How I Became Involved In The Great Taking
It began in late August 2023. With zero promotion and no publisher behind it, a book suddenly appeared online—for free. The author was known only to a small circle in finance. He’d worked for several successful hedge funds in the late ’90s, eventually branching out on his own, and at one point ranked among the best-performing fund managers during the dot-com crash. But that was decades ago, and aside from a few friends who received the manuscript, its release went almost entirely unnoticed—at first. Yet within its pages was what could be the most disturbing and consequential revelation in financial history: a mechanism meticulously constructed with absolute precision—one that, if triggered, would enable the greatest looting of wealth ever recorded. Period.
The book’s first public recognition came a week after its release, on September 1st, 2023, when Matt Smith discussed it with Doug during an episode of Doug Casey’s Take. They had both read it at this point and described it as an extremely disturbing book. The title was The Great Taking and, after outlining its basic premise, both Matt and Doug agreed that the implications—if correct—were terrifying. As a fan of the show, I saw the episode a few days after its release, and their exchange was all it took for me to immediately download the book and read it. Matt and Doug deserve a tonne of credit for being the first to realize the books significance, and discuss it on air.
I read the book twice in one day. It was a bad idea, because that evening I had the most restless night of sleep I’d had in a long time. Around 3 a.m. I was jolted awake from a nightmare. I couldn’t recall the dream, but the first thing that filled my mind as I lay there in the dark was the book. The next thing I recall is my own inner voice saying: You have to make a video about that book tomorrow. And I had a strong feeling it was important and I shouldn’t delay.
I don’t think I managed to get back to sleep after that. I kept turning over the book’s claims in my head—what they meant, whether they were accurate, and what it would mean for me and my family if they were. I also thought about how difficult it would be to communicate its message effectively to my audience. The book carried an incredibly important warning that anybody could grasp, but the specifics of The Great Taking were highly technical. Whilst I had a solid grasp of how the financial system functions and had long since been discussing its eventual chaotic unwind, when it came to the legal plumbing—securities law, ownership structures, collateral regimes—my understanding was rudimentary.
I expected it would be the same for most of my audience, and that would make the task of explaining the book difficult to say the least. Without the expertise to verify its claims at the time, I was relying mostly on instinct. Whilst I believed the author was correct, I wanted to try and verify it for my listeners wherever possible. Having said that, I genuinely didn’t know how people would respond.
You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy – The Sobering Truth
Confronting the Great Taking for the first time is a shock to the system. It’s like being told that the broom cupboard at work—the one you’ve walked past every day for the past five years—is actually home to a multi-million-dollar meth lab run by the janitor. It’s so outlandish you want to instinctively reject it. But ask yourself: did you ever look inside to see for yourself? And if not, how do you actually know what’s going on back there?
Like most people, I’d always assumed my investments were individually registered in my name and segregated from everyone else’s. While I’d spent years warning my audience about the $2–4 quadrillion in derivatives stacked precariously on top of the financial system, I was now learning that the collateral propping up that entire structure was our assets—all of our stocks and bonds swept into one giant collateral pool. And the entity my securities were registered under wasn’t my name, and it wasn’t my broker’s. It was a corporation I’d never heard of—a shadowy entity sitting at the top of the chain that, in a systemic crisis, could legally take it all. Overnight. With zero barriers. It was almost unthinkable.
It is about the taking of collateral (all of it), the end game of the current globally synchronous debt-accumulation super cycle. This scheme is being executed by long-planned, intelligent design, the audacity and scope of which is difficult for the mind to encompass. Included are all financial assets and bank deposits, all stocks and bonds; and hence, all underlying property of all public corporations, including all inventories, plant and equipment; land, mineral deposits, inventions and intellectual property.
Privately owned personal and real property financed with any amount of debt will likewise be taken, as will the assets of privately owned businesses which have been financed with debt. If even partially successful, this will be the greatest conquest and subjugation in world history.
