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- [00:00]
A
Good morning, Doug. We've been talking about Iran so much, we're going to switch it up today and talk about something totally different. I guess. Space aliens.
- [00:08]
B
Yeah, that's a practical subject to engage with.
- [00:14]
A
Well, there's been a lot of weird things happening. You know, these. Apparently these nine different highly connected to classified information, physics and secure facilities have disappeared over the last several weeks. You know, some murdered in their home, others just walked away. Have you heard of this?
- [00:36]
B
Including a major general.
- [00:39]
A
Right. So credible people who are highly connected have just disappeared. Now, it could just be a coincidence. Of course, we don't know about anything, but you brought this to me, my attention. At the same time, you brought to me a question about Matt Gaetz's recent comments. Why. Why did you connect those two together?
- [00:59]
B
It. It just seemed, you know, space aliens, kidnappings. I mean, it's all the party. And maybe we should talk about this, because, after all, at least before he died, Art Bell was one of the more popular people broadcasting anywhere. And. And I enjoyed listening to Art Bell. I mean, you know, impossible to separate what passes for fact with fiction, but it's very enjoyable. I mean, I think it underlines the belief that we all live in a matrix and none of it makes any difference anyway.
- [01:38]
A
But I just remember some late nights driving, listening to Art Bell in the middle of the night, and him scaring the crap out of me.
- [01:45]
B
Yeah.
- [01:46]
A
About one thing or another.
- [01:47]
B
It was fascinating. It's like Art Bell was, like, going camping and everybody would tell stories holding a flashlight under their face, stuff like that.
- [01:59]
A
Yeah, it's wild, but I mean, this stuff is coming up more and more in the news. You know, that with. It's.
- [02:07]
B
Well, I don't know, but weren't there three congressmen? Three separate congressmen, not that they're usually reliable sources that were all commenting, sounded authentic on this subject.
- [02:23]
A
Yeah. Let me just place one. Now, this guy, this is Tim Burchette, Congressman from Tennessee, if I recall, who's basically responding to this reporter who's asking about Matt Gaetz's claim. And his claim was fundamentally that there was an alien human hybrid breeding program happening, as wild as that sounds. So this is his response, you know,
- [02:49]
B
half a dozen or a dozen different sites besides.
- [02:53]
A
Right.
- [02:53]
C
I don't have the tinfoil hat on just yet, Congressman, but I'm wondering, you know, kind of how you react to that, because you are connected. You're on the UFO subcommittee. I mean, I'm just wondering what you make of that. Have you heard anything like that?
- [03:07]
D
Well, I'm still A member of Congress. So I can't really comment too much on what Matt said. But I will say this.
- [03:15]
C
Wait, seriously, are you being serious or is that.
- [03:17]
D
I've been 100% serious. I've been 100% serious. I've been briefed by just about every Alphabet agency there is. And I'll just tell you this. If they would release the things that I've seen, you would stay up. You'd be up at night worrying about or thinking about this stuff. We just need to disclose it all. I'm sick of it.
- [03:35]
B
You're.
- [03:37]
D
Well, I was, I was brief. I'll just tell you this. I was brief last week on an issue, or, excuse me, two weeks ago. And it would have set the earth on this. This country would have come unglued. I think if they would have heard all that I heard, they would. They would demand answers and they knew we need to. But, you know, it's, it's never going to get. Unfortunately, it just keeps getting covered up and covered up and the people that know are dying or disappearing, as the case may be.
- [04:01]
C
Wow.
- [04:02]
D
And, and for the record, I'm not suicidal and I don't take risks.
- [04:05]
C
I'm glad you said that. I'm speechless, Congressman.
- [04:09]
D
You should be. And I told the president, release it all. And the problem is the people that are around the president don't know. And the president doesn't know the questions to ask. A few of us are going to have to get with the president and tell him what he needs to ask and where he needs to look. I mean, you know, we're in meetings and they have addresses and tell locations of items. I'll just say, and the public has a right to know that it's your tax dollars.
