A (3:53)

And there's some. And just one example of one that we did, and this is just for the VIP members and you do have to be an accredited investor to participate in these. But you know, one of the ones we did was for a, you know, Copper Explorer, Midnight sun, you know, it's got a project and I think we bought that at 22 cents or something like that.

B (4:11)

It was 22 cents.

A (4:13)

Yeah. And it said.

B (4:14)

And I personally backed up the truck.

A (4:16)

Yeah, you did.

B (4:17)

With a full warrant of 30 cents

A (4:20)

and it's at, you know, over a buck 35. I'm not sure exactly where it is at the moment, but like that's a huge win, Huge win. So that's the kind of thing that can happen with these. So yeah, our, our goal is to try and we've set up a process to try and generate more of these for the VIP members to participate in if they want to. Because you see this as just gigantic opportunity that doesn't come around that often.

B (4:46)

No, no. Bull markets and these crappy little stocks only come, come down the pike once in a decade or something like that. And this is it. This is the biggie. And maybe the last one for a lot of reasons and maybe the last. Anyway, that's just, hey, that's, that's an opinion and right now that's a free opinion. So take it for what it's worth.

A (5:08)

But, but it is what you're doing. So people want to know what you're doing. Yeah.

B (5:12)

And it's, it's been very, very good

A (5:14)

to me so far. So good.

B (5:18)

All right.

A (5:18)

Someone's got questions about starting businesses. They say what businesses that we've started have been. Have the best earning potential? And then he asks, what are the best online money making opportunities that you'd recommend? This is a tough question.

B (5:34)

You know, you know a lot more about that than I do.

A (5:37)

Yeah. You know, the businesses work when you Fill a niche, you know, so it's, there's not like a general, like, I think general business advice is bad because it takes an understanding of a niche to understand how you can, how you can solve a customer's problem. Like what exactly? Who, who are the potential customers for it? What exactly is their problem? What's the nature of that problem and how can you uniquely solve that problem? And so I think it requires a lot of understanding and like a lot of people who try to be entrepreneurs without a lot of, without any experience. Like, you know, I wanted to be an entrepreneur always, but the truth is, is that like when I was 20, I couldn't because I was not, not a very good customer myself. You know, I didn't buy many things. I was broke. I couldn't even understand what customers might need or what is the niche that I may be able to fill, how I could, you know, really add value to someone else. So, you know, the key is you got to get some experience and just some understanding so you can, so, so you can start, start to see the opportunities that are there. And a lot of people think, oh, you know, I'll just make money online. I'll set up, you know, some product or service online and just sell it. You know, it's a crazy business. It can be, but you gotta come up with unique ways that you're satisfying, you know, the niche that you're targeting. And you've gotta also have a good way to get your product and service profitably in front of potential customers. And it's not easy to do or everyone would, I guess. So, yeah, I don't really have any good advice.

B (7:12)

Doesn't everybody want to be an influencer today?

A (7:15)

Well, this is what they say about Gen Z. You know, they did some surveys on Gen Z, asking them, and yeah, they wanted to be influencers, which is not a, I don't think a good strategy overall, you know, to try and be an influencer. It's almost like saying you want to be an actor, right? Because you see Tom Cruise and you see, it looks like he's having fun. He's super famous. He must. He's making tons of money. So I'm gonna go to. I'm gonna go decide to be an actor and take acting classes and, you know, move to LA and you end up busting tables or something because, you know, it's just a tiny percent, you know, that become Mr. Beast or whatever else. So, yeah, I don't think it's a good strategy. And the thing is, yet to being an Influencer also, it's kind of inverts the natural entrepreneurial tendencies, which you're not really focused on a customer whose problem you're trying to solve. Instead, what you're trying to do is capture people's attention. So it actually encourages you to become more deviant or whatever in order to draw attention to yourself, which I think can be very destructive to the people who do it.

B (8:20)

Yeah, exactly. And it seems to me that most of the, I mean, I don't follow them, but it seems to me that most influencers lack real expertise. What they have is kind of personality, flair or pizzazz, but no expertise or any depth of knowledge or anything. There's no be there. They're just anyway. Right.

A (8:51)

And you know, and I think it's very destructive to a lot of people who get in that loop because you can make a lot of money by drawing a lot of attention to yourself. You might, I mean, if you make it to the top, you know, mostly you'll be degrading yourself on the bottom. But like, if you can degrade yourself somehow and get to the top by drawing enough attention to yourself and you don't have to degrade yourself to get attention, but that's how most do it. That's why OnlyFans is so popular. What happens is you end up, you end up starting to watch your audience, like, what does your audience want from you? And you become what your audience wants, you know what I mean? Instead of actually becoming, instead of. So there is no B, as you said. I totally agree. Like you, you lose your even identity to the audience whose attention you need in order to survive. Think it's a, it's a, it's a bad, bad place to be.

