Dave Collum on Financial Crisis, Deep State Operations, and the Collapse of Institutional Trust
Date: August 22, 2025
Source: Tucker Carlson Show - Dave Collum Interview
Context: Cornell University organic chemistry professor discusses financial markets, government narratives, and institutional decay
Key Insights on Financial System Collapse
The 45-Year Wealth Illusion
"If we're 200% over historical average valuation, it will take 45 years for a 2 and a half% growth rate to get us to historically regressed average valuation, which will not have moved us one penny. So 45 years from now, if we've regressed to the mean and the GDP has grown steadily, if we've regressed to the mean... we will have earned nothing."
Collum argues the entire 40-year bull market was built on artificial tailwinds that are now exhausted:
- "We had tailwind after tailwind. The Russians were selling resources. Chinese were selling slave labor at slave labor wages. US demographics were phenomenal... and interest rates went from 16 to zero essentially, right? And so those are all tailwinds... That's all over."
The Boomer Wealth Crisis
"The five percentile guy... He was worth $1.1 million. He was earning $156,000 a year... At a reasonable rate of withdrawal from a retirement account, Mr. 5 percentile guy who has to be living the American dream could take about $48,000 out annually without risking going broke. And you know what? They don't know how to live on 48,000."
Deep State Information Control Operations
The 2013 Pivot Point
"Around 2013 the so-called deep state... realized they were losing control of the narrative they had underestimated the internet and social media... And as a consequence, they had to get a hold of it completely. And so then this is where we're at now."
"Instead of taking away data, they provide excess noise. So now, so now instead of trying to suppress the signal, you just increase the noise."
QAnon as Controlled Opposition
"QAnon was clearly that... It's not just oh I think it's a bunch of ex spooks for sure. It's not a you know bunch of college kids on no 4chan or whatever they claim it was. These are guys who are probably pissed that the system went bad... but what is obvious to me is that it was it's a control mechanism trying to siphon off some of that energy and move it in a less dangerous direction."
Institutional Deception and False Flag Analysis
Las Vegas Shooting Inconsistencies
On Mike Cronk's testimony about his friend being shot three times in the chest: "Mike says his friend stuck his fingers in the bullet his own bullet holes to stop the bleeding. I'm going, 'Now you're lying.' Why is Mike lying?... Because you don't you don't get shot three times in the chest and provide your own healthcare."
"You got 22,000 people and why are you interviewing Mike Cronk?... After the fact, I looked and just picture him holding an elk by the horns, you know, that he shot. The next day the the head of the police said there's no way one guy did it. The following day he said one guy did it."
COVID as Bioweapons Development
"I think it came out of a lab probably in North Carolina... Ralph Bareric... David Martin has followed um the patent trail and and an artificial organism can be patented not a natural one... you can follow the patent trail on covid and and and you can follow vaccine patent trail."
"We were funding research in Wuhan because we were not allowed to do gain of function... There were something like 36 bio bioweapons labs in Ukraine... Of US origin."
Fauci and Birx Incompetence vs. Malice
Quoting Scott Atlas: "You cannot fathom how stupid those two are... Fouchy never gave a scientific argument. Never... one day walks in with a scientific paper that Atlas had read... Fouchy went to say and seephilom myitis... if you're head of the entire health organization, you shouldn't... he botched it so bad it was unintelligible."
Academic Freedom and Institutional Courage
Cornell's Response to Cancellation
"Cornell's not giving me any grief. The the only problem I had with Cornell and we talked... I think my colleagues wish I would shut up, but but they don't tell me to shut up."
On being cancelled for defending police during 2020 riots: "I supported the police... it was incredibly astroturfed. The speed with which it happened was staggering... Within within 20 or 30 minutes, um email boxes all across the administration were filling with complaints."
The Importance of Free Thinking
"What good is tenure if you don't have free speech?... universities are this funny combination of free speech and academic freedom. We're supposed to foster speech, and that means dumb speech. That means sometimes hostile speech."
Economic Predictions and Investment Philosophy
Gold as Ultimate Store of Value
"I bought gold at around 270 an ounce... I bought silver... I could buy silver eagles at spot... it was for for ballpark $4 an ounce... How many people are buying gold from you?' He said, 'Oh, about four.' And I said, 'And the other three are my friends, aren't they?' He said, 'Yeah.' And I said, 'Does that sound like a mania to you?'"
The Platinum Opportunity
"The above ground platinum supply, the available platinum supply is something like $3 billion, which is a something a medium-sized hedge fund could buy at current prices. It's been in deficit production for at least four years... based on the rate of deficit production that the above ground supply will be gone within about a year."
Bitcoin Skepticism
"I believe that the the authorities are not going to let crypto take over... You think the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds are going to hand it over to Max Kaiser and Michael Sailor? I don't think so... the first paper on crypto was written by three NSA guys."
The Collapse of Truth and Institutional Trust
Information Warfare
"We our GPS is rerouting us constantly... around 2013, 14, 15 is something's changed... you could get facts and and you felt like you were getting and the stories would break and they would stay that way... now you can't."
"I don't think anything you see can be interpreted it uh literally and at face value now."
The End of Reliable Narrative
"We are in this big Walter Kernish. We're in this made for the internet plot... Now it's like... It's like when your GPS starts randomly rerouting you and our GPS just keeps randoming rrooting."
Conclusion: The Brittleness of Complex Systems
"AI is going to make the system very unforgivingly brittle... What happens when everything is so AIed up that that that there's no person anywhere with an earshot who can help you at all... just the fact that no one will know who's driving the cab ever on anything."
Collum's central thesis: We are witnessing the controlled demolition of institutional trust and financial stability, orchestrated through information warfare and artificial market manipulation, leading to a systemic brittleness that will shock people when it finally breaks.