- [04:31]
C
Absolutely. You got my attention. Congressman, I appreciate you being as forthcoming as you have been tonight, and we look forward to having you back. Look, I know Donald Trump wants to disclose something. He hasn't done it yet, but I think he wants to be the president to do that. Tim Burchett.
- [04:43]
D
He does.
- [04:48]
A
So maybe that's what we get, is that we get a big people. There's apparently a movie coming out that's called Disclosure Day. Steven Spielberg's involved with it, if I recall.
- [04:59]
B
Yeah, if Spielberg's involved, at least it'll be high budget. We know that much.
- [05:04]
A
Right. But it just, you know, it's like we're being set up in the, in, in the entertainment era area. Also that there's going to be a big disclosure day where all of a sudden all these Fantastical facts are going to be revealed to humanity.
- [05:23]
B
Well, bread and circuses. Entertainment is a major element of our current society. As far as aliens go, my opinion is this, is that. Well, look, let me put it this way. To the best of our knowledge, astronomers knowledge, There are about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And there are, wait for it, about 2 trillion other galaxies. And the average size of them. Some are larger, some are smaller, but most of them are larger than the Milky Way galaxy. So you do the numbers and. And it's like, for practical purposes, an infinite number of stars. Most of them, they figure at this point and are proving have planets. So as they say, do the math. Chances are that life is evolved someplace else. But at least to the best of our knowledge, things are governed by the speed of light. And the closest star to us is Alpha Centauri, actually. It's a three star system and it has planets around it. It has planets around it. So. But it's four light years from us. So that even if. And you can't break the light speed barrier, or at least we don't think you can break it unless there's some way of. Some other way of getting around.
- [07:05]
A
Wormholing it.
- [07:06]
B
Wormholing it. Of course, wormholing it. That's right. And. And since everything follows fiction eventually, I mean, life imitates fiction. It might, that might work, but the chances of, with all of the stars and planets and galaxies in the world, somebody taking an interest in this obscure place where the most advanced life form, probably us, is pretty degraded. I'd say it's about zero.
- [07:41]
A
Well, in another interview that we listened to earlier, before we started recording, this Tim Burchette fellow said that somebody in the, I guess it was Navy, reported to him that there was a crowd, underwater craft size of a football field traveling at 200 miles per hour. You know, that's the kind of thing, that's the kind of stuff that gets reported.
- [08:04]
B
Yeah, yeah. I think Spielberg had a movie about that. And then there was another movie called the Abyss, which was kind of fun from that point of view. I don't know. Look, I mean, we live in the Matrix as far as I'm concerned, so anything's possible.
- [08:20]
A
Anything's possible. I totally agree. Yeah, I just watched after you brought it up the other day. I watched Interstellar again.
- [08:28]
B
Oh, yes.
- [08:29]
A
I was.
- [08:30]
B
Didn't get a chance. How'd you like.
- [08:31]
A
I was thinking about the wormhole thing because that's exactly what they do, you know, they take the pen and. Yeah, yeah, kind Of a disturbing movie, actually. Well, I find it disturbing the second time again too.
- [08:45]
B
So many good movies to watch. There's a series that I'm watching now, incidentally. I meant to tell you this off but maybe other people will be interested and it's called Person of Interest and the character that that is portrayed. Have you watched it?
- [09:03]
A
No.
- [09:04]
B
It's actually well written and the plots are well designed and complex and I find it very entertaining. And it gets better at Washed upon. Five episodes of it, starting with the first one and they're getting better and more credible. Well, how credible is it that anyway, the hero is a little bit like Charles Knight, which for what it's worth. So anyway.
- [09:36]
A
Well, I'll give you one back. So I found this Australian series called Mr. In Between. I had. It's. It's been out. It's the only three seasons apparently. But yeah, it's very entertaining. It's a guy who's, you know, like a gangster hitman kind of guy. Definitely unsavory in some ways, but you know, he's a. Like a single or dad or he's a divorced father and you like the guy actually, but he's a very normal looking person. Like he's not. Doesn't look like a Hollywood actor. He's like kind of a. But, but the acting in the show is really good and it's pretty entertaining, I think. You really like it?
