And with trade there was a way of becoming wealthy without being a king or a lord who takes part of what your citizens produce. The merchant class that grew along with the Silk Road came to have a lot of political clout, and in some ways that began the tension that we still see today between wealth and politics, whether it's, you know, corporations making large donations or Vladimir Putin periodically jailing billionaires. Mr. Putin, I just want to state for the record that I did not mean that in any way. I was... Stan wrote that joke. Oh, it's time for the open letter. An open letter to billionaires. But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today.