According to the author, this wasn’t a theory — it was a statement of fact. The mechanism was real, fully built, and now being positioned to be used. The book explained how the legal safeguards that once would have stopped something like this had been systematically stripped away over decades, piece by piece, and always with purpose. After reading the book one more time the following morning — bringing my total to three reads in 24 hours — I decided to make my video.
The video ended up being over an hour long, recorded in a single take. I went through the author’s explanation of the Great Taking, how it would be triggered, the legal subversion that enabled it, and what it would ultimately mean for the listener if correct. I managed to confirm that the author, David Rogers Webb, was who he said he was by digging up records of his hedge fund from 2001. I also looked into several of his key claims — as best I could — and explained that, from where I was sitting, it all seemed to line up. As with most of my videos, I purposely tried to keep the tone light. The subject matter was already heavy enough; if I made it any denser, people would either tune out or get completely lost.
Honestly, I didn’t think much of the video at the time. I almost didn’t upload it because it was so hastily put together. My gut instinct told me to post it anyway — and I’m glad I did. I had no idea then, but the video turned out to be important in those early days following the book’s release for getting the word out about The Great Taking. As it turned out, that simple, improvised video landed at exactly the right moment. For over a month, it was the only in-depth discussion of the Great Taking beyond Matt and Doug’s original conversation.
Because of this, it became the first stop for people wanting to learn more about the book. What I didn’t realize at the time was that my rough breakdown wound up being many people’s first introduction to the Great Taking — including a number of state representatives and lawmakers who later became involved in the pushback. Strangely, my video was appearing first in search results when people looked for content on the Great Taking — something I believe happened because the powers that be were already aware of, and suppressing, the book itself. My video managed to slip through that net — at least for a while.
Who Is David Webb?
But I don’t want to jump too far ahead, because the day after my video went live, I found myself doing something I had never done before: I tried to contact the author of a book I’d just read. Whoever David Rogers Webb was, I figured he clearly valued his privacy. He had no social media presence. No website. No online interviews. Nothing. Just the book and a few mentions in articles from the early 2000s, which I managed to find in the Wayback Machine. Despite essentially being a ghost in the system, within 24 hours, I was speaking to him on the phone.
How I reached him so quickly was equal parts luck and skill. I’ve spent half my life researching obscure things — and obscure people. It’s a hobby of mine, and over the years I’ve become pretty good at tracking down hard-to-find information. Using a few clues in the book, I followed a digital breadcrumb trail that eventually led me to an old webpage with a phone number. I was certain it would be a dead line.
It turned out I was wrong.
I remember the first time I spoke to David well. It was a Sunday afternoon, and me and my wife had spent the morning on our farm harvesting the last of our vegetables so we could preserve them for winter. I’d released the video the night before, and found the mobile number not long after. I figured I might as well try calling it, and it rang — which was something — but no-one picked up. So I left a voicemail, not even sure I had the right person. It was a rambling message along the lines of, “You don’t know me, but… oh and there’s a video I made. Sorry if it’s shit.”
I assumed that would be the end of it and that I’d never hear from whoever owned that number. Then I went for a run to clear my mind. When I got back, there was a missed call — the same number. It was David. He’d sent a text asking me to call him back, so I did. We ended up talking for well over an hour. After a bit of small talk, it became obvious we had a few things in common. He mentioned he lived on a farm, same as me, and that when I’d called earlier he’d been in the middle of preserving apples. I told him my wife was in the kitchen preserving the vegetables we’d just finished harvesting.
He explained that he had retired many years earlier and had spent the last two decades researching the legal subversion of property rights as it relates to equities, and trying — mostly unsuccessfully — to warn people about it. Over time, he’d come to the conclusion that the Great Taking wasn’t some unlikely fail-safe; it was the preferred endgame that the 0.01% were now preparing to unleash upon the world. At that point, he felt he had no choice but to write the book.
