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- [00:02]
A
All right. Good morning, Doug. We're back with questions from Crisis Investing subscribers. But first, today is the big day with the SpaceX IPO. It's trading right now at. Oh, gosh, I lost. Was up over 25% last I saw. Yeah, 171share opened at 135. What do you think?
- [00:24]
B
I think that's wonderful. I'm, I'm really tickled pink to hear that. Because if SpaceX had crashed, the rest of the market would come down and. Listen, I, I'd rather live in a false fool's paradise than a very real economic financial meltdown, so.
- [00:47]
A
Well, I suspect you're going to be able to experience both of those at some point.
- [00:52]
B
That's right, cover. That's right. Probably not too distant future. I hope it holds up for a while. Anyway, I'm a supporter of, I'm a supporter of Elon. Just on general principles.
- [01:04]
A
Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's good if it, like you said, if it had failed the launch of this thing today, it would have been very bad news for the market. But the same point, this kind of activity where the price is, you know, accelerating, just like we'd see IPOs back in the dot com era. They, you know, they come out and they burst once released. I mean, they don't like it. It's not. That means they underpriced it. This way they see it when a stock moves up so much after it's released into the public. Right. So the bankers don't like to leave that on the table.
- [01:38]
B
No, no. Want to suck more money out of the pocket of mom and Pop Buggins or whoever they, whoever they are. Incidentally, we mentioned Elon just now. Of course, I happen to be belatedly. But I'm doing it now, reading Peter Thiel's book Zero to one. Have you read that?
- [01:59]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [02:01]
B
Well, I think it's well written and thoughtful. I'm only through the first four chapters. I just started it the other night. But I'm quite impressed with it as a book. It's short, punchy, no excess verbiage. I mean, thoughtful. So we can talk about it maybe next time. I'll be through with it by then, but.
- [02:27]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, there's some really good big ideas in there, I thought. And I think that's the only co. Wrote with Blake Masters, if I recall.
- [02:33]
B
Yeah, with, with somebody. With somebody else. But he's talking about Elon in the book and the fact that they were competitive with each other in the past and so forth. But I guess Elon's in a class by himself. With the success of SpaceX, he's added
- [02:51]
A
he's a trillionaire now.
- [02:56]
B
Does he own enough of it to be an actual trillionaire at this point?
- [03:00]
A
This is what I heard is once this, once this came out, he would be officially the first trillionaire.
- [03:09]
B
That's what I've heard too. But I don't know how many shares of it he owns. And of course he put X or Twitter, if you would, into it. It's part of the assets of, of SpaceX. So it's like, it's like Elon's personal balance sheet and income statement are part of like public record. I, it's. I don't know if it's good being Elon or not. You can't go anywhere, do anything without bodyguards, without being recognized, without being monitored. I don't know, good things. He's autistic, probably insulates him to some degree from all that.
- [03:56]
A
Apparently the elon stake in SpaceX added the IPO price would be valued at around 867 billion.
- [04:07]
B
His stake in SpaceX. Oh good. Well tack on to that is his Tesla, Tesla and other miscellaneous assets that he's got. Yeah, he's well over a trillion at this point.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah. And this was at the IPO price, you know, now that it's up 30% from there. Wow.
- [04:29]
B
Yeah. And of course, since the average person is very innumerate, various popular financial types are trying to explain how much is a trillion? I mean it's like we're a long way from primitive people counting stuff. Two, three, many. So if you had, if you stack pennies on top of one another. Let me see, what was. God, I'm trying to remember. A million pennies will take you up to about the s. About the length of the Empire State Building or something like that. They showed the Empire State, so it confuses me. I mean I could figure it out and see a penny is a fifth of an inch and. Yeah, anyway, so a billion pennies, I seem to remember, would take you from New York to Palm beach if they were all stacked edged, not edge to edge, but on top of one another going sideways. So how about a trillion pennies? Well, God, two, three. Money, it turns out, and you can figure this out quite logically, that it's not just from here to the moon, pennies stacked on one another, it's here to the moon and back twice. Four trips to the moon, that's how many it is. So once you advance from a billion to a Trillion. You're talking big numbers.
- [06:07]
A
These are big numbers.
- [06:09]
B
Yeah, well, we'll get up to a quadrillion before this is all over. The, the people in Zimbabwe did it. I mean, why can't we do it?
- [06:20]
A
Yeah, I mean, we're better than them.
