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- [00:03]
A
All right. Good morning, Doug. We're back. And today silver breached. A hundred dollars an ounce gold is knocking on 5,000 door. What do you make of these markets right now?
- [00:18]
B
Well, frankly I'm surprised, albeit very pleasantly surprised, that they've gone so far so fast. And all those pet rocks that I've been sequestering for many, many years are finally worth something.
- [00:35]
A
They're good pets. Good pets, yeah.
- [00:38]
B
I'm very pleased. And the question is, okay, what do you do now? Should you sell and take profits? I don't think so because it's hard to say after so many years of diddling with the currency and. No, look, there are, there are. Gold and silver are overpriced relative to everything else in the world. They were underpriced previously. So it's hard for me to buy something, buy more of something that seems overpriced relative to things in general. Houses, cars, food, so forth. But there are good reasons why they're going to go higher. So when you say that, sure they.
- [01:32]
A
Are expensive relative to most things, but relative to something gigantic like the credit.
- [01:39]
B
Markets, that's the key. And they're trading as monetary instruments. That's why platinum and palladium and copper aren't really running with them. So I'll continue to hold and if I get a chance to buy some more with some spare cash, yeah, I'll do it. But I mean I'm really interested, I'm really interested in the mining stocks which are just unbelievably lagging. I mean, I was talking to one of my brokers this morning who's actually quite a maven at digging into obscure companies. He specializes just in, just in late stage developers and producers. But there's one that this coming year is going to be selling for four times free cash flow. That's really cheap. What are they going to do with the money? Well, looks to me like with most of these companies will either be doing massive share buybacks or instituting dividends which are going to grow. And the public is totally uninvolved in these stocks. I mean people that subscribe to our newsletter and a few others are aware of this. But the public at large is totally unaware of the existence of gold and silver stocks. Any mining stocks frankly. They see them as basically being evil raping Mother Earth and despoiling native groups and fighting with the, the nice NGOs and all this type of thing. So they don't know them and the, and the institutions don't own them either. So they're really, really cheap. Even though.
- [03:28]
A
They'Ve gone up quite a bit already. Like, I mean my portfolio is up 30% year to date. Year to date. It's January 23rd. I mean it's actually so much that it, you know, makes me uncomfortable because of the rate of it. So yeah, if you're interested.
- [03:45]
B
But, but you weren't involved with these crappy little stocks back in the 70s and 80s and 90s when the group, all of them would go 10 to 1, your portfolio would go 10 to 1, you and some stocks would go 50 to 1 or 100 to 1 or more. And it's going to happen again. I'm absolutely convinced of it. So I'm be right and sit tight.
- [04:09]
A
Which is why you should subscribe to Crisis Investing and you can get a newsletter where we make recommendations of particular stocks. So.
- [04:20]
B
And also, also, I think this is almost as important, you should tune in to the Experts Roundtable where companies sit down and have a dozen geologists and mining guys and newsletter writers that really know about these things, ask them questions and then discuss the company afterwards. So that it's quite educational. Like the one the other day on.
- [04:50]
A
Yeah, it hasn't been. I haven't published that one yet. That's gonna be published on Monday.
- [04:54]
B
Well, I think it'll be very interesting listening to the company's answers and what guys thought of it afterwards.
- [05:01]
A
Yeah, I mean the best part, I hope people make it to the end with all these because the best part is just the company goes away and you have all these experts talking it through, you know, and it's the last one especially was fantastic, fantastic because this.
- [05:18]
B
Company first came to my attention when it turns out they have a 6 million dollar mike market cap which is like nothing and they have a drill hole of 100ft of 6% copper which is bonanza grade and lots of other drill holes. 40,000 and this is a genuine anomaly with a 6 million in this market. To have a $6 million market cap with all this. So what's wrong with this picture? I mean it's either a fraud or a long ball home running that's staring us right in the face while we get into that.
- [05:58]
A
Yeah, we get into it. It's really, really, really an interesting and enjoyable conversation. So that'll be out on Monday. I'll include a link in the description of the video for where you can find Experts roundtable. It's experts roundtable.substack.com there's all of our past ones are published there. If you sign up for the list, it's free. You'll be notified whenever we do a new one, but the most recent one will be out on Monday.
- [06:22]
B
It's quite, it's quite educational so that if you listen to a few of these things, the presentations the companies make and the questions that the experts ask and the discussion among the experts after the company is gone, it's quite educational.
- [06:41]
A
Yeah, totally agree, Totally agree. Okay, Doug, so just some sort of political news. What do you think of Trump's standing ovation he got after his WEF speech? It's kind of, you know, people are expecting conflict and confrontation going into that.
- [06:58]
B
Well, look, wef, the World Economic Forum is full of sycophants and opportunists, however rich and powerful they might be. Basically disgusting, contemptible people. And they will sop up to anybody who is powerful and looks like he's in an uptrend. And that certainly is the Donald at this point. And if it wasn't the Donald, it would be somebody else that they would be equally lick spittles too. So. And as we were talking about earlier off camera, it's that these people, they're not against Donald Trump because he's one of the crowd and they love him because he shows what power. And in other words, they're in the same money and power position, just not as prominent as Donald. And when he does stuff, it acts as an impetus for them to do the same thing, justifies for them to do the same thing on a smaller level. So they're all part of the same big club. And we ain't members.