Regarding my video, he told me he loved it and thanked me for making it. He was being too kind, and I apologized if I’d butchered parts of his material. But he seemed genuinely pleased I’d made it. We didn’t get into it in detail during that first conversation, but in later chats he explained just how important the video had been for him. He told me he’d carried the message of the book alone for years, and once he finally released it into the world, he felt like the loneliest man on earth. Seeing someone else pick it up, take it seriously, and run with it was, in his words, a huge relief.
I asked if he’d be willing to come on my show to discuss the book, explaining that hearing it directly from him — the author — would carry enormous weight. He was convincing, articulate, and nobody could explain this better than he could. I was genuinely surprised when he said he had no intention of doing any interviews. His goal, he said, was simply to release the information and let others carry it forward. That was why he was so relieved to see my video appear just days after the book was released.
I could tell he was exhausted. And putting myself in his shoes, I could only imagine the amount of courage — and stress — it must have taken just to get the book out. He clearly needed a break. Looking back, I think it was the right call. He needed to recharge. Because although he didn’t know it yet, his entire life was about to be flipped upside down. You don’t release a book that explosive and get to ride off into the sunset — no matter how much you might hope to.
You are led to believe that you own something, but someone else secretly controls it as collateral. And they have now established legal certainty that they have absolute power to take it immediately in the event of insolvency — and not your insolvency, but insolvency of the people who secretly gave them your property as collateral. It does not seem possible. But this is exactly what has been done with all tradable financial instruments, globally! The proof of this is absolutely irrefutable. This is wired to go now. Essentially all securities “owned” by the public in custodial accounts, pension plans and investment funds are now encumbered as collateral underpinning the derivatives complex, which is so large — an order of magnitude greater than the entire global economy — that there is not enough of anything in the world to back it.
The entire global financial complex is, essentially, a big perpetuity, i.e., a financial instrument with no fixed maturity date. The prices of all fixed-income instruments are determined by interest rates, and all equity market and commercial real-estate values are similarly driven. The Fed created the “Everything Bubble” with the justification of fighting the Global Financial Crisis — which, of course, the Fed had also created — by lowering the Fed Funds Rate from 5% to near zero, and then keeping it near zero for most of the past 15 years. The Fed has now increased the Fed Funds Rate from near zero in April of 2022 to more than 5.00% in just one year.
That the decline in global financial and real estate markets will be massive has been made certain. This cake is baked. The financial gains of the past 15 years have been an illusion. Some take comfort in thinking that the losses can be hedged in the derivatives market. If that is the case, the losses do not disappear. They are in the derivatives complex. Epic losses will be concentrated on the balance sheets of the CCPs, which, as we have seen, are designed to fail.
The Architects have assured that they alone are positioned to take everything, and that you and your children are positioned on the other side of that, i.e., to lose everything — to be enslaved and even destroyed by it. People will be knocked down, and not be able to get up again. That is intentional, as the populace has been systematically encouraged to go deeply into debt. Whom the gods would destroy, they first cause to borrow at low rates of interest! As in the Great Depression, prolonged deflation will assure that people who are in debt will not be able to make payments on their debts, let alone repay them. They will be trapped. All property and businesses financed with debt will be taken.
A Small Alliance Helps Raise Awareness
Despite the book’s extraordinary narrative, what I learned from reading it did not exactly come as a shock. Instead, it was the missing puzzle piece snapping perfectly into place. Its implications were terrible, yes — but I already believed a financial reckoning was coming, and that the architects of the system would use it to expand their power. Perhaps that’s why I was able to accept the information so readily, where others might have refused.
I had discussed the global derivatives time bomb many times on my channel, warning that when the everything bubble burst, it would trigger a cascading wave of insolvencies — wiping out pensions, destroying the illusion of post-2008 wealth creation, bringing down the stock market, housing, credit markets, and causing mass bank failures along with a depression worse than anything in human history.
As it turns out, I was being far, far too optimistic!