- [10:17]
B
Well, a lot of characters which you'd think would be anti heroes actually turn out to be rather heroic and rather likable. My favorite of course is Al Swearengen from Dead War.
- [10:29]
A
Of course. Well, he was the hero, obviously.
- [10:33]
B
Yeah, he really was the hero. And his, his use of the English language was, I've got to say, just absolutely excellent.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah, totally awesome. Well, we got questions from subscribers, just trying to bring them up. The, the first one has to do with coal. You know, it's. It says with oil and LNG supply down because of the Middle east and Russia also getting blown to hell, what do you do you see coal getting a boost?
- [11:07]
B
Yeah, you've got to be a fan of coal because what we're looking for is hydrocarbons. Carbon, the friendliest and most important of all elements. Although it's currently in the doghouse where everybody's supposed to hate carbon. Actually I love carbon. So what you want is concentrated forms of carbon that you can also get hydrogen and oxygen and coal and oil and natural gas. They're all of a piece. So you're just dealing with these three simple elements and it's a question of rearranging them so you can burn them and get energy. Okay, so coal's underrated right now. I'm a big fan of coal. We've had Ian Coal on the recommended list for a long time. I've owned it for a long time. It pays a fat dividend and it's been going up recently. So yeah, I'm very bush on coal stocks and I'm bullish on natural gas stocks. Interestingly, if you look at natural gas prices right now on the futures market, it's been extremely weak. It's about $2.50 at the same time where oil is about 100. This is the ratio between natural gas and oil is typically about 6 to 1, but now it's about 40 to 1. Well, I don't think oil is overly expensive, believe it or not. I just think natural gas is extraordinarily cheap for reasons that we were discussing offline on
- [12:52]
A
Doug. His question is I don't understand how this works. If you have a, you know, an LNG powered power generation system, how hard is it to switch that over to taking coal as the input from natural gas?
- [13:07]
B
A utility, that's. That's a good question. Not having visited a utility where they've done that, I'd like to actually see it and have it explained to me by the people on the ground that are running the things and doing it. And answer is I don't know. But it's. It would just be a question of where the combustion takes place because the rest of the plant is all going to be the same. I don't, I don't know. But there's a hell of a lot of natural gas in the United States right now, but it's still very expensive elsewhere in the world. So how are you going to get the gas which is a gas has to be compressed and then it has to be liquefied and it has to be put on a proper boat and then de. Liquefied and transported probably by pipeline someplace else. So it's pretty complex. Gas is basically a local fuel because it can't be transported as easily as oil. That's why gas, oil, you got basically an international price. Gas mainly local prices everywhere. I don't know.
- [14:22]
A
Yeah, but would you say coal is the same as oil in that way, an international price?
- [14:26]
B
Pretty much. But everybody hates coal because it's dirty and the per pound, it's not as energy rich as. And it leaves all kinds of nasties afterwards that have to be disposed of, which is not true with gas. At all.
- [14:46]
A
Yeah, but in a, In a. In an era, if you have. If your choice is coal or cold, you know, I think people will choose coal.
- [14:54]
B
Yeah, I'd go for cold every time. Coal every time. But testimony to how. How stupid people are, it's that they should have been doing nuclear massively for many, many, many years. But nuclear will come. It'll have its day in the sun, where every little town will have its own smu. Small nuclear unit. Yeah, nuclear is. I mean, that's the answer to things right now. Until they come up with fusion power, which they may or may not probably will.
- [15:33]
A
Okay, next question. This says there are loads of different theories about migration. Some say it's to support the economy and pensions with an aging population. Others think it's about cheap labor or political advantages. And some worry it could lead to more government control measures in the future. What do you think is actually driving migration?
- [15:55]
B
Migration? Migration from where? I mean, it's been.
- [16:01]
A
Let's look at the mass migration, maybe that came into the US at least.