- [06:22]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [06:25]
A
Well, and while SpaceX is flourishing at the moment, the space of the market that we focus on is not. And people are pretty down on it. Are. Chris Weber, who writes a newsletter, pointed out old friend. He points out that there's this, there's this Gold miners bullish index goes from, you know, 0 to 100 on the sentiment of people in the sector. On January 29th of this year it hit 100. And we both remember we were talking about this earlier, our portfolios showed it at that time. But on June 10, two days ago, it hit zero. Literally zero.
- [07:07]
B
That's unprecedented. Almost.
- [07:10]
A
Right, so it's. Is it the most hated sector in the world right now?
- [07:15]
B
Well, it certainly sounds like it. And oil is right there with it because as we speak, even though this is dust up and Hormuz is by no means over, I don't think West Texas Intermediate is back to around 80 and Brent is about 84 or something like that. So nobody likes oil or gold very much.
- [07:42]
A
Yeah, well, good time to. It's a, it's a good time to consider buying some, some of the gold miners at this point. I think at the sentiment so low.
- [07:52]
B
Well, it can't get less than zero. I mean that's the way they have it. It's like metaphysically impossible. So yeah, this is a good time to buy gold stocks. I'm not selling any, that's for sure. In fact, I'm, I'm buying some and I, I would advise everybody listening because it's interesting to tune into our Experts Roundtable where we had an excellent discussion.
- [08:20]
A
It hasn't, that one hasn't been published yet.
- [08:22]
B
Oh, it hasn't.
- [08:23]
A
Coming up. It's probably next week.
- [08:24]
B
Yeah.
- [08:25]
A
P.S. me to hold off.
- [08:27]
B
Okay. Well, do we have a. If you go there, can you sign up to get it sent to you automatically?
- [08:31]
A
Yes. Yeah, you can go to. It's on substack. It's experts roundtable.substack.com and you'll. As soon as it gets published, you'll see it. And it was, it was Mackie Gold and Silver was the company we covered.
- [08:45]
B
Yeah, very interesting. And it's free. You don't have to. Nobody's gonna ask you for any money. It's very educational because you can Listen to The questions that 12 or 15 knowledgeable people ask of gold companies. So it's worthwhile.
- [09:02]
A
Yeah, that was a good one Alex. You have people like Brent Cook who's like spent his entire career taking apart companies, finding the critical flaw in every story. Who says I can't find one with this one.
- [09:15]
B
I know he rarely ever says anything good about any mining company. I'm very sympathetic to that view of course. So yeah, good. Yeah.
- [09:27]
A
The other thing came out this week is inflation is on the rise. The CPI obviously we don't have much faith in at all but still that number went up. It's at 4.2% now and seems like inflation is building in the system, you know, with the producers price index even way higher than that. What do you think? And then we, so inflation's up. We have our brand new Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, his first official meeting is next week and I guess you know, they make their super important decision about what the interest rate should be. What are you expecting out of him?
- [10:04]
B
Yeah, well of course I always like to preface any conversation about the Fed with an assertion that it shouldn't exist because we can't know what interest rates really would be until it's non existent because they actually can set interest rates by all kinds of things that they do. Printing money, buying, not buying federal government, you know, whatever. So I don't understand if the official government interest. Official government CPI is what? 4.8, 4.2, 4.2, 4. 2? Well my personal CPI is a lot more than 4.2. I mean I went out to dinner the other night and for just a simple meal for three people it was like a hundred and forty dollars. I mean not. How do people pay these prices? I mean frankly. Well, CPI much higher than most people think. But why, why would anybody buy the 10 year or God forbid the 30 year bond at 4%, 5%, even 6% mortgages are now 6 and a half percent. I understand, I mean and tie yourself up for 10 or 30 years when it's obvious that the dollar, they have no alternative but to print and print and print unless they want a credit collapse, which, which maybe they do.
- [11:49]
A
That's an interesting proposition that maybe they do want a credit collapse because the assumption is that they'll just print into everything and devalue, whereas they could do the opposite.
- [12:01]
B
Yeah, who, who knows how cheap the dollar could get? And you say well they've got to devalue the dollar because the debt is so big you can't pay the debt off or even Service the debt effectively at this point. So we have to make the dollar worth less. But how can they do that except by printing more dollars? It's not like they can devalue it against anything. And they can raise the price of gold to $10,000 an ounce, but so what? That's raising the price of gold to that. Well, maybe they want to raise the price of copper to $10 a pound, too. I mean, how do you do these things? Well, you shouldn't do these things to start with, but it's all crazy. Look, we're living in a moving paper fantasy. That's what's going on out there. There's no value anymore. That's the problem with inflation. It destroys value. How do you compare things in the material world when there's nothing, nothing fixed? Everything's floating. Everything's a floating abstraction.