David’s book showed me that things were worse than I had imagined — that a kind of financial Doomsday device had been built with intelligent design. A weapon of mass wealth confiscation, and it was being pointed at every man and woman — rich or poor, free or bond. An endgame so catastrophic, it had almost biblical implications. If you ever wondered how something like a Mark of the Beast system could be implemented, here it was.
I didn’t doubt it was possible. Especially after Covid, nothing seemed off the table anymore. And in many ways, the book aligned with what I already believed. It just went further — much further. So the only part that truly surprised me was not that such a mechanism existed, but how deliberate, coordinated and relentless the banking lobby had been in constructing it. The Great Taking wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a side effect. It was engineered. And someone had not only managed to chart it — but had the courage to blow the whistle.
The week after my video went live, I reached out to my friend Tom Bodrovics at Palisades Gold Radio because I wanted to do whatever I could to push the book’s message further — and ideally convince David to speak publicly. Tom told me he had already read the book and watched my breakdown, but he hadn’t been able to reach the author. I explained that I had spoken to David, and he seemed adamant about not doing interviews. He was completely drained. The book was the result of twenty years of meticulous research — written in total isolation on a laptop that had never once been connected to the internet. He had poured everything into it, and then released it, hoping others would understand and act.
I told Tom I’d call David again and see if there was any chance of persuading him to appear on Palisades. After all, there was no one on earth more qualified to explain the material than he was. But my phone call completely backfired. Not only did David decline, he asked me to do the interview in his place. I told him I didn’t think I understood the material well enough. He told me I did. He wasn’t pushy — just earnest. He said he would genuinely appreciate it if I spoke with Tom on his behalf. Pretty please?
I instinctively said yes, even though I absolutely didn’t want to do that interview. Neither Tom nor I felt competent enough at that point to properly explain the book. But the truth was, aside from David, I probably was the next best option for that interview. The book was still extremely new, and my video was still the only one exploring it in any real detail. Plus, I knew he wouldn’t have asked unless he genuinely wasn’t psychologically ready to discuss it himself. He struck me as a man of real integrity — I sensed that from the outset.
On top of that, I had a very real concern that the book could still be buried. This led me to think the Palisades interview was absolutely critical. Palisades Gold Radio was, at the time, the biggest gold and silver podcast in the world, with a far larger audience than my own. I knew that if this interview took place, the dam would burst wide open and there’d be no putting the cat back in the bag after that. Even if the book was censored online. And if it fell to me and Tom to deliver the first major exposé on the book, then so be it. I trusted Tom enough to know he’d be at least as prepared as I was — which, of course, he was.
The pressure was on, and exactly one week after my initial video, the Palisades interview was released. To this day, it remains one of the most-listened-to episodes in the history of the show — with over 80,000 views on YouTube alone. David was pleased. It clearly meant a lot to him. From my perspective, I naïvely thought my part was finished. I had never planned to represent a book I didn’t write — especially one that for the moment, was dangerous to be discussing publicly.
But within days of the Palisades interview, the requests began pouring in from every continent. People either read the book or watched the video and, unable to reach David, were asking me to appear on their shows and podcasts instead. Almost immediately, articles were circulating that linked to my video or the Palisades interview. Large Twitter accounts started sharing it. Everything escalated quickly. By accident, I’d become an expert on the Great Taking book. I sure as hell wasn’t, but I wanted to continue supporting David so I kept studying the book — digging deeper into its finer points, cross-referencing everything I could. This enabled me to continue doing interviews in lieu of the author.
Matt also continued discussing the Great Taking on Doug Casey’s Take. Together, we did everything we could to increase awareness, and it worked. Gradually, more people began taking notice, and soon more videos discussing the book started appearing online. Whether they got every detail right didn’t matter — what mattered was that the message was spreading. Also, from my perspective, every new voice reduced the risk for the handful of us who had already stepped into territory I genuinely believe wasn’t meant to be uncovered. It was a true black swan event, for the side of good. And so it was a big relief when two months in, David finally stepped out of the shadows and began speaking publicly about his book.