"The rot is is what will shock people."
Extended Conversation: Post-Tucker Interview Analysis
Date: August 22, 2025
Context: Follow-up discussion between Dave Collum and podcast host about the Tucker Carlson interview experience and broader geopolitical developments
The Tucker Carlson Experience
Behind the Scenes Revelations
"Tucker had way way way more to say than I ever would have expected... it went into Satanism and and Tucker had way way way more to say than I ever would have expected... I would have loved to have recorded that part."
"He says I know the people. He says I know these people and no matter what I said he went darker... exceeded your expectations."
On Trump administration insiders' shock: "They are truly shocked at what they're seeing... they could not have fathomed what they're now seeing."
Israel and Geopolitical Awakening
Breaking the Silence on Gaza
"I think Israel's fundamentally wrong here in a profound way... I just can't watch anymore. And I just I I don't want to I don't want to go to my grave saying I didn't say anything."
"I think when the leader of one of the most important countries in the world is married to a dude without admitting it who might also be his biological father, the world changes."
The Compromise of Leadership
"I don't think you can understand geopolitics if you don't understand how fucked up the leaders are and how compromise they are... These guys are compromised in ways that are the depths of human depravity."
The Digital Control Matrix
CBDC and Social Engineering
"They can't suppress the signal. The internet's too big, but they can increase the noise. And so we're all wallowing in vast amounts of noise... very well worded what you just said. They can't decrease the signal, but they can increase the noise."
On COVID as behavioral testing: "The question is what was COVID about?... it's just authoritarians being... why did Mao kill 40 million people... or Stalin again 40 million... why they do it I I don't know I just I don't think a normal human being can fathom why you would do that."
Economic Predictions and Market Manipulation
The 45-Year Reckoning
"If we're 200% over historical average valuation, it will take 45 years for a 2 and a half% growth rate to get us to historically regressed average valuation... 45 years from now, if we've regressed to the mean... we will have earned nothing."
Artificial Market Elevation
"Something's elevating it. There's something artificial about it... you got to love that price discovery... the markets are absolutely nonresponsive to things they should care about."
The Recency Bias Trap
"We just enjoyed 40-year recency bias... from 1981, the valuation, which should not trend, compounded annually 4% a year. What happens over the next 40 years when it compounds negative 4% a year to get to cheap again?"
"The passive investing will become a very bad idea. And it probably is very close, but it's paid so well for so long. Recency bias is such an unbelievable compelling story. It's paid you to just buy and hold and buy the dip."
"We've got a whole generation that has got expectations that are just off the chart distorted. And it's not because of a 5-year or 10 year recency bias. It's a 40-year recency bias."
The Buffett Deception
"Buffett, who I think is um a hoser, I think he's much more of a stock jobber, much more of a conniver than he is. He loves to be the the mafia walking around in a bathrobe saying I'm harmless. He is not harmless when when when when we're in a bottom. He breaks all sorts of laws. They do all sorts of insider crap to bail the system out. But he pretends to just like Dairy Queen and Coca-Cola, whatever."
"He wrote an article in 99 that said, 'You want to understand secular big long bull versus bare markets. It's all interest rates.' He said, 'It's not GDP.' Said from 67 to 81, everything sucked... But interest rates from 67 to 81 went up monotonically. From 81 to 99 they went down. So we started in '81 with interest rates in the high teens and over the next 40 years they dropped to zero. That is absolutely the story."
The Epstein-Intelligence Nexus
The Untouchable Truth
"Sydney Powell, Trump's lawyer, said that if you release the Anthony Weiner laptop, governments would be falling all over the world... do you really want to light the world on fire to get the truth out?"
"If you can't protect kids, what good is our system? What kind of government is this?... we've lost our moral compass with everything. There's no more moral compass in this country."
MK Ultra and Modern Assassinations
The Mangione Case Analysis
"I think he's an MK Ultra product. I think he's a trained assassin... he's got personalities that seem to fluctuate all over the place just like the MK Ultra victims are."
The Controlled Opposition Theory
Bitcoin and Financial Control
"You think the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds are going to hand it over to Max Kaiser and Michael Sailor? I don't think so... the first paper on crypto was written by three NSA guys."
"They figured out Spotify and Apple Music. They swallowed it. They basically swallowed Napster and figured out a way to centralize it... why can't they do that with Bitcoin?"
The Future of American Politics
Trump Administration Skepticism
"I can't go by the duped anymore with any of that. It's been too long... I'm not giving him a pass on any of this stuff anymore."
"Big pharma is not going away. It's not going to happen... Kennedy, they would have never let him in if they thought he was a threat to big pharma."
The Long-Term Decline Model
"I think we're heading for a very brittle future in which things don't work... I think we're going to lose. I I I I think we're heading for a very brittle future."
Academic Freedom Under Siege
The Cornell Cancellation Experience
"I supported the police... it was incredibly astroturfed. The speed with which it happened was staggering... Within within 20 or 30 minutes, email boxes all across the administration were filling with complaints."
"What good is tenure if you don't have free speech?... universities are this funny combination of free speech and academic freedom. We're supposed to foster speech, and that means dumb speech."
The Information War Conclusion
The Signal-to-Noise Problem
"I think Matt Smith used the signal to noise analogy too... they can't suppress the signal. The internet's too big, but they can increase the noise."
"Nothing makes sense anymore. That's the problem. And I think that might be the plan."
Final Assessment: The conversation reveals Collum's evolution from market analyst to deep-state researcher, documenting his journey through layers of institutional deception while maintaining his academic rigor and Cornell professorship. His unique position as both establishment insider and radical truth-teller provides unprecedented insight into the controlled demolition of American institutions.