B (9:41)

Yeah. I think the answer to the question is develop a broad range of knowledge and experience, experience and expertise, all of these things, and increasingly specialize in just one where you really become recognized as being good. And that's the way to do it.

A (10:01)

Yeah, I mean, if you want to be an influencer or like someone like you, Doug, a guru, some might say. You know, it's, it's that you, you have a broad based, you have broad based experience and then as you said, you can then specialize and you become the obvious expert. So it's, you know what I mean, you're, you're the obvious expert on these mining stocks, for instance, because you have so much experience there and you don't have to fake anything or do anything else. But it's been a long time building that expertise and understanding of the markets. So that you can actually legitimately talk about them with some with expertise.

B (10:40)

Yeah, there's no easy answers.

A (10:43)

There are no easy answers. So, yeah, I would just say the easiest thing to do starting a business though is look at the problems that people have around you right now or problems that you have yourself and come up with a clever way of solving those problems. And you know that that's really what all businesses are based on. So, all right, so this question is, after taking profits in metals, do you see better value deploying capital now or is patience warranted? This could be people who took profits on silver, you know, in its big run up, for instance. So if they're, if they did take some profits and they're sitting on, sitting on some capital right now, do recommend they deploy it now and some of the stocks we recommend in crisis investing, for instance. Or do you think that there'd be a better buying opportunity in the near future?

B (11:35)

I just go back to what I said 10 minutes ago, frankly. And the trend is your friend until it changes. But I don't think it's about to change anytime soon. So there you have it.

A (11:48)

Okay. All right, let's see. You both mentioned getting a crib in another country. Are there any English speaking countries that you would recommend specifically? What do you think of Belize or Malta?

B (12:03)

Well, Belize used to be called British Honduras, but. And it's British and it's English speaking, but there's a lot of immigration from Guatemalans next door. I haven't been there for years, so I'm not up to speed on, on Belize at all, quite frankly. Don't really know. Where else would you go? You can go to these Caribbean islands, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts, there's a bunch of Barbados, but they're all expensive and isolated and they have racial problems just under the surface in most cases, I think. So what other English speaking places can you go?

A (12:56)

New Zealand.

B (12:57)

New Zealand. New Zealand's nice. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal, of course. I lived in New Zealand for years and I like New Zealand. If I went to New Zealand, if I went back to New Zealand now, I would probably go to the south island, not the North. I was in the north island. Probably go to the south island. It's more isolated, it's more quiet. But Christ, around Christchurch, which was devastated by an earthquake how many years ago? Eight years, I'm guessing. Yeah, but it's, it's come back. But where else would you go? If you want to, if, but listen, I wouldn't make this language thing such A big deal. My Spanish is still crappy. I mean, look, my French, which is pretty horrible, is still better than my Spanish because I learned it when I was a kid. But I can get by and it's not a big deal. And remember, to communicate in any language, you only need 500 words. That's all you need because that's all the average person ever uses is 500 words. That's not asking a lot. So which thing? You know, the sine qua non.

A (14:13)

I agree with you. I think being overly intimidated about that. I mean, when what you find is that the. You probably are going to associate with wherever you end up with people who are educated and probably speak English better than you'll ever speak that language. I mean, that's what's been my experience both when I lived in Argentina and here. You know that. Yeah, people have those good language skills. So, yeah, I wouldn't be too intimidated by it. You can get by just fine. Okay, next question. Doug, you tell the story again about getting in a road race with the state police.

B (14:50)

Well, it was really kind of stupid. I was coming home on Labor Day weekend. No, not Labor Day, Memorial Day weekend. Excuse me. From college and my wheels. At the time, I had a 1964365 horsepower Corvette and I was experiencing White lion fever. In other words, I left early in the morning from Washington D.C. to drive to Chicago and couldn't really get to sleep that night. So anyway, I knew the cop at the side of the road. I thought I was speeding. I picked up the pace. So I'm turning his lights out on pull out and I've idiotically, you know, I stepped on it. Completely outran him because that, that car was at a 411 rear end and I was doing kind of crazy 7,000 RPM fourth gear, which is 140 miles an hour. So I really outran them. And then I figured, well, there's going to be a roadblock or something ahead of me, so I better turn around on the highway and synchronized, slowed. Slowed down enough so that I could turn out my lights when I put on the brake lights, hopefully to confuse things, took a turn, one of those turnarounds and went back the other way. Anyway, word went out and I thought I better get off this. Get off of the Indiana troll route, which is where I was. And it was the Ohio toll road that I wasn't in Indiana yet. And so stopped to pay my fare and the guy asked me to pull over. So I should have said, I should have just thrown Some money at him and, you know, burned rubber out of there and, you know, went on some backgrounds. But I don't know, I was too tight. So anyway, spent the night in jail. And it's always a good idea for a young man to spend a night or two in jail just on general principles. It wasn't the only time I spent a night in jail, but that was, you know, I thought it was worthwhile.