- [13:13]
A
And how does it end? How does that change?
- [13:17]
B
How can. How could it not end badly? But I listen, I go back. I go back to trying to get myself back to reality. I say, well, look, there's two reasons why the ascent of man is going to continue. And I've said this many times. I'll keep saying it because I have to remind myself of it. Number one, the average person is hardwired like a squirrel to produce more than he consumes because genetically he knows winter's coming and you better have something set aside. So we naturally tend to produce and try to save. And the second thing is, technology has been accelerating at a hyperbolic level for the last several hundred years. So things will get better. But wait a minute, maybe not. Because if the little squirrel who prudently sets aside some nuts, if those nuts are destroyed, or the average guy, his savings, which are in dollars, are inflated away, he's got nothing and there's no money to invest at that point. And in today's world, technology requires lots of money, so the technology thing could end too. So on the one hand, things should get better and better, but on the other hand. So, you know, what are you going to do? A lot of. It's a question of your personal psychology. Believe what you want.
- [14:56]
A
Well, that kind of sounds like, though the. You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the but. So what was Ayn Rand's famous quote?
- [15:05]
B
Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah.
- [15:08]
A
You can ignore reality, but you can't according to the consequences of reality or something like.
- [15:12]
B
Something like that. A little bit like what Nietzsche said. You can ignore war, but war may not ignore you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, look, all we can do is do the best that we can with what we have where we are. So we try to make sure that we become personally a little bit wealthy.
- [15:38]
A
Right. And recognize that. That they are actively destroying the nuts that we've saved along the way. And try to protect yourself against that.
- [15:46]
B
That's right. And unless you. Unless your personal balance sheet increases net of taxes by probably 10% per year, you're going backwards, you're getting poorer.
- [16:02]
A
That's a high bar.
- [16:03]
B
It is. It's scary, actually.
- [16:07]
A
Okay, well, let's get to some of these questions, Doug, from Eric. He says. I've noticed Doug often mentions Argentina and Uruguay as some of his favorite places, followed by Brazil and Paraguay. I don't know if you've mentioned those that much, but I'm hoping to hear Doug's opinion on Costa Rica.
- [16:24]
B
Well, I've spent a lot of time in Costa Rica, believe it or not. I was actually living there for about two or three months. I don't like Costa Rica as much as I used to. It's kind of an unusual place because it's really the only country in Central America that is where the demography is European. They're all Europeans, basically. No Indians. I don't know what happened to the Indians, but, you know, the Indian demographic is not there, unlike Guatemala, which is. Or the rest of Central America. So I can't remember why it happened in Costa Rica. I think it was because there was never a. I'm not. I'm not sure. But one thing about Costa Rica is that it didn't have anything that drew this. Anyway. Interesting. Anyway, forget about the history. Costa Rica was kind of the first favorite 50 years ago of a Latin country where the gringos could go and transplant and things were cheap and nice and safe. The cops didn't wear guns. There were no Frito banditos running around. So it was nice and unusual. So lots of Americans and Canadians came to Costa Rica. Too many, I would say. And the last time I was down there, it seemed like it was not as nice as it used to be. And it was expensive. So, hey, things change. It used to be the place. Now it's. I'm not exactly sure.
- [18:18]
A
Yeah, it got very touristy, you know, all. All oriented around, trying to serve the. All the people, the. The gringos that are flowing through there.
- [18:28]
B
Yeah. And that's generally not good, frankly. So.
- [18:32]
A
No, it distorts the whole economy. It distorts everything. Yeah, honestly.
- [18:36]
B
So I kind of forget Costa Rica. If you want to go to Central America. Where would I go today? I would not go To Guatemala. I would not go to Honduras. Although is that free city in Honduras or Belize? The one that.
- [18:52]
A
It's in Honduras. It's. It's in Honduras.
- [18:56]
B
Yeah. And the government is always giving them a hard time. I forget the name of the free city. I've never been there. I've been to Honduras several times. It's kind of a. Frankly. And there's Belize, which is English speaking. The only English speaking place in Central America. Beaches, kind of nice. Panama. I don't know if I wanted to go to Central America, and I'm not sure I do. Maybe I'd go to Panama.
- [19:25]
A
What about Nicaragua?
- [19:28]
B
Well, years ago, Bill Bonner and Mark Ford set up a beach resort called Rancho Santana. And I was a founding partner in that with those guys. And it panned out pretty well for me. And it's actually a very nice development now.