- [08:13]
A
We certainly are not. We're not. Okay. Other thing you, you brought up, and I'm not sure what it is you want to talk about with it, but. Oh, wait, first the Board of Peace. You had some comments on the Board of Peace.
- [08:27]
B
Listen, Donald is absolutely amazing. He's, he's rounded up 20 countries and if you look at the list of 20 countries he's rounded up, they're all backward third world countries. The one that I found most interesting is his BFF. I don't know how long that's going to last. BFFs don't last forever. But Malay's Argentina is on it and they're all supposed to pony up a billion dollars to join the Board of Peace.
- [08:58]
A
Malay found a billion dollars.
- [09:00]
B
That's right. I mean, what happened to no I plata and all that? So I think it's really stupid. Well, who knows, Maybe it's strategic because somehow the Donald will reward him even more for it. But he's got basically 20 nothing, nowhere countries signing up for his Board of Peace.
- [09:24]
A
Yeah, I'll just go through the list real quick. Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the uae. Oh, sorry, a couple more. Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
- [09:54]
B
Okay, so the word is out there that the Board of Peace, Trump wants that to replace the UN And I'm all for the disbanding of the UN which is nothing but a totally corrupt social club for totally corrupt officials that love hanging out in New York, making a lot of money and trading favors with each other to the extent that they can. It serves absolutely no useful purpose at all except looting taxpayers of the different countries to subsidize it. So, yeah, disband the UN or at a minimum, the US should get out of it. And if it did, it would collapse. And so maybe Trump is partially to aggrandize himself more, because this is all about Donald. He wants to be emperor. He really wants to be emperor of the world. He really does. He's, he's, he's a genuine narcissist, a genuine megalomaniac. And the more power he gets, the more he thinks he deserves and can handle and wants. So his Board of Peace, I think, is going to be like a, a UN substitute or competitor. And hopefully the UN goes away and the board peace will fall apart after Donald leaves office too. But anyway, I don't care. Yeah.
- [11:12]
A
And as, as recall we discussed last week when it was first announced, these sort of principal board members, you got, you know, a private equity guy from Apollo, and you've got Tony Blair and Kushner, his son in law and his real estate compadre, what's his name, the guy who does all the diplomacy for him, you know, in Russia and also Iran. I can't remember the guy's name.
- [11:38]
B
Oh, what's his name? Yes, Woff.
- [11:40]
A
Steve Witkoff.
- [11:42]
B
Right.
- [11:42]
A
Yeah. So the whole thing is, it's funny and entertaining at the same time.
- [11:49]
B
I, I mean, if you put this stuff in a novel, people, people wouldn't believe it anyway, whatever it is, is going to fall apart after Trump leaves office. And of course, I understand he's joked that he wants to have a fourth term, not just a third term. He doesn't.
- [12:05]
A
If you do the Insurrection act for some reason, if this stuff expands, I mean, you know, it's, it's terribly cold in Minneapolis for them to have any SO of street protests. But imagine by the time summer rolls around, you have some violence, you get the insurrection act and, you know, you can't just like the standard being set by Ukraine, you know, you can't really have elections during, you know, such social turmoil.
- [12:31]
B
No, you can't. But maybe there won't be too much social turmoil just because so many of these people are on psychiatric drugs. Like a quarter of the US population, I believe, is on anything from Prozac to Ritalin to Zoloft and more than 100 of these things. So that slows people down a little bit. And everybody else is on pot, and not just the mild pot that they pedaled during the 60s. This is powerful stuff that will definitely, you know, up your mind and your perception. So I don't know if that, that tends to make people less apt to go out and riot. I don't know, it's hard to say that's true.
- [13:14]
A
But we had BLM not long ago, remember? It was.
- [13:16]
B
That's, that's, that's true. And exactly who are those people? I mean, precisely who are. They.
- [13:27]
A
Don'T know. Just like in the antifa. People who just sort of materialize, you know, in different places at different times. It's, it's hard to know. Seems clearly they're funded and trained and whatever.
- [13:43]
B
I presume a lot of them are college age kids that have been corrupted by the fact they've gone to college and been lectured by their Marxist professors, which they almost all are today, quite frankly.
- [13:56]
A
Yeah, yeah. You know, the other, the other thing you wanted me to bring up was these 37 cartel members being extradited from Mexico. What was it about that.
- [14:07]
B
Well, the thing that interested me about that is how the US Is asking the Mexican government to round up Mexicans doing business in drugs in Mexico and bring them to the US to be tried and imprisoned. And of course, this whole thing with the drug war, like the 80 people that have been killed in these. How many drug boats?
- [14:34]
A
That's over 100, I think.
- [14:39]
B
Whatever. I'm sure there's more all the time. Nobody's talking about the fact that, well, why is this happening? It's because we're having a second prohibition similar to what happened with alcohol during the 1920s. And there was. There's always a problem with addictive personalities and people that are just unhappy with their lives and therefore want to quash the pain, quell the pain by getting screwed up on alcohol or drugs. Okay, you're always going to have people like that. But the fault is not the people importing it. The fault is the, the general state of the society that people are that screwed up and want to basically kill themselves. So my solution to the drug war is it's your body. You know, your body. You do what you want with it. And if. If you wind up sleeping under a bridge, that's okay. That's fine. I mean, but drugs should be legal. And the cartels would disappear because there'd be no profit in it. And the people that kill themselves, 50,000 people a year, they say, die on fentanyl. Hey, I'm very sorry for them, but we all got to die sometime. And why should these people be kept alive? And the drug war and the DEA could also be abolished and let people do what they want.