A (17:13)

That was the first time, I assume.

B (17:15)

Yeah. The second time was also speeding.

A (17:17)

Okay. You got to be speeding pretty fast for them to put you in jail for it.

B (17:23)

Well, sometimes the cops are just.

A (17:27)

And what's your favorite muscle car, Doug?

B (17:31)

Well, my first muscle car was a 1964 Pontiac GTO, which was a 389 with a tripower in a Pontiac Tempest. And it was a great car, except it didn't have any brakes. And the problem with cars of that era was they had lots of horsepower, lots of torque in those engines, but the cars were not set up for that kind of horsepower. So they were dangerous. But it all ended well. Oh, God. I had some adventures in that, you know, drag racing on. Ah, God, that was a story where I should have gotten killed. In fact, we all should have gotten killed. God, was that stupid. It was on a factory road where this was. This was like out of a movie. There was a bunch of us, we're all just gotten out of high school. And Billy, who had a. A Corvette the way he was getting. I was my GTO against my friend Ciao who had a Ram Charger Dodge. So we got down at the end of the road and God, we were so stupid. And Cosmos flashed the lights on his Corvette three times. That was the go sign. He's in the middle of the road, of all things. We didn't think this out very well. So Chelski and I took off and didn't real. I didn't realize that there was a tractor trailer parked kind of on the side of the road. Anyway, we were chow. Wound up hitting the rear end of my gto. I spun around and almost. We almost got killed anyway because Cosmos with this. With this fuel injected Corvette and that was a 63 Corvette and the fuel injection. Those cars were finicky and often didn't. The thing died. He couldn't start it again. We could have run into him. We wouldn't have seen him. I mean, we were going. We were already going 100 miles an hour. It was insane. Yeah. So I don't do that kind of stuff anymore, but kids do. Kids do that kind of stuff.

A (19:55)

Yes. My most young men who've had the opportunity have participated I think in that. I certainly did.

B (20:01)

Yeah.

A (20:02)

Not with muscle cars because we didn't have.

B (20:04)

Yeah.

A (20:05)

Just generationally.

B (20:06)

But you don't, you don't even need a muscle car to be, to be

A (20:09)

stupid to almost kill yourself in a car and all your friends at the same time.

B (20:13)

Yeah. No, it's no question.

A (20:15)

Okay, so. So the next question they ask us what we think of this FT writers theme about the price of gold. He says that, you know, now basically he's saying this guy is generally favorable of gold, but he thinks that it's just, it's the price has gotten overextended and it's kind of not connected to traditional metrics that you might use like it related to interest rates or other things like that. And so he's, you know, just trying to put a little, a little wet blanket, I guess on the price of gold and its potential. So what do you any thoughts on that?

B (20:55)

Well, I can understand his reasoning. It's gone up a lot to very high levels in real terms. Very. Not just nominal terms, but real terms quite high. And as I've explained in the past, I mean it's no longer. Gold no longer relates to the price of a meal or the price of a car. It's above that now. So we're looking at different parameters and I think we're at a new equilibrium level. So I'm not, I'm not too worried. That's one of the reasons why I, why I like the gold stocks. Most people think that gold is overpriced. I don't think so anymore.

A (21:42)

Right.

B (21:43)

Okay. Yeah.

A (21:43)

One thing he says is that its price is five standard deviations above historical norm. Put plainly, this is freakishly unusual. But he does say that there were other periods of time where gold's price got out of whack based upon historical norms like the 1970s. And I think that we are going through a similar period as the 1970s. He says no, not really because inflation is low. Our reported inflation, the way we count the statistics, yes, is low. But I think the reality is that it's much higher than the numbers show. And I do think we're going through something like the 70s again.

B (22:23)

Yeah. And of course the 70s were anomalous because gold had been controlled in price by the US government since 1933 when they raised $35. 1933 to 1971. It was grossly underpriced. And it's true that the US government was suppressing the Price of gold? Well, that was then. Okay, so it went from ultra cheap, and by 1980, it was way too expensive. Okay, well, the US government has not been controlling or suppressing the price of gold in recent years at all, as far as I can tell. I know there are people that make that argument. I think it's a fallacious argument from many points of view. So I don't know. Look, talked about this a lot. I'm bullish on gold, continuing to hold it.