- [19:48]
A
It is very nice. I've been there a couple times. Yeah, it was really nice.
- [19:51]
B
Yeah, that's okay. I don't know about the rest of Nicaragua. Not so hot.
- [19:57]
A
No. I pretty much would get a. Get a helicopter, the Managua, and just fly over and skip everything in between.
- [20:05]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So another nice beach resort in a. In a backward country. I don't know. No matter where you go, there you are. So.
- [20:18]
A
All right, Doug, what's your opinion of tokenized gold? You know, where you deposit dollars and then buy gold that is stored for you. It's 100% redeemable and physical in an audited vault and then converted into tokens. And these tokens, you can essentially spend the money. You can transfer it to others. You can even receive a debit card tied to your account and spend the tokenized gold. There's a few places doing it. So what are your thoughts on that as a concept?
- [20:47]
B
I think it's an interesting concept. I kind of like. It depends on who is storing the gold for you and what the rest of the mechanics of this thing are, which I don't know who's doing that exactly.
- [21:01]
A
Well, he mentions one, he mentions Kinesis money. And there are a bunch of other ones out there. There's a tether gold, for instance. So tether, the Stablecoin company also has a gold token. But I think in the issue is, is it really yours? The gold where it's stored, is it really yours? And can you redeem it? I mean, can you just show up and give them your tokens and they give you an ounce of gold? And if not, then I question the whole underlying system, you know?
- [21:36]
B
Yeah, I'm uncertain of all that myself. What happened to. Incidentally, this is kind of like, oh, a tangent, but what happened to that chap that we talked to who was living in.
- [21:52]
A
I haven't, I haven't heard from him in a while but he, he was putting into the other company to do it right, to really do it right. And, and I. It was a very promising prospect.
- [22:02]
B
Yeah. And he was looking for, I mean like a few hundred thousand dollars of investment or something from us and he never even got back.
- [22:12]
A
Yeah, I don't know what happened to him, honestly.
- [22:14]
B
But the fact that I have, you know, this is what happens with a lot of people that are trying to round up money. They pitch you on the deal and then you don't hear from them again. And I always wonder, well, why sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, but if you don't, I mean, what's going on in their minds?
- [22:38]
A
Yeah, I, I think maybe he didn't decided he didn't need the money and didn't, you know, decided not to raise it because it was pretty dilutive to him and he financed it all himself at that point. So maybe he's decided not to, not to raise the money.
- [22:53]
B
Yeah, maybe. Well, I wish him well and maybe we'll hear from or about him in the future.
- [23:01]
A
Certainly I would, he has the way his is structured. I would be comfortable owning some gold store there and use the tokenized gold that he has because it was done right.
- [23:14]
B
So.
- [23:14]
A
And it's a really great concept because, you know, you, it allows you to actually spend gold, you know, makes gold, real money again as it should be. Not just a store of value but something you can actually transact in. That's, that's what it ought to be.
- [23:28]
B
Perhaps our friends at SWP and the Caymans ought to look into doing something like that. Yeah, they should about that actually. Yeah.
- [23:44]
A
Okay, next question is, does it make. Are you looking at shorting some of the markets soon or using a short ETF of some kind?
- [23:57]
B
I listen, I wanted to be short the markets for this is the problem with being a perma bear forever. And I'm glad that I just never did it because it would have been ugly but at some point it's going to be the thing to do. But rather than trying to pick a top and yes, I, I think the bell, the bell at the top of the market's ringing now with, with, with SpaceX coming public. But hey, maybe not, maybe it's going to go higher still. So perhaps, you know, Alex Craner has his, his methodology is to wait until the trend turns. Probably the way to do it.
- [24:44]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. Is you can lose a lot of money shorting stuff, just not go again, you know, just. And going against the trend seems to be a mistake, so.
- [24:55]
B
Yep. And the trend of the market is still up, even if the trend of civilization is down.
- [25:01]
A
Two different things and two totally different things. They shouldn't be so unrelated, but they are.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah, well, I always tie it back to our enemy, the state, which I do consider to be everybody's enemy. But the average person doesn't consider that to be the case. The average person considers the state to be his friend.
- [25:24]
A
Hey, the good guys. What spends one. Yeah. It's just about having the right people in charge, Doug. That's all that matters.
- [25:29]
B
Anybody that watches television knows that.