- [16:12]
A
But if they got rid of that.
- [16:14]
B
Drugs were not a problem before the Henderson act in 1914. Alcohol, always a problem, still is a problem, but not a problem before they had Prohibition. So this is the source of the thing.
- [16:30]
A
If they got rid of, you know, if they made all drugs legal, though, Doug, how would the CIA get its black budget?
- [16:39]
B
Well, that is a problem. I guess they might. They might have to do without.
- [16:44]
A
Well, I don't know if that's possible. I don't think they're willing to do without. So. So there's that. And then. Second thing is, I think the. The main super important point you're making is that it's a symptom of a sick society.
- [16:57]
B
Yeah.
- [16:58]
A
A society that has serious problems, that no one is bothering to look at that and trying to understand it instead. Where, you know, we had caught up in, you know, Somali daycare scams or. Which is also a symptom of a sick society. You know, so anyway, well, if.
- [17:19]
B
If Trump. Diagnosis. Diagnosis that the real reason is we have a sick society. I just hope they don't start another agency to, you know, cure a sick society. They'd call it something like the. The National Health and Wellness Agency or something like that and fund it with tens of billions of dollars to.
- [17:42]
A
He did say we're going to reopen insane asylums.
- [17:46]
B
Yeah. I remember when they let all the people out of these loony bins and they were on the streets. It was quite disconcerting. Washington, D.C. you could see them everywhere. I don't know where they all went, frankly.
- [18:01]
A
Where they all went. Yeah, but. But, yeah, that's. I mean, it's mostly people you see that are homeless. Right. I'd see that if they have drug problems or they have mental illness.
- [18:10]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [18:15]
A
So just kind of going around the world. Doug, I'd like to get your comments on these different territories and your thoughts on it. For starting with a major topic of Trump's speech in front of the World Economic Forum, which is Greenland.
- [18:32]
B
Yeah. Well, there's nothing of value in Greenland except possible mineral rights. And apparently that's part of the deal, is that the US Controls the mineral rights. Do I understand that correctly?
- [18:44]
A
Are you talking. I'm not sure which deal you're talking about. So I've seen a couple floated, but nothing in the last 24 hours. I haven't seen enough news.
- [18:51]
B
So he wanted to merge Greenland into the U.S. yes, but that's not going to happen. But apparently there are two elements of this. The US Is going to have complete free reign militarily, but also the US Controls the mineral rights of Greenland, at least as I understood it.
- [19:21]
A
All I heard is that there was. You know, I saw Trump tweet that apparently he'd sat down with Ruta, you know, the guy in charge of NATO, and it figured out that they had a, you know, sketched out a solution. So I hadn't heard the details as you just described yet. I just heard that the deal, though, was made between the Secretary General of NATO and Trump.
- [19:45]
B
Anyway, it doesn't matter, because whatever Trump gets, if he decides that he wants more, he'll take more, and there's nothing. So this is. This is academic. And the 57,000 or however many Eskimos that live up there, I guess they can like it or lump it, but he'll bribe them with 50 or 100,000 bucks a piece. And, you know, it is interesting if you want to. If you. If the imperial US Wants to take over another piece of real estate, frankly, we've typically bought most of the land area that was not owned by the original 13 colonies. The most famous, of course, was Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon in 1813 when he was hard up for cash. That was one. Florida was purchased from the Spanish, right? Conquer it. We purchased it. There was the Gadsden Purchase after the Mexican American War, where we. Well, we did conquer most of the Southwest from Mexico in the Mexican American War, but there was some leftover land in Arizona and New Mexico, and that was purchased from the Mexican government in 1857 or something like that. And I didn't know this, but when I was researching it a bit, we actually paid the Spanish for the Philippines after the Spanish American War. I didn't know.
- [21:18]
A
I didn't know that.
- [21:19]
B
I didn't know that either, but that's apparently the case. We gave them $20 million, which is to say a million ounces of gold, which is to say $4 billion. Anyway, that's what the Spanish took for the Philippines and of course, Hawaii. We did conquer that. That was a shameful conquest of. I mean, Hawaii was, you know, that was. But so that's how the US has grown.
- [21:46]
A
And then Alaska too. Right?
- [21:48]
B
Alaska. Purchased from the Russians. I forgot that. Of course, that's a biggie. So. So if he buys Greenland. Well, probably a good deal.
- [22:01]
A
I mean, it's been done before, that's for sure.
- [22:06]
B
But I'd rather see Greenland be an independent country, quite frankly.
- [22:11]
A
Yeah, yeah. And I'm not sure how the 57,000 people really feel about it. I've heard mixed reviews, you know, but either way, they probably don't like their fate being decided above and beyond them like that.