- [16:06]
B
Yeah. Where's it coming from? It's coming from Latin America. You know, it's funny. Trump is always talking about low IQ people. He accuses very smart people of being low iq. That's one of his standard fallbacks. When somebody disagrees with them, he calls them low iq. I'm not sure Trump is particularly high iq, but I don't know that for a fact. But anyway, most of the migration to the US these days is from low IQ parts of the world. So I don't see that they bring much to the party, quite frankly, that's productive. But they bring a lot of trouble. I mean, they're. They speak a different language, and they really don't want to learn English because they want to hang out with each other. Many of them have a radically different religion, different culture, different race, and people are wired when they see somebody that looks different from them to be suspicious. I mean, throughout the last couple hundred thousand years of our history, if somebody looked different, they were a different tribe, they were competing with you for resources, you know, attack. Dangerous. Yeah, yeah, dangerous. So. And oddly enough, it's. It's hard for. For Western Europeans, which would be the best kind of people, for all kinds of reasons, not least of which they want to get the hell out of Western Europe, which is a sewer of socialism at this point, but it's hard for them to get in. No more, you know, no more white people. There's too many white people in the US Obviously.
- [17:50]
A
What do you think the government's rationale was during the Biden administration for allowing this mass invasion to occur.
- [17:59]
B
I don't know. Einstein said that after hydrogen the most common thing in the universe is stupidity. I can't think of a good reason. I mean, what could possibly be the good reason? You're not supposed to ask that question incidentally, because that's a racist question. But I'm just asking the question, what reason did they have for doing that? Was it to ensure that they would be enshrined forever? The Democratic Party because they'll all vote Democrat, because they'll get free stuff, including the invitation to come here?
- [18:36]
A
That implies sort of long term thinking on the Democratic Party's side, which I'm not sure exists.
- [18:42]
B
Yeah, it is a bit of a paradox. Is it because of stupidity or is it because of evil intentions? Well, you're always supposed to fall back on stupidity is the first answer as opposed to evil intentions.
- [18:56]
A
But why, why is that?
- [19:00]
B
I don't know. That's just what they say. That's what they say?
- [19:05]
A
Yeah, I mean I, I've heard that line for years, you know, like don't, don't count. As for malice, something that can be explained by stupidity or something like that.
- [19:15]
B
Yeah, something, something like that. I don't know. We'd have to look at, we'd have to analyze it with critical thinking and ask a lot of questions to get the actual answer.
- [19:28]
A
Kind of. I just focus on the result. Like what's the result? Assuming that the outcome might have been the goal. You know, because that's as reasonable of a hypothesis as you could have is that what the outcome actually was was the goal. And what the outcome was is it was an attack on America itself, its finances, its culture, its relationships and communities. Like, you know, that was the result. So I, I just assume, maybe I'm just too simple minded, that maybe that was the objective.
- [20:06]
B
I wouldn't doubt that because Starting with the 1960s, one of the chants that leftists and universities and of course leftists concentrate in universities more now than ever was hey, hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go. And these people hate Western civilization and everything it stands for. So that could be.
- [20:31]
A
You want to take it out. It's a good way to do it. That reminds me, I got to find that other clip about wokeness to show. I'll dig that up maybe while you answer.
- [20:40]
B
Yes, this is the head of the ndp, the New Democratic Party in Canada, which is their, they're the, they're polite answer to the Communist Party and they've Gotten more and more bonkers over time and at least up until just recently when they've lost a bit of momentum because they've gone completely outright batshit crazy. The NDP would often get 20% of the vote in Canada. So do you have that vote from this?
- [21:09]
A
Yep. Here's the clip. Yeah, here we go. Here we go.
- [21:13]
D
They provided $0 to deal with the
- [21:16]
B
ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQIA plus this is abhorrent.
- [21:24]
A
I mean she's got it, she's got a pretty good memory at least for being able to remember MMIWG2SLG BTQA I A plus I mean I can barely read it, let alone speak it the way she did.