A (23:19)

Yeah, me too. Doug, what do you think about Chile as a country to live in?

B (23:25)

Well, been to Chile a number of times over the years, and I'll say this about Chile. It is the most conservative, I think, country in Latin America. It's an island, the Andes on one side, the Atacama to the north, the ocean to the other side. So it's like geographically cut off from the other Latin American countries there. So that makes a difference. And it's the most religious country, I believe, in Latin America. It's like the head of Opus DEI is in Chile. And I think it's the most, in many ways, conservative country. I don't mean politically, I don't mean economically conservative, because they're as good at electing. Look after Pinochet, who's unjustly besmirched, in my opinion, totally turned that place around from being a backward but beautiful mining province to the most advanced country in Latin America, where everything works, was prosperous, of course. What do they do? They elect a socialist. But now they've got. The new guy they got there is. I don't know what he's like, but.

A (24:49)

But he's a public supporter of Pinochet's actions, though.

B (24:53)

Well, that's good. So I think Chile might be okay, but the thing is that all the countries in the world are basically unstable. Even the U.S. at this point, even Canada, unstable. Europe, sociologically and demographically unstable. So answer to the question. Yeah, I'm a fan of Chile. It's beautiful, low population, great weather. Great weather. You know, and like I said, it's religiously and in other words, sociologically kind of conservative. Of course, in the south of Chile, they have. That's Indian country. And the. The natives down there are restless after 500 years, after being kind of conquered, you know, they're still unhappy folks.

A (25:50)

So, yeah, like, Santiago is a very livable city, it seems. You know, I've spent a fair amount of time there. Seems very livable.

B (26:00)

They say it has a lot of air pollution. I guess it does, but they say that about LA and You know, I think these things are overrated.

A (26:09)

Okay, let's see. Trump increased glycephate use in the States, which is cancer causing, going against the Maha movement. Well, first of all, if you have any thoughts on that, on his kind of turn on, on glyphate. Also, is there, is there plenty of organic food in Argentina and Uruguay to avoid this? I heard Costa Rica and Mexico are the only Latin American countries that are banned.

B (26:34)

It's. Well, as far as glyphosate is concerned, I'm on a zoom call with weekly and one of the guys on the zoom call is an extremely knowledgeable and competent scientist. Maryland. Specializes in cancer. And just by accident he asked this question. He's done a lot of research into glyphosate and his opinion is that the negative things that are, that are attributed to glyphosate are mainly due to pesticides and herbicides that are generally also sprayed on the same fields. And there's a lot of confusion going on. His opinion is that glyphosate itself is not a serious danger. So for what it's like and it's

A (27:28)

other things that are related and many,

B (27:31)

many other of these pesticides, herbicides. So anyway, that's all I know. I mean, I have no knowledge besides that other than I think there's less in the way of, of herbicides and pesticides and genetic engineering and what have you here in Uruguay than there is in Argentina.

A (27:50)

Yeah, you can definitely get organic stuff if you want it. No doubt

B (27:56)

there's less feedlot beef and Uruguay than there is either in Argentina or Brazil.

A (28:03)

Definitely. Yeah. Let's see. Next question. In the last Q and A, Doug said he'd prefer to hold cash in the form of short term treasury securities. Would these be held in your brokerage account? If not, how and where are these instruments held?

B (28:18)

I don't know. Look, I've been so active in my little specialty that I'm not holding any cash and trust me, treasuries or anything like that at this point.

A (28:28)

Yeah, no.

B (28:30)

So I'm the wrong person to ask. That's. That, that, that's the kind of question you ask a certified financial advisor or one of those people.

A (28:40)

Yeah, you could, you can hold them in your brokerage account most places, but. Okay, next question. Any advice for someone looking to buy a business? Says, I was a solo business entrepreneur, owner and entrepreneur for the last two decades. Moved to Florida several years ago and unfortunately lost a bunch of money in crypto scams. Have enough to finance a business looking at landscaping, pool cleaning, and pressure washing businesses.

B (29:06)

I don't know.

A (29:07)

Yeah, I mean those are looking to buy a business. Advice for looking to buy a business. Well, you want to, you want a business with good historical earnings. That's that you could ideally step into and not be. And improve it from the baseline where it is today. And I do think there are a lot of boomer owned businesses, you know, that we've talked about this in another, another conversation. You know, there are people wanting to retire and so there are these things that are available. So, you know, look for a good, you know, gotta have it kind of business that's got a good customer base and you know, where somebody's just looking for an exit to retire.