- [22:23]
B
Yeah, well, they can take what they get and be happy with every. Whatever table scraps are thrown their way. That's. That's the way it's been throughout history. I mean, so anyway, that's Greenland and so Cuba. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of interesting because this place is. I've been to Cuba four times over the years. I mean, one time thing, this was just after the Soviet Union fell where there was really no food. I mean, people were starving there at the time. And it was kind of a semi state dinner that we had where they found a boat that had gas, they could go out and catch a grouper, a few grouper for us to have for dinner. And we had the grouper and Spanish olives. That was our dinner. And it was supposed to be a big deal dinner. So.
- [23:14]
A
Wow.
- [23:15]
B
So things have been bad in Cuba forever. And I'm sure now that the Venezuelans aren't supporting them anymore, there'll be a change of government in Cuba. So that's a plus. That's. That's a plus. And then, and then Iran, that's the next one I'm thinking of. My guess is the way this is going to turn out is that Iran's going to break up because It's. Sure about 40% of the population are ethnic Persians, but the rest of the country are all kinds of people, Arabs and Azerbaijanis, and, and they'll break up into separate countries, as they should, and that.
- [23:57]
A
Will it break up? Will it break up without US Military intervention?
- [24:05]
B
Yes, because US Military intervention is something that will unite these people, I think, more than anything else. Or, or create a catastrophic civil war. Who knows where this goes. But it's natural that these people break up with their compadres that share linguistic and ethnic characteristics.
- [24:26]
A
So you think if you just left it Alone at this point. I mean, left it alone, it'd still be in its state of where all the economic sanction, sanctions are on it really kind of grinding them down. But just in that situation, if you just left it status quo, you think it would just collapse into normal, into pieces of different groups?
- [24:47]
B
I kind of think so. This is speculative on my part, but news reports say about 5,000 people have been killed so far. Estimates vary widely, so that there's a good chance it'll fall apart. But on the other hand, if you have control of the, of the instruments of the state, the army, the police, the secret police, you can keep yourself in, I don't know, it's. It's chaos.
- [25:20]
A
Maybe you can keep yourself in power in at least one of those breakaway areas.
- [25:25]
B
Right, yeah, yeah, that's, that's at a minimum. Right. So anyway, that might solve the problem, certainly from Israel's point of view. And Panama. We haven't heard anything about Panama recently, but I'd say the odds of the US retaking the Panama Canal Zone are about a hundred percent.
- [25:50]
A
One hundred percent. What makes you think that?
- [25:52]
B
Well, the US was responsible for the creation of the country of Panama, which was split off from Colombia, and the creation of the Canal Zone, and it built the canal at its own expense. And really, there was no justification for Carter to have given it to the Panamanians. It was, it should have been privatized, frankly, but part of. Become part of the U.S. i mean, anyway, there's lots of ways you can rationalize the Panama Canal Zone anyway, being subsumed in, under the US umbrella. So I think that's going to happen.
- [26:34]
A
So just especially given Trump's view of the world and, you know, asserting authority over places, it just makes sense, naturally, that this is one, because as, as Michael Yan talks about, it's a critical transit area. It's, you know, it's super critical to world trade. And so if he's going to go after anything in this hemisphere, you'd have to imagine that be one, that being one of them.
- [26:58]
B
Yeah, no question about it. Entirely apart from the fact that Trump wants to put his name in as many history books for as many reasons as he possibly can. I think that's. That underlies a lot of this, frankly.
- [27:12]
A
Maybe he can rename it the. Some. He's got some, some clever name for the Panama Canal, you know, changing it the Trump Canal, the, the Gulf of America Canal. I don't know, something he'd love to.
- [27:28]
B
Further aggrandize himself somehow. Find a way. I mean, I'm, I'm still shocked that he renamed the Kennedy center the Trump Kennedy center or whatever it's called.
- [27:40]
A
Yeah, so that's pretty shocking.
- [27:43]
B
I mean, that's his modus operandi. And what else do I got here?
- [27:49]
A
Alberta, you wanted to talk about? Yeah, yeah.
- [27:51]
B
Alberta, that's always been my favorite province in Canada. It's always been the part of Canada that's the most friendly towards free market ideas. Farmers, miners, oil, productive people. Productive people. Right. And Alberta's always been used as a milk cow by Ottawa to subsidize welfare in the other provinces, not least of which is Quebec, which should have exited Canada long ago. I mean, it doesn't belong in the rest of Canada. So I think Canada is going to break up. And there's apparently a, a vote being taken in Alberta now.
- [28:35]
A
Right. It's a petition. I think they, they're, they have to gather. Yeah,175,000 roughly signatures, which doesn't sound like that'll be a problem. And then it gets like a referendum.
- [28:47]
B
Yeah. And I hope the Albertans do the right thing. And what I suggest is the right thing for them to do is become an independent country, not join the US as a 51st state. But as long as they get out of Canada, which will be an impetus for the rest of Canada to break up. I mean, certainly the Quebec independence movement might be reinvitalized since their net welfare.
- [29:16]
A
Right. If they lose the milk cow over in Alberta, they'll have more incentive to leave.