- [21:39]
B
Yeah, and apparently it has been turned into a, a semi pronounceable word. The acronym has been turned into a word. But now things are, things are very bad in Canada.
- [21:52]
A
So it's she, she's referred to, in case you missed the very beginning of it, the ongoing genocide of these peoples is what she thinks is happening.
- [22:01]
B
Yeah, I, I, I seems to me these people are multiplying like, like mushrooms after a rainstorm. So how come they're being genocided?
- [22:14]
A
Especially, especially the, the two spirit ones. You know, I can understand that.
- [22:20]
B
I had, listen, I hadn't heard about that until until just now, but this is the head of one of Canada's major political parties that's actually saying this out loud and, and can remember all these letters.
- [22:39]
A
Oh, I mean I imagine she stood in front of the mirror and like did it a hundred times to make sure she wouldn't mess up a single letter.
- [22:45]
B
Yeah, these people take themselves entirely too seriously.
- [22:49]
A
Well, that's like, this seems like an attack on Western.
- [22:52]
B
Wait a minute, but she said genocide. And the fact is I, I think that most of these people that die on natural deaths, suicide actually. They are so bitterly unhappy with themselves, with their body and with the world in general that they kill themselves. And I think that's a statistically verifiable fact that these people.
- [23:18]
A
Yeah, I saw something the other day that it was like the depression rate among like a pre op transsexual. Like I don't know, I'll get them mixed up. Like a male to female one was 10% and the post op was 60%.
- [23:36]
B
That would make sense. Yes. Yeah, I mean it's so stupid. Having any serious operation should be avoided if you possibly can, but opting for
- [23:48]
A
it in order amputation.
- [23:52]
B
These people are crazy. They actually, they actually are, they actually are crazy.
- [23:58]
A
It's terrible. Terrible. So I Thought maybe that this stuff had all gone away with Trump, but at least in Canada, it's. It's blossoming, it seems.
- [24:08]
B
Yeah. And the momentum that's been built with things like the Davos people World Economic Forum, and the things that they seem to want when they get together, that hasn't been lost either.
- [24:27]
A
Not at all. Not at all. So, Doug, was global. Sorry, Were global wind patterns part of your decision to move to Argentina, Uruguay, positioning yourself to avoid the fallout from nuclear war?
- [24:42]
B
Well, I'm. I'm a believer as a matter of principle that anything that can happen will happen eventually. So. Talking about nuclear war. Yeah, I think it's in the cards, but that actually had nothing to do. I mean, it's a happy, you know.
- [25:03]
A
Coincidence.
- [25:04]
B
Yeah, coincidence. A little minor side benefit of living here in the Southern hemisphere, but. No, no, no, it didn't. And I speak as somebody that read Neville Shute's book on the beach where the winds blew the detritus from the nuclear war all over the world, even to Australia, everybody got killed. So having said that, no, it wasn't an element in my thinking.
- [25:31]
A
Okay, another question relating to Argentina. It says. Well, it's a statement. It looks like Israel will relocate to Argentina. Are your thoughts.
- [25:43]
B
Well, you know, it's funny. There's a friend of mine, I've mentioned him to you. His name was George Belcher, and George looked like a California beach boy. And he was, in fact. And he gave me a book that he wrote under a pseudonym, all about the Jews moving to Patagonia. And that book is at my place in Cafjate now. So I can't remember the name of the book or the pseudonym that George wrote that book under. I have an autographed copy. So this meme has been around for quite a while. I know that from personal boots on the ground experience with George, who wrote the damn book. And now it's circulating that Melee is looking to absorb 300,000 Israeli refugees.
- [26:43]
A
This is the rumor. I cannot find the actual, you know. You know, if I can't fact check it, but you see it all over the place now. So I'm just not sure if it's an Internet rumor that's just spread wildly or if it's reality.
- [26:58]
B
Maybe just one girl. Somebody says something and somebody else picks it up. And one girl tells another, tells another. So is it factual? I don't know. But, I mean, Millay apparently has converted to Judaism and, you know, the whole. The whole nine yards, who knows?
