Topic: East India Company

The hosts connect modern drug trafficking to historical precedents, citing the East India Company's role in the Opium Wars. They reference the final season of Downton Abbey to illustrate the decline of the British elite whose wealth was built on illicit trade. The discussion suggests that the global economy remains heavily dependent on the illicit drug trade and that historical animosities toward American success persist.

The Channel 4 documentary series The Ascent of Money details how Scotsman John Law established the first French central bank and triggered a massive financial bubble in the early 1700s. Law's use of paper shares and the subsequent collapse of the Mississippi Company mirror modern economic crises. The historical parallels include the East India Company's role in the development of the first stock markets in Amsterdam.