- [29:21]
B
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, British Columbia should leave. I mean, Canada is not a real country. It's an artificial construct. So that's a good thing. I'm happy about that. And, you know, talking about countries breaking up, what about this Gaza thing and the Peace Board? It's amazing to me that Trump was basically begging for a Nobel Prize, which. Does he deserve it? Of course not. Probably. Probably more than Obama deserved it before he even got into office. So it's the Nobel Prize. Peace Prize is a fraud. I mean, you look at the people that have got it in the past. It's just, it's a political popularity contrast. It's, it's a worthless prize, frankly. And then he gets that poor woman from Venezuela to give him her prize.
- [30:28]
A
So he gets a second hand accepts it.
- [30:30]
B
I mean, this, the guy is pathological. It's, it's, it's amazing. The guy's amazing.
- [30:41]
A
Yeah, there's. I, I have this little clip of Jared Kushner. I haven't even watched it yet, but I bookmarked it in Twitter where, you know, he's talking about the Board of Peace and basically presenting his master plan, you know, for Gaza. For the new Gaza and new Rafa.
- [30:56]
B
Yeah, I've seen yum. AI creations of what they hope to do in Gaza. What about the people that live there? Do they have any property rights?
- [31:05]
A
I mean, well, no, the land was promised to a different people, you know, thousands of years ago. So.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah, that's. That's right. I forgot about that. So what are they going to do with those Gazans? Where are they going to move them to? Maybe Somali land. Huh.
- [31:21]
A
Somaliland seems like it's the ticket. It's the best thing out there right now. Yeah.
- [31:26]
B
So it's. I mean, take this and be. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.
- [31:32]
A
Right. And, you know, it starts in Gaza and it ends in, I don't know, it ends in Illinois. I don't know. You know, the thing is, is that we are in a time period where absolutely anything is possible. Like anything can happen. There's the Overton window is shattered, I think, for the possibilities about what might occur next, whether that be, you know, nuclear annihilation or it be, you know, resurgence of good manufacturing jobs in the U.S. i mean, you know, like anything is possible at this stage.
- [32:09]
B
Yeah, it really is. As I think back during my lifetime. Anyway, this is. Impresses me as the most tumultuous period ever.
- [32:20]
A
The most consequential.
- [32:23]
B
Yeah.
- [32:23]
A
And the most dangerous.
- [32:25]
B
Yeah. Even more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost launched World War III back. Back then. Yeah.
- [32:32]
A
Wow, that's. That says a lot. Well, we've got some questions for you, Doug. If it was just a half a dozen or so here, I'd like to get through. If you have questions for Doug, if you're a subscriber to Crisis Investing, you can just mess your question and I can jot it down. Otherwise you can do it through our file app. So let's see, Doug, first question is about this guy, Michael Every. He's a global. Global strategist for Rabobank. And he says that Trump is the new Gorbachev implementing reversed perestrochia. Perestroka. I can't say it right. Yeah, I can't. So he says, Doug says that Trump is the new fdr. Who is more accurate and why?
- [33:22]
B
Well, Gorbachev saw that he had a real problem and tried to solve the problem through perestroika. And what was the other Russian term for the other thing? Openness. And. Was pro. Anyway, he did the best with what he could, which was a failing, a failing empire, the Soviet Union, but it didn't work out. I don't know. I guess they're comparable. They're, they're two guys that are, I think Gorbachev was trying to do the best that he could under the circumstances to save a collapsing empire. And Trump is trying to expand a collapsing empire by adding new possessions and spending money hand over fist. He doesn't understand the concept of bankruptcy either in his personal life, what served him well, or what he's doing with the US So I don't know. What do you think? Are they more comparable or not?
- [34:32]
A
Well, I think I, I think that it, to think of him as the. Yeah. Doing the. Trump's doing a reverse of that. Yeah. I mean, it's going to try and close from the economic perspective. He's trying to close, you know, versus opening things up. So that makes sense. But as far as, I think it's a far better precedent to think of him as FDR personally, just because I, I think that he's going to fundamentally alter the nature of the relationship between citizens and the state, you know, and I think regardless of, you know, whether or not he does the reverse Gorbachev, if he succeeds in that or not, the bottom line is it's going to fundamentally alter the relationship in the US and that and only in FDR is the guy Lincoln, you know, I mean.
- [35:19]
B
Yeah, yeah. He's going to try to reform it in the way that he thinks best because he's the new God emperor. So who knows what he's going to do because he's a, I think he's a pathological personality, however charming and amusing he is.
- [35:35]
A
Right. No matter what, nothing will be the same as it was. You know, and this is, you say this was already true, you know, post covet, nothing will ever be the, you know, the, the before times. So the before times are gone and Trump's just gonna further validate that, I think.
- [35:51]
B
Yep.
- [35:52]
A
Yeah.
- [35:53]
B
Can't wait to see what comes next.
- [35:55]
A
Yeah, it's exciting stuff. It's hard to keep up with the news. So let's see. Doug, David Rogers Webb, who has the same deep insider experience in finance as you and is now warning about the great taking, consciously chooses to stay in Europe. In recent clip, he literally says, I choose to be in Europe. Why do you think he's making that choice instead of moving to Argentina or Uruguay like you recommended and partially live yourself? Does he believe the real fight has to happen at the heart of the system In Europe with the EU central banks and collateral rules, or do you see risks there that he might be underestimating?
- [36:35]
B
Well, we had him on a zoom call that I'm a member of. I guess I could reach out to him.