- [27:24]
A
Okay, next question asks us if we're familiar with a guy named Patrick Wood and his work on Technocracy at Technocracy News. He has an explanation for what's going on right now in the Middle east and he says it's astonishing. So we have. I haven't read the article. I, I know you haven't read it yet, but.
- [27:46]
B
No, I want to read it because I, I love to probe these bizarre byways and rabbit holes that the Internet makes so possible. We'll find out. Maybe, maybe next week we'll talk about follow up.
- [28:03]
A
Okay. Doug, any idea why EQT got hit quite violently this week? It gives a nice opportunity to stock up but is a bit odd since other energy stocks held up. Okay. And the global situation has not really changed.
- [28:20]
B
Yeah, well there's energy stocks and energy stocks and the thing to recall is that EQT is all about natural gas and natural gas in the US is trading at around 250 right now, which is relative to oil, basically an all time low. The ratio between natural gas and oil, it's a question of energy content is usually about 6 to 1. Right now, 250 to 100, that's 40 to 1. So natural gas is really, really, really cheap. So EQT might have been down a few percent because the stuff that it deals with is down natural gas.
- [29:01]
A
That makes sense. Okay, now someone else referring to another podcast, the Hidden Forces podcast, which I've listened to before and is good. They said they did a great feature where a guest, a maritime expert, thinks the war puts pressure on Lloyds of London as the insurance backstop, essentially adding to the transfer of power from London to the US Any merit to that argument?
- [29:28]
B
I have no idea. I don't follow. Lloyds of London sounds like a conspiracy theory.
- [29:35]
A
I'm pretty sure it is because what happened apparently is when war broke out, the insurance companies cancel the policies to kind of rework them all and it took about five days for them to re establish. And of course the rates went way up, you know, from like a couple basis points essentially, you know, up to as much as like 5%. So you know, it went way up but it was like a five day period. And during that period even the, you know, the Trump administration came out and said we'll insure it too. So but obviously there's insurance now and this and nothing's flowing through the strait still. So it's not like the insurance is the linchpin to the whole thing.
- [30:23]
B
Yeah, part of it might be that unless a ship is absolutely sure of getting through, the crew doesn't Want to be on an oil tanker that gets blown up? I mean.
- [30:37]
A
Yeah, come on guys, let's run for it.
- [30:41]
B
Right? Oh so look, there's hundred hundreds of ships apparently that are trapped in the Gulf and with all of their contents. And when are they going to get out? I mean we don't know. He can't believe anything Trump says. You can't believe anything he says.
- [31:06]
A
There was a report that came out before we started recording that said that the, the from. I think it might have been the energy Secretary who said that the Strait of Hormuz will be open within a couple months.
- [31:20]
B
Okay, well it's reasonable enough. Couple of months. Something's probably going to happen. Hopefully something good will happen.
- [31:29]
A
Well what'll happen? But if it takes two more months, I think we have global depression.
- [31:34]
B
Yeah. Because there are a lot of countries that especially in the Far east that rely on oil from. And gas and other stuff, fertilizers from that part of the world and if they're not physically available, bad things will happen to their economies.
- [31:55]
A
Yep. And the 45000 products that have petroleum in them. Right. So it goes all the way up the value chain, affects all of us. Oops, sorry.
- [32:04]
B
Very, very bad things. And when it's completely unavailable in Australia. But it's funny, you remember in, in the movie Mad Max one of the problems that they had was that there was no fuel. That was, that was a sub theme of the movie Mad Max. So once again fiction is predicting reality.
- [32:30]
A
It seems like it's coming. Yeah, Australia's the information I saw from JP Morgan said that they're the last ship arrives there around April 20th so that's when they really should hit the wall.
- [32:46]
B
So we'll see Australia, Australia has lots of oil and gas both but their ultra green and they're trying to discourage drilling for oil and gas, not encourage it. So things got it's. It's really one of the west worst governments in the western world. Australia. Too bad because it's one of the nicest countries in the western world. It's a pity.
