EVERY CLAIM. SOURCED.
"The Receipts"
Hopepunk runs on a documented-fact standard. Every claim made on the podcast lives on this page with its status, source, and where to check it yourself. When we present a contested idea, we say so. When a story is legend, we label it. When we get something wrong, we correct it here and on-mic — never by stealth edit.
✅ Verified
⚖️ Contested (framed as such on-air)
📜 Legend (labeled on-air)
🔄 Time-sensitive (refreshed at recording)
Season 1 — The Water We Swim In
EP01 — The Operating Manual
✅ Banks create new money when they lend; your signed promise to repay brings the money into existence.
Source: Bank of England — “Money Creation in the Modern Economy” (2014 Q1)
✅ “Bacon and eggs” as the classic American breakfast began as a 1920s PR campaign by Edward Bernays for the Beech-Nut Packing Company — a physician survey produced “doctors say” headlines.
Sources: Museum of Public Relations — Bernays archive (he tells the story on camera) · Larry Tye, The Father of Spin (1998)
Watchlist: The Corporation (2003) · 13th (2016) · HyperNormalisation (2016)
EP02 — The Greater Game
✅ In 1983, ~50 corporations controlled most U.S. media; by 2004 it was five; by the 2000s–2010s, roughly 5-6 giant parent companies.
Source: Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (1983) / The New Media Monopoly (2004) — any library.
🔄 Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery are merging in a ~$111B deal; DOJ approved June 2026; a group of state attorneys general is suing. If it closes, one company owns HBO, CNN, DC, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Mission: Impossible, SpongeBob, and CBS.
Sources: NPR — DOJ approval (June 12, 2026) · The Hollywood Reporter — state AG lawsuit · SEC merger filings (Feb 27, 2026). Status updated at recording.
✅ Most money in the modern economy is created by banks as debt when loans are made.
Source: Bank of England — “Money Creation in the Modern Economy” (2014 Q1)
✅ The 2024 federal election cost ~$15.9 billion — the most expensive ever; records keep breaking since Citizens United (2010) allowed unlimited outside spending.
Sources: OpenSecrets — 2024 record spending · OpenSecrets — Cost of Election data · Citizens United v. FEC (2010) — full opinion
✅ One 2024 Senate race: the losing incumbent raised ~$100M; the winner ~$26.6M; ~$296M poured in from outside groups.
Source: OpenSecrets — election trends & race data (2024 Ohio Senate)
✅ An FCC commissioner (a Republican appointed by a Democratic president) voted to approve the Comcast–NBCUniversal merger in January 2011 — and four months later announced she was joining Comcast-NBCU as a top government-affairs executive.
Source: NPR — “Outgoing FCC Commissioner To Lobby For Comcast” (May 12, 2011)
✅ An earlier FCC chairman left government to run the cable industry’s lobby; a later chairman arrived FROM running the cable and wireless lobbies. Same door. Both directions. Both parties.
Source: Public records — Michael Powell (FCC Chair 2001–05 → NCTA president 2011); Tom Wheeler (NCTA + CTIA head → FCC Chair 2013–17).
✅ The committee chairman who steered the 2003 Medicare drug law — which barred Medicare from negotiating drug prices — became president of PhRMA months after leaving Congress (~$2M/yr; $11M+ in his final year). Journalists counted 27 members and staffers from that bill who went to work for the pharmaceutical industry.
Sources: OpenSecrets Revolving Door — Billy Tauzin profile · CBS News — health care lobbyists’ rise to power (the ProPublica count of 27)
✅ Around 2000 the biggest encyclopedia on Earth was corporate-owned (Microsoft Encarta); volunteer-built Wikipedia outcompeted it, and Encarta shut down in 2009.
Sources: Microsoft Encarta discontinuation announcement (2009) · Wikimedia Foundation
Watchlist: HyperNormalisation (2016) · The Social Dilemma (2020) · Requiem for the American Dream (2015)
EP03 — How Money Actually Works
✅ “Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money.” (Direct quote.)
Source: Bank of England — McLeay, Radia & Thomas, Quarterly Bulletin 2014 Q1
✅ The Federal Reserve reduced reserve requirements for U.S. banks to 0%, effective March 26, 2020.
Source: Federal Reserve — Reserve Requirements
✅ 37% of U.S. adults could not cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or its equivalent; 13% could not cover it at all.
Source: Federal Reserve — Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED), 2025 report (pub. May 2026)
✅ The Code of Hammurabi (~1750 BCE) already regulated loans, interest, and collateral.
Source: Yale Avalon Project — Code of Hammurabi (full text)
⚖️ The “debt came before barter” account is anthropologist David Graeber’s thesis — hugely influential and still debated by economists. Presented on-air as exactly that.
Source: David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) — any library.
✅📜 “Bank” comes from the Italian banca (bench); “bankrupt” from banca rotta (broken bench). The etymology is solid; the literal bench-smashing is labeled legend on-air.
Source: Online Etymology Dictionary — “bankrupt”
✅ The Knights Templar ran an early international banking network (letters of credit) from thousands of properties; kings of England used their London temple as a treasury; the order was arrested under Philip IV in 1307 — a king who owed them a fortune — and dissolved in 1312.
Source: Standard medieval histories (e.g., Malcolm Barber, The New Knighthood) — any library.
✅ Switzerland’s WIR cooperative currency has run alongside the franc since 1934 — created by small-business owners during the Depression.
Source: WIR Bank (est. 1934) · academic studies (J. Stodder, complementary currencies)
✅ During Argentina’s 2001–02 collapse, millions traded through barter networks and community currencies (clubes de trueque).
Source: Documented in academic case studies — search: clubes de trueque Argentina 2001 research.
✅ More than 130 million Americans bank at member-owned credit unions.
Source: NCUA — quarterly credit union data (~140M members currently)
Watchlist: Inside Job (2010) · Princes of the Yen (2014) · 97% Owned (2012)
Bonus — Credit Scores
✅ FICO factor weights: ~35% payment history, ~30% utilization, ~15% length of history, ~10% new credit, ~10% mix.
Source: myFICO — What’s in your credit score
✅ Roughly 45 million Americans are “credit invisible” or unscorable.
Source: CFPB — Data Point: Credit Invisibles (2015)
✅ FTC studies found ~1 in 5 consumers had an error on at least one credit report; ~5% had errors serious enough to affect loan terms.
Source: FTC — credit report accuracy studies (2012 report to Congress; 2013 follow-up)
✅ Disputes: bureaus generally must investigate within ~30 days under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Credit freezes are free nationwide (2018 federal law). Full reports are free weekly.
Sources: CFPB — dispute guidance (FCRA) · AnnualCreditReport.com — the actual federally authorized site
Watchlist: Maxed Out (2006) · Spent: Looking for Change (2014) Inside Job (2010) · Princes of the Yen (2014) · 97% Owned (2012)
EP04 — How Information Actually Flows
Bonus — The Bernays Files
EP05 — How Attention Actually Works
Bonus — The COINTELPRO Files
EP06 — What We're Actually Capable Of
Corrections Log
Nothing yet. When it happens — and it will — it goes here, dated.