- [36:41]
A
Well, I've talked to him, I've talked to him. Yeah, we text back and forth. Yeah, yeah.
- [36:46]
B
Can you get back and find out what's on his mind, why he thinks that? Because I, I don't know why anybody do that.
- [36:54]
A
Well, he, he did say to me once that it's important to pick a, pick the place where you're willing to die, you know. And so his particular setup in Sweden, which is where he's based is, you know, he has a, like a homestead. You know, he's, you know, he's, he's in a safe place there. You know, he's got, you know, his needs can be met. You know, he's a, he's got some independence there. So I think he just made his selection originally as I understand it, because these rules around the Great Taking had not yet been implemented in Sweden with regard to like Swedish bonds and so that, so like there was this, you know, there was something in enshrined in law that kept this great Taking from affecting those assets. Since then that has been lost. But I think he, you know, established himself there and it's like this is the place. So I, you know, I, I, I just think he's, you know, he's, he's not running anymore. He's just gonna, he did that going to Sweden and he's, now he's kind of said this is the place for me is the way I understand it.
- [38:11]
B
Well, okay, that makes sense because certainly when you get to a certain stage in life, you don't want to constantly be pulling up routes and going someplace else. It's very inconvenient and disturbing. So that being the case, I don't, don't think he's chosen wisely. But we all have to make a choice and there's not many really wise choices on the global map today. Frankly, no.
- [38:38]
A
And there are worse places to be than in, especially where he is in Sweden. There are definitely worse places to be in, in Sweden and in the EU generally.
- [38:48]
B
So yeah, I wonder, I wonder how he is positioned asset wise, because feeling the way he does about the Great taking, the only thing that you can really own is perhaps your household and a bunch of gold and silver coins.
- [39:06]
A
I suspect that. And also some stock certificates that basically been pulled out of this, the dtcc. So they've been, you know, they're not, they've some non dematerialized stocks that he has the certificates of, you know, in his name that. So if the great taking occurs, he still has, you know, basically his assets are not being used as collateral as ours are. Yeah, so that's the way I understand it. But you know, yeah, I could ask him to be on with us. You know, I, I mean I, I like him a lot. I think he's a really good guy. And he went, he went to extraordinary lengths to try and resolve this problem that is baked into the law. Spent the last year going to several states, lobbying states on changing the UCC regulations, just, just making it clear that somebody's private property was their private property. But in every case it was thwarted by the banks there that you know, everyone was open to the idea in the legislature. And then you know, the next day the bank sweep swoop in and you know, I don't know what they. Now they convince the legislators behind the scenes but when it comes down to a vote, you know, never makes it out of committee or whatever. And he, I mean, but he at his own expense of his time and energy like was trying to, trying to fix a problem like he was sincerely trying to fix it. And so you don't, you don't see that very often. It was very courageous of him frankly to do it, to do what he's done.
- [40:34]
B
Good point. Yep, I'd agree. Well, it's an argument for having more gold and silver coins in your own physical possession.
- [40:44]
A
Yep, yep. Oh, one thing I was going to say earlier is when you said gold's expensive. You know, I bought some gold coins last week for 4, $600 and it's now a week later, 49.86. You know, I mean, I don't know.
- [41:03]
B
Where it's going to be a year.
- [41:04]
A
From now, but it's crazy that it's gone up as much as it has in a week.
- [41:09]
B
I mean, well, generally speaking with commodities, the higher they go, the less you want to own them because more will be produced. However, with gold and silver, they're anomalous that way. New production is meaningless for gold because almost all the, all the gold has ever been mined is in existence someplace and meaningless for silver because it's only because you can't produce more except from pure silver mines. So they're different.
- [41:43]
A
Right. And like everything else in mining, it's been under invested in over the last couple decades. So.
- [41:51]
B
Yep.
- [41:52]
A
Okay, next question is. Doug, you've been many years in the newsletter industry. Do you believe a marketplace to invest in newsletters or media outlets? Perhaps pooling writers by theme is an interesting venture.
- [42:08]
B
No, I don't, because newsletter writers that become part of a larger company tend to be influenced, I hesitate to say corrupted by the larger corporate entity, but influenced to not get too far out of line. And anyway, the newsletter business is an excellent business if you have something different and original to say. But since newsletters today are almost all stock newsletters, if something bad happens to the stock market and the financial world in general, people won't want to hear about stocks or bonds or any of that stuff. Well, some will from some people, but.
- [42:59]
A
Much harder to make a business out.
- [43:00]
B
Of, though it really. Yeah, you can't bet on a perpetual bull market. I think that's a bad idea, especially now.
- [43:09]
A
Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Comment about the Investor Roundtable Excuse me, says the Investor Roundtable interviews are very interesting. Most recently Intrepid Metals. And I'm quite interested in the evaluation process of seasoned investors like those on the panel. Of course, I'm most interested in Doug's methods throughout his natural resource investing career. Doug would Doug be able to estimate the percentage of his investments that were made under each of the following circumstances? I'll go through these quickly. Number one, a tip from someone followed by much research and private talks with management. Number two, presentations at investment conferences. Then informal discussions with management, maybe similar origins to 1 and 2, but only invested after a site visit or two. Number four, a tip from a very trusted colleague with minimal research, maybe just out of trust to that colleague. Number five, minimum research because he already knows management and trust them due to prior successful experiences with them.