- [33:14]
A
Here's another question for you Doug. You've mentioned Nina Simone in the past. He said I found quite the connection as well to Roberta Flack in songs like Compared to what? Who else has a bit of this rebellious spirit that's worth the files attention in times like these?
- [33:36]
B
Well I mean when it comes to female vocalists I guess my favorites are Nina Simone by far too bad that she was a communist, wound up living in Ghana of all things and Dionne Warwick. I Don't know what happened to her.
- [34:00]
A
Dionne Warwick. I only know her as the person who did. Like she had a 1900 call in psychic Line. That's what I remember as a kid.
- [34:08]
B
Yeah.
- [34:09]
A
Maybe I'm wrong.
- [34:10]
B
Singer.
- [34:12]
A
I swear I'm shocked because she, she,
- [34:17]
B
she sang all these songs written by Burt Bachrach and some of them are really good. So I'll have to check that out. Don't know much about Roberta Flack, but I think Roberta Flack was from Washington D.C. and I had a pal named Donald Lease who was a. Was an entertainer, comedian, and Roberta Flack was kind of his best buddy. But Donald never introduced me to Roberta and he's dead. I don't know if Roberta's still alive or not. Probably not.
- [34:56]
A
Doug, what's your opinion of pensions, particularly from Canada? Will they simply stop paying them?
- [35:03]
B
What kind of pensions? I don't know. What the deal is with Canada is, is they have a national pension like equivalent to Social Security, which of course has been bankrupt for many years. They have the same thing.
- [35:17]
A
I wish. I really have no idea. I would assume that they've got something like that. I mean, it's hard to imagine that a much more socialist country wouldn't have that.
- [35:25]
B
Yeah. The only kind of pensions that make sense are pensions that are invested in. Productive businesses that pay dividends on their own and grow in value because the businesses are well run. So anything that doesn't invest in that kind of thing is probably a dead duck. Absolutely. Including Social Security, which lives on tax dollars which are diminishing. Probably the same in Canada. But I don't know what the Canadian situation particularly is.
- [36:03]
A
Well, I mean, to me the idea of pensions that's scary to me is that you're basically dependent on a single source for your livelihood. You know, fundamentally most people are who are on them. And that just sounds terrifying to me, honestly, especially if the state is involved.
- [36:25]
B
Yeah. What happens if the state mismanages the pension, which is probably run just on tax dollars, and the currency which is denominated in loses all its value and you're relying on nothing like that other than that? Well, I guess you can't meet your obligations and you'll be kicked out of your house and you wind up living under a bridge?
- [36:49]
A
Well, that's only if the government's that irresponsible to mess with those two things, Doug. Why would they do that?
- [36:54]
B
No, they wouldn't do that. And anyway, if you're about. If lots of people are about to be kicked out of their houses, the Government will say, that's okay. You can stay in your house and, oh, and we'll pay your utility bills for you, too. But the deferred maintenance on your house will have to accumulate. So it takes some years for civilization to collapse. So don't worry about it. It's not like a tomorrow morning problem.
- [37:24]
A
All right. Someone asked what our process is for creating the crisis Investing newsletter. Like, do you meet on a regular cadence? How do you decide what to recommend and what not to recommend? Are decisions made by majority vote or unanimity? Well, I'll just say, you know, Lao writes the letter. He puts it all together. We talk over email regularly about different ideas, investing ideas, and we get together every other week for a live conversation about it. And it's usually there's a strong consensus on what the pick ought to be. You know, if you. Sometimes we want to pick three things, but, you know, we, you know, that's. I'd say if we've had a. The one of the biggest challenges is like, these look like several good opportunities and how do we just narrow it down to one for the issue? I'd say it's probably the biggest challenge.