His first interview was with Ivor Cummins, following a conference in Sweden — where David now resides. After that, everything accelerated. By early 2024, the Great Taking was everywhere, quickly becoming one of the most talked-about topics in finance. And David was relentless. Having originally planned to release the book and disappear, he was suddenly popping up all over the place.
It was fascinating to watch and see how different commentators and analysts handled it. Some of the larger, high-output channels fumbled the ball completely, producing shallow, rushed takes that offered nothing. Others dismissed it outright, revealing they either didn’t understand the material, were worried it might hurt their business, or worse, were controlled opposition. But then there were those who genuinely grasped the importance of the book and did an excellent job expanding the conversation. A documentary on the book was also released at the back-end of 2023, which has since gathered close to a million views on YouTube.
The Pushback Begins — and the Machinery of Sabotage
As the months passed, no legal scholars or securities-law experts stepped forward to show where David was wrong. No bankers. No brokerage firms. Nobody. And the few who tried to dismiss the book couldn’t back up their claims when pressed. I don’t think they were being malicious; even the so-called experts simply had no idea what David had uncovered. Those who waved it away did so out of hubris — convinced they understood the system, only to realize they didn’t.
The complete absence of any credible rebuttal — even now — tells us something critical. Put simply: David was correct. The Great Taking is real. If his assertions had been fundamentally flawed, his book would have been ripped to pieces in the press almost immediately. It wasn’t, because they couldn’t. As a piece of research, it remains solid as a rock. It will surely go down in history as the most explosive exposé on financial treachery since The Creature From Jekyll Island.
So what came next? Well, since the book’s release both myself and Matt Smith have stayed in touch with David. Behind the scenes, there was an informal network of the small handful of people who had worked together to spread awareness of the Great Taking at a time when virtually no one else in finance would touch the topic. Both Matt and I published multiple articles and videos throughout the 2023–2025 period to keep the discussion alive. I recall one of Matt’s earliest articles discussing a BIS document relevant to the Great Taking had hundreds of thousands of views on ZeroHedge within days. Again, this had a big impact on alerting people to the books existence.
Meanwhile, David worked tirelessly — not just to raise awareness, but also to begin pushing back on the Great Taking in the United States — a place where the taking could be halted at the state level by reforming the Uniform Commercial Code. Had the reforms succeeded, they would have partially restored property rights over securities. Not globally, and not completely — but it would have been a start. Unfortunately, the reforms proved extraordinarily difficult to push through. Hearings were sabotaged from the get-go.
During the Tennessee hearing which was recorded in full, the bankers’ lobby sent a Mr. Guggenheim to explain where David was supposedly wrong, and why the house should block any amendments to the UCC. The eagle eyed reader might recognize the last name. Yes — he was from that Guggenheim family. American oligarchs who have been intermarried with the Rothschilds for generations. Yet another example of the revolving door of characters drawn from the same families to play the same game, generation after generation.
It was certainly entertaining watching him squirm, then completely fall apart when confronted by David and his team. With the help of a state representative who asked clear, simple questions, he was exposed as lying to the hearing. At that point, it seemed inevitable the House would vote to implement the UCC reforms.
They didn’t.
They passed the bill unanimously one day — and froze it the next. Somehow changing their minds on a dime. As we later learned, the banking lobby had spent the evening threatening the state with a total blockade on financial services if they dared to reform the code. A move that would have detonated their economy overnight. They had no choice but to backdown.
Personally, I never expected the legal route to succeed. I supported it, of course — but the fact it hasn’t borne any fruit doesn’t surprise me. I try not to be a pessimist, but I have very little confidence in reforming the legal or political structures we have. I assumed the process would be subverted almost immediately, and that’s exactly what happened. Still, I believe it had to be attempted, because it carried the possibility of sparking a groundswell of public opposition. For that reason, I think David was right to at least try.