- [44:15]
B
All of the above. But it's very helpful to know who the management is because frankly, you've got to keep Pareto's Law in mind. The 80:20 rule and 80% of managements are incompetent or dishonest. At least that's the way I would apply Pareto's Law. So you're looking for that 20% or hopefully the 20% of the 20% that are ultra honest and ultra competent. But yeah, sure. Tips from people that are trust that I trust that explore highways and byways that I can't get into. Absolutely. So all the love.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah. Like you're just talking about the. The broker this morning that mentioned that company that was trading it four times. Right. It's like, you know, that of course that begins a process where you look into it more and understand it more, you know, for yourself. But yeah, I mean Tips are, tips can be useful. It's, it's the tip from the shoeshine boy or your brother in law and Thanksgiving, you know that maybe you need to be more suspicious of.
- [45:22]
B
Consider the source of the tip. What do they know? Exactly. Exactly. Correct. So look, this is a good reason to know as much as you can about as many different things as you can. Very helpful in life. And two, know as many people as you can that you can share insights with. So if you're, if you, if you just stay in one place and only listen to Fox for your news, I mean your chances of survival as a potted planter, not as good as they might be.
- [46:04]
A
Yeah, I mean like today, earlier today somebody asked me about one of the companies that Frank Gistra has some involvement with and I'd heard it brought up once before but you know, I didn't know anything about it so I just asked him, you know, you know, like how nice is it that I could just send him an email. He's like, well I'm about to border plane to Vancouver, but yeah, yeah, I am involved and here's what it is. And, but you know, it takes a long time to build those relationships and you have to do it, you know, by trying to add value to them, to make it so it's worthwhile having you around so that they, you know, are will. So they're willing and able to share information with you or expertise when you ask.
- [46:48]
B
Yeah, there's not many people that can send Frank an email to start with and a lot less that can account on getting an answer. So you're right.
- [46:57]
A
Frank's, Frank's been always very great to me. So let's see what are, what are Matt and Doug's perspectives on Monero? He says over the last several years Monero has become our family's most comforting asset. Mostly out of reach from the violence of the state. Untraceable, instant medium of exchange. Never mind the recent price appreciation.
- [47:20]
B
Did Monero start out at 10 cents, am I correct?
- [47:24]
A
Something like that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [47:26]
B
Well that was a big one that got away. I got a call from somebody that I didn't know, long story how that happened and he was looking for me to lend him $10,000 to invest in Monero back when it was, I think it was a dime and I didn't know him and didn't know enough about whether the story is valid or not. Turned out he's become a friend, subsequently a good guy. I should have done it because 10 cents to 400, assuming that I know it's 525 today.
- [48:03]
A
525, Jesus.
- [48:05]
B
Well, that would have been a long ball home run. So a lot of these get away from you. But anyway, that's my story with Monero. I don't own any, so.
- [48:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't either. I mean, I, I like its virtues. They're certainly all there. I mean, you know, it's what Bitcoin should have been with. It's with the privacy component. You know, as I understand it, I'm not super technical, but that's, that's my understanding of it. So let's see, let's see. With imbecile in chief, gunboat diplomacy all about targeting China, will the CCP tighten up all export controls as they did in silver recently? Speculation is this would be repercussions to offset losses in South America and squeeze the west for rare earth military applications to better be prepared for any conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere. Well, so will this, will China essentially respond to Trump's recent behavior by tightening export controls?
- [49:11]
B
Well, I think in game theory, it's been determined that the best way to play a game when somebody's doing something aggressive is a tit for tat response. In other words, there's something, somebody does something bad to you, it's not a good idea. Yes, I know what Jesus says, but in game theory, it's not a good idea to turn the other cheek because the chances are, oh, I'll do it again and again. So a tit for tat response, which would mean China doing something hostile in return is the most likely and actually the most intelligent thing. So I guess the answer to the question is, yeah, just hope that Trump doesn't do too much stuff that's too outrageously dangerous to cause that to happen.
- [50:05]
A
You know, I heard somebody hypothesize that maybe the recent bond collapse in Japan is somehow driven or encouraged by China. And I don't, I can't remember the, the mechanics he described and how that would, how that was actually would be done. But, you know, that certainly is something that has far reaching impact. I mean, it's something like it was like a five sigma move in the Japanese bonds. I mean, it's like, it's wild and it's very disruptive to the global credit market. So, I mean, maybe that's the tat.
- [50:46]
B
Maybe. But on the other hand, interest rates worldwide have gone down for 40 years from the early 80s till the early 2000 and 20s, and I think they're headed up for all kinds of reasons at this point. So I would continue to count on higher Japanese and higher American long term interest rates and whether China's got anything to do with it. Well, I don't know. I mean I don't set the part of the Chinese central bank. Yeah, interest rates are going higher.
