Chris Reilly, managing editor, Casey Daily Dispatch: Doug, the Jeffrey Epstein story is dominating the news. From his controversial plea deal in 2008… to his most recent arrest… and now his mysterious suicide in his Manhattan jail cell earlier this month.

It's a crazy story with a lot of moving parts. What do you make of all of it?

Doug Casey, founder, Casey Research: First, although his death is mysterious, I sincerely doubt it was a suicide. But let's address that momentarily.

There are an immense number of problems regarding this Epstein matter. Where to start? It's alleged he was running a sex ring featuring girls 14-17 years old, using them as party favors for very rich and famous people. Why were the girls so young? Frankly, it's disturbing and a turn-off for a normal man to encounter a girl that young in a sexual situation – in addition to the fact the participants would know they were violating some serious laws. It seems likely, therefore, that Epstein would have represented them as being 18. But then videotaped the proceedings for possible future blackmail purposes – which would have been much less effective if they were over 18. If they were over 18, it just would have been sleazy, but not illegal. In other words, it's possible Epstein was running a blackmail operation at his houses and on his airplane.

But let's go back to this whole idea of why he was using under-aged girls, which is the essence of the crime in question. There are two basic possibilities. One is what I've already mentioned: he was purposefully using them in order to blackmail the rich and powerful. The other is that not only is he a pervert, but so, it seems, are most of his many, many friends who visited with him.

It's possible. What about the now widely circulated painting in Epstein's New York house of Bill Clinton in a blue dress with red high-heeled shoes? It seems stranger than fiction, but could it be true that the top levels of society are so drunk on money and power that they're as totally degraded as a Roman emperor? Of course. Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Elagabalus, and the rest appear to have been more-or-less normal people until they were filthy rich and powerful.

It could be that society isn't just degraded financially, economically, and culturally – as I've been holding for some years – but it's totally degenerate morally as well. We really are like Rome as the empire went into collapse…