Meanwhile, I have dedicated a lot of my time over the past 2 years to understanding how one might protect themselves from a system that is clearly entering its terminal decline. Whether the Great Taking ends up being the mechanism through which the collapse unfolds, or something else, the core challenge is the same: how to preserve our wealth from confiscation, theft, or catastrophic loss. This is where I try to focus my attention as an investor, and a content creator.
Which, just to be clear, doesn’t mean I think the Great Taking is unlikely to occur. While I may not be quite as certain of its imminent, intentional triggering as David is, after two years immersed in this subject — and having played a small role in its early exposure — I can say this with confidence: the probability of it being triggered by default has not diminished. In fact, it’s significantly higher today than when the book first appeared.
Two Years On — A Perfect Storm Gathering
One need only look around at what we’re witnessing take place in November 2025. It’s clear at this stage the financial system is warped beyond repair, and the warning signs that a global financial crisis is fast approaching are now everywhere:
The most overvalued stock market in history — replete with bubbles within bubbles, and extreme concentration in the same handful of companies held by investors and pension funds.
Shadow lending leading to a bubble in subprime credit which — once again — appears to be turning sour.
Repeated liquidity failures within commercial banks already sitting on huge unrealized losses.
Hedge funds levered 50–100x becoming the largest marginal buyers of U.S. sovereign debt.
A real-estate bubble which, by all metrics, is way worse than the 2000’s.
Public, corporate, and private debt all at record levels.
These aren’t routine market problems — each one is an existential threat in its own right. The fact they are all materializing simultaneously should serve as a serious wake-up call to anyone who still believes the Great Taking is unlikely to be triggered, or just a theory. Meanwhile, the only policy response has been to kick the can further down the road by injecting even more fragility, more leverage, and more systemic risk into an already unstable structure — as well as finalizing the legal architecture for the Taking.
It doesn’t look good.
When the “Everything Bubble” is imploded, we will face a deflationary depression, which will span many years, even decades. This coming Great Deflation is intrinsic to the Great Taking. The Architects of the Great Taking have planned and prepared to use this dynamic fully, secure in their knowledge that, as night follows day, massive and prolonged deflation will certainly follow the epic debt expansion super cycle, which they created.
Of course, nobody knows when the threshold will be crossed. Which is why David and I recorded a series of updates earlier this year, right as the first real signs of stress began surfacing in the bond market. Over the past few years we’ve become close friends, and in 2024 I went out to visit him on his farm in Sweden. It was great to finally sit down together in person and talk about the strange journey that had led us to meet.
But when he called me earlier this year, it wasn’t to reminisce or chat about the weather. It was April, and it had been a few months since we’d last spoken. As soon as I answered he said “Mike, this is important — we need to record a show tonight.” And two hours later, we hit the record button. At the time, David felt a responsibility to warn people — to say, clearly, that this might be the moment, that the unwind could be starting.
In hindsight, David was early on his call — but nothing that has happened since suggests the system has stabilized. If anything, the situation has deteriorated further: the subprime bubble expanding quietly in the background, stock-market valuations beginning to crack as liquidity drains away, and commercial banks tapping emergency Federal Reserve facilities with increasing frequency.
The system is deteriorating — fast.
Which brings me to last night. David and I spoke privately for two hours. No recording — just a candid conversation about where things stand now, at the two-year anniversary of the book’s release. I wanted his perspective on what has changed, what hasn’t, and how he now assesses this extraordinary saga that began in 2023.
While this article has focused on the past, in Part Two — which will be made available to paid subscribers next Friday — we will turn our attention to the present. In it I’ll share some insights from my recent conversation with David, along with an update from Matt Smith of Doug Casey’s Take. Then, in the final part of the series, released the following week, we will look ahead. Considering the practical strategies you can implement to help protect you and your family from the Great Taking.
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