- [51:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Okay. I'm looking for alternatives, alternative hard asset investments beyond metals and industrial commodities. I would need mostly passive as I still have a full time job and commitments. Basic research has me interested in two paths. Number one, farmland, livestock, crops, storage, ag equipment and royalty or profit sharing of real businesses like construction equipment, logistics, transportation or music, art, movies. Oh, he says, I know Matt has some experience in these. Have others found good investment opportunities with trusted counterparties. My only experiences with music and movies to a lesser degree, royalties and those. I started this company called Royalty Exchange where they, where we sell. I'm not involved in business anymore but I still own a big piece of it, shares of music royalties. So like I own a share in Dire Straits catalog and get paid every time you listen to a Dire Straits song on, on Spotify or it gets used in a TV show or whatever. So I think those are great alternative investments personally. And you know, the Dire Straits catalog for instance, you know they disbanded 35 years ago and the royalties are still going up on it though like because their music is being monetized in new and innovative ways. So I think that's interesting. But Doug, what do you think about the farmland, livestock and any other royalty or profit sharing of real businesses?
- [52:58]
B
It makes a lot of sense. I mean I've got a farm here in Uruguay that I think we have 60 hectares of soybeans and here on my farm we got about 125 head of beef cattle. I don't pay any attention to it. So you know, I've like most farmers, I haven't made any money. Less than most actually. I mean because I don't pay any attention to it. And you can't do that if you're going to be a successful farmer.
- [53:29]
A
You're a gentleman farmer, Doug.
- [53:31]
B
I'm a gentleman, yeah. I treat it, I treat it like a, a nice backyard to look at. But my comment is right now the grains, soybeans, corn, wheat are very, very cheap, selling around cost of production more or less. So I think it's a good time to get into them. And as far as cattle are concerned, cattle are profitable out right now. And are they going to stay profitable? I think they will. And the reason I think that is that both the Argentine and the American, and I suspect most other cattle herds are at like 50 year lows actually. So it's going to take a long time to rebuild those herds. And the question is, well, are people, people going to eat more beef or less beef or is it going to be like wine that apparently, at least at the moment, people aren't drinking wine and wine consumption is going down. These things are hard to predict. But generally speaking, whether it's the grains or cattle. Yeah, I think it's a good place to be right now.
- [54:36]
A
Yeah, cattle is really good right now, actually. And Michael Yan sent me a video the other day of a guy, a cattle rancher in the US who did this historical comparison between an ounce of gold and cattle. And essentially, you know, a healthy, productive cow over time has basically been equivalent to an ounce of gold and its value. And the difference between the two though is that the, the cow is productive. It's a productive asset. I mean, it does produce dividends. Of course, it requires a lots of input and care and all this stuff along the way, but it's maintained its value like gold has, and it is a productive asset. So, yeah, I like it.
- [55:19]
B
Yeah, it makes sense because actually the, the word pecuniary, which means things to do with money, comes from the Latin pecos, which means cow. So it's totally logical.
- [55:32]
A
How's your money? Yep.
- [55:34]
B
Yeah, exactly. And you know, I, I remember when I bought my first cattle herd down here, I thought to myself, you know, how hard can this be? The weather is good, the grass grows, and every two years a mama cow has a baby cow. And then two years later that baby cow has another baby cow. And it just seems like they'll compound like rabbits. But cows ain't like rabbits.
- [56:01]
A
They are not. There's, there's definitely more management involved, for sure. Yeah. Okay, last question. Let's see. It says, as the US government ramps up qe, does this change anything with regard to the Mar A Lago Accord hypothesis? That's something I talked about at the very beginning of last year. So the basic idea of that is that, you know, Trump was looking to restructure the economic and monetary system. And a big part of that was for the dollar to devalue in relationship in general to help with the debts, but also in relation to foreign currencies, because, you know, they would just change the dynamics of trade. And QE is like a necessary ingredient in that actually, you know, so they need to do it. So it was like, it's, it was guaranteed to occur also. I mean, the Dollar did lose on a relative basis to the basket of currencies at 10% last year. So that's also going along, like, if you look at what I was working with Lao on, you know, creating the kind of the core thesis for this year. And that was, you know, we discussed this specifically and it's like, yeah, basically. Check that box. Check that box. Everything is moving according to plan, including the rise of gold. You know, it's a big part of it, too. So, yeah, I don't know. You have anything to add to that?
- [57:32]
B
Add to that, Doug, all the world's currencies are fiat units. Almost all the world's governments are bankrupt. They have to finance themselves by printing more money. And it's much more serious now than it's ever been before. Way more serious. So, yeah, it makes sense. And Trump has approximately zero understanding of economics or monetary theory. So, yeah, bet on a lower dollar.
- [58:07]
A
Bet on the lower $$. They're all oriented toward a lower dollar.
- [58:12]
B
And they're in a position to make it happen.
- [58:14]
A
I mean, if we can just kidnap the Venezuela's president, I think we can lower interest rates and print some money.
- [58:20]
B
You know, I know we can do anything we want. Well, fortunately for the people in political offices, the consequences of what they do are often indirect and therefore disguised and delayed and further, therefore further disguised. So that's how these criminals get away with a lot of the things that they do. And nobody blames them.
- [58:47]
A
Nope, not at all. All right, Doug, I think that's it for today. Thank you very much. We'll be back next week. And you have a good weekend.
- [58:55]
B
Yeah, you too, Matt. It's a beautiful weekend here on the farm in Uruguay. So I'm going to. Won't you hit the pool later today?
- [59:04]
A
Awesome. Good. Enjoy it. All right, talk to you later.
- [59:07]
B
Thanks.