B (29:48)

Yeah. And you can earn out basically on leverage, on cash where, you know, the business is worth very little to the guy that wants to retire and you can take it over if you know how to run the business and you have the expertise to do it as needed. Business, that's probably the way to approach it.

A (30:08)

Yeah. An owner financing type of a thing, you mean? Yes, yes, exactly. Because a lot of them just, they just want an exit. They just, they just want to stop working. And so just, you don't have to come up with all the cash at first. You can let them, you can earn out of the business. Let's see. That actually might be all of them for today. Yeah, I think that's all we have today. Doug, we should talk about Iran.

B (30:35)

Yeah. No questions about. No. Yeah, no questions about any. About the impending invasion of Iran.

A (30:41)

It's, it's really weird. It's some of these things like, like people don't want to, I don't know if people are just kind of assuming the worst is going to happen or they assume it's never going to happen, but it's just obviously not a huge concern for people.

B (30:53)

Yeah, well, of course, we're just like, we're just like the little people where, you know, the masters of the universe decide whether they're going to start World War III or not. It's none of our kind of like none of our business. But what's going to happen? What's Trump? Look, we're dealing with, we're dealing with the schizophrenic personality here. We're dealing with the narcissist who's turning into a megalomaniac. What's he going to do with all those US Military assets that are accumulating around Iran?

A (31:28)

He's going to use them.

B (31:30)

Probably going to use them. Yeah. Question is to what degree? And Will it be to a great enough degree that the Iranians are almost forced, instead of acting as a passive punching bag, punching back massively and maybe, maybe sinking some serious US ships or shooting down some planes? I mean, to what degree they are able to do that? Don't know.

A (31:59)

Dunno. But what we do know is that there is no need to either consult the American people or Congress about it or to even try and sell it. You know, they're not even concerned about selling. They used to have to sell us on these foreign adventures in the past and not anymore. It's like we're just gonna do it.

B (32:18)

No, it's strictly between Trump and, and Bibi, and I'm afraid the US to all the world looks like Israel's, which it really is, quite frankly.

A (32:28)

Well, if we do this, I think it'll be, it'll be clear for those who might still doubt it.

B (32:33)

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess it would be good for Israel. Although, I mean, if, if Iran launches thousands of missiles at Israel, it's going to be pretty, pretty destructive and Israel will counter attack. But, you know, it's expensive to have a war and so this, this can't end well for anybody.

A (33:01)

Yeah, I was gonna say. The good thing is. Sorry. Sorry.

B (33:05)

Oh, I was going to say, apart from the fact war is the health of the state, so it'll be.

A (33:10)

Right. Well, I was gonna say. Well, the good thing is, is that we've got the Board of Peace which has already has reconstruction plans for Gaza and I think you can just fold into parts of Tel Aviv and whatever else needs to be done as part of that.

B (33:22)

That's true. They can, they can roll all that money that Trump thinks he's going to raise into Israel proper as opposed to just, just Gaza. Chances of the Gaza being developed, I'd say are slim and none. And slim is out of town.

A (33:40)

Well, the thing is it definitely won't happen if Iran is still there as a threat, you know?

B (33:46)

Right.

A (33:47)

So, yeah, I think it's, you know, Iran is like a, like a, like a speed bump in, in the path of these great development plans they have.

B (33:57)

Yeah. And it's not like the 2 million Muhammadans in the world have warm feelings towards Israel and Israel's right in the middle of it. So I, I think it's just a bad place for a real estate development.

A (34:13)

Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. All right, well, anything else you wanted to make sure we covered today?

B (34:20)

No, it's, it's funny, there's this one guy who says he's very well connected and he is who says that this is the week definitely when the invasion is going to incur or the bombing. We'll see. We'll see if he's right. Could be.

A (34:40)

Well, they like Fridays after market close. You know, they hope the shock of the. Of the whole exercise is. Is over before the markets reopen. I mean, that's. That seems to be a pattern. So today would be the day.

B (34:53)

Yeah. God forbid that the stock market goes down or the real estate market collapses, because that would complicate things a bit for the current regime.

A (35:03)

I know. It's actually amazing that we base our foreign policy on market on market where the markets are open or not.

B (35:10)

Yeah, I know. It's. This is. This is like. Well, you said this for years. I. So I think we're living in the matrix.

A (35:22)

I think we are. I think we are a degenerate version of it, though. Definitely degenerate. Okay, Doug, well, thanks very much. You have a great weekend and we'll be back next week with more.

B (35:33)

Can't wait to see what happens in the meantime.

A (35:35)

Yeah, it'll be exciting, I think. All right, thanks, Doug.