- [38:20]
B
Yeah. And sometimes oddball things come up. Like a friend of ours who's a Dutchman, who's been living in Uruguay for years and he's a quadriplegic, he's one of my favorite people in the world, and he got involved in a company called Naqi N A Q I. And what it is is it has an earbud that in effect allows you to run things, anything from a wheelchair, obviously, in his case, to a car or an airplane just through the bud in your ear. Now, this is a very interesting technology. So I think we're going to set up a call because they're raising money. I own a bunch of shares in it, which is not a recommendation because this type of technology, although I'm a technophile, I don't really know how it works. But, like, we'll set up a call in the next week or two where people can listen to the management and the scientists talk about, talk about why this is a really big deal. So stuff like that. Lao's not involved in that, but.
- [39:40]
A
Right.
- [39:41]
B
That's only. Who's that going to be for? Just.
- [39:43]
A
That's for the VIP members. VIP membership. Yeah, because this, this is a private placement situation.
- [39:50]
B
Yeah. And illiquid because it's not public yet and sophisticated investors only. So I'm not endorsing it in any way. In fact, I got a lot of Questions that I want to talk to the boys about, get their answers. But I think it's very interesting to be apprised of these things when they occur. So we do things like that too.
- [40:15]
A
Okay, good. Last question for you, Doug. If, if you had to ballpark it amongst your friends that you hold in high regard, how many of them make use of trusts? Like what percentage do you think?
- [40:32]
B
Well, I don't really know. And personally, you know, I once had a trust, an offshore trust, and I don't like a lot of moving pieces and so I don't know what the proper answer to that is. Like, I'm speaking at, at David Henderson's.
- [41:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, not, not Dave Henderson.
- [41:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, in, in Cancun this November. And you know, these guys primarily promote offshore companies and offshore trusts. Well, I think they're fine, but it's not my bailiwick and that's not what I'm going to talk about with them. So. Yeah, look, they serve a useful purpose, but it's not my bag.
- [41:33]
A
Personally, the problem I've always had with them is that, you know, there are really tight rules around them and you know, once, you know, you set the thing in motion, you got to comply with. It's the decisions that are made. You know what I mean? So like if you put a certain amount of assets in it, like you're not getting those assets out. And so hopefully you have a good, hopefully your long term planning is good enough that you know, you don't need to alter anything. Not say you can't alter anything at all. But in a lot of them you can't. And, and then I'm always worried about violating it and somehow you have to be very careful not to pierce it or else the whole thing goes out the window.
- [42:12]
B
But I mean, there are potential, potential significant tax benefits to it. That's true. And estate benefits to pass it on and make sure liability don't piss the money away all at once and so forth. So there's some real advantages to it. Some is a great deal of insulation from frivolous lawsuits and such. So I'm not opposed to them, I just don't use them personally.
- [42:42]
A
Yeah, okay. All right, well, that's all the questions we have for today. Doug, you have to read that Technocracy article and let us know what you think of Patrick woods views on it.
- [42:52]
B
Yeah, I don't know about technocracy. I thought we lived in an idiocracy, not a technocracy.
- [42:58]
A
But I think those two ideas are melding into one. You know, Palantir meets pro wrestling.
- [43:09]
B
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, this is. Listen, this is all good entertainment, and I'm a great believer in entertainment. And we do live in an entertainment society, more than, you know. It used to be we lived in an agricultural society, then industrial society, and, I think entertainment societies.
- [43:28]
A
Yeah. Then it was. Then it was consumer, and now it's entertainment.
- [43:32]
B
Yeah, that's right.
- [43:34]
A
Yeah, that's. That's. That's definitely true. All right, well, hopefully people were reasonably entertained by this conversation, especially since we went off the deep end with aliens and. That's right.
- [43:44]
B
That's right.
- [43:44]
A
Well, there's no subject to taboo for us.
- [43:47]
B
No, it's not. And Art Bell. Art Bell left some big boots we're trying to fill. I guess.
- [43:54]
A
No chance we keep up with him. Scared the shit out of me. All right, well, thank you, Doug. It is Friday. Have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.
- [44:03]
B
I love Fridays. Thanks.