate mental health” affects children.

Glenn's Show Prep

Bill Wirtz of 'Young Voices' Says French Citizens Are Fed up With Politicians

Mysterious Hawaii lasers UPDATE: What is China DOING there?

Glenn explains: THIS is how Silicon Valley Bank COLLAPSED

Transcript

Bill O’Reilly: THIS Jan 6th prisoner could be released TODAY

BREAKING: Big Bank FORCED to Close: What It Means for YOU | Glenn TV | Ep 259