- [25:34]
A
Next question is, I followed Ivanhoe minds for a while now, and obviously the pedigree in that company is undisputed. The sulfur story. This is last month. We. We discussed this in the paid newsletter. Only adds to that. But I'm curious what Matt and Doug think about the risks to all of this if the Ebola outbreak in the area where their operations are expands.
- [25:59]
B
The Ebola outbreak? Well, there have been several in the past, and I read that this is a new variety of Ebola, which is deadlier and spreads more easily.
- [26:10]
A
It always is.
- [26:12]
B
Always. Yeah. So is this going to be the new covet? They got to find some way to eliminate 90% of the people on the planet as they promised to do. The billionaire class. The billionaire WEF class. World Economic Forum class. Gee, I don't know. I. I understand that flights of the Congo at this point are few and far between. It's funny, because years ago, not so many years ago. Well, actually, before the. The Great Covid hysteria, I tried to talk my wife into moving to Kinshasa for six months, but she drew the line there. Frankly,
- [27:00]
A
I think she might have been right.
- [27:02]
B
Yeah. Probably just would have got trouble.
- [27:06]
A
But you're not worried about Ebola and its effect on Ivanhoe mines, are you?
- [27:13]
B
No, no, I'm not. Anyway, Ivanhoe mines is in Katanga province, which is, you know, kind of physically cut off from the rest of the Congo. So who. Who knows how these hysterians can be whipped up? No, I don't think it's. I don't think it's a real problem. So that's just an opinion based on maybe an incorrect opinion. Do you have an opinion on that?
- [27:44]
A
I. What I understand is not in the area. Yeah. It's not where the. The mining operations are at all. And I usually just the attention is getting if there is a. If there is a problem, if you assume there'd be containment of it. Ebola is not the way it's spread is how I understand it is not like Covid, which you know, spread so easily. No one knew they had it. So. Yeah, I'm not worried about it.
- [28:12]
B
No. Anyway, Katanga, where the mines are, I mean you can't get to where the Ebola is from there. I mean you really can't get there. I mean it's. How are you going to get there? Planes don't fly anymore. I mean you're not going to walk. Forget about that. No, don't worry about it.
- [28:35]
A
Okay. The hormones has been closed for 100 plus days and yet oil hasn't spiked to levels a lot of experts thought it would rise to. The big driver is China reducing its oil imports by about 5 million barrels a day. What's causing this decline? Is it just that they had stockpiled the oil before the war and so. Or also that its economy is slowing or changing. How sustainable is this? Can they. How long can they continue to import less so little oil? Can it last for three or six months? If yes. Is the thesis that oil shortage will lead to higher prices and inflation less sound now?
- [29:18]
B
Well, I think gold stocks and oil stocks are both very cheap and you ought to own them. Price of oil. So right now West Texas intermediates about 80 and Brent's is about 84 or something like that. So I would have thought with the continuing problems continuing in Hormuz and I don't think they're going to go away. That's just my. That's the way I'm playing it. So I don't know.
- [29:57]
A
Yeah, well there's two interesting things here is why is the oil price stayed so low? I think a big part of that is just the market seems to be driven by Trump's tweets more than any single factor. He tweets the 39 times that we have a deal and that causes the oil market to get crushed. And so anybody who has this basic thesis that oil price is going to rise and has been speculating in the market has been crushed by it. The longs have been seriously punished. Just put me in the market. It comes out with a tweet and all of a sudden the whole thesis is shattered and the market, you know, and your position can get wound down quickly. So I think a lot of the people who are bet on the other side of the trade betting the oil is Going to go up, not down, are, have just stepped out of the market because it's not a tradable market. So I think that's a big factor.
- [30:50]
B
Yes, it is. And gradually, you know, oil prices are somewhat higher than they were and they were around 60, now they're around 80, but that's a one third increase. So people tend to moderate their consumption to some degree that's helped. And the people, the governments of the world that have stockpiles have been releasing them to keep the crisis from, but if this thing goes on, it's going to be very bad news. I'm betting it's going to go on, that it's not going to mellow out. But, but who knows? We're dealing with, we're dealing with sociopaths running the governments involved.
- [31:41]
A
Yeah, I, I, I'm, I don't think it's going to be resolved. And, and I think that because the, because the core issues, the justifications for the war, all the rationale, none of those issues have been resolved. No, none of them. And so I, I don't see, I don't, I don't see it being resolved. And I think that, yeah, oil prices and real oil shortages are coming. I think that's just reality because we're dumping through all the, the reserves that we have, all the inventories we had, those are all going away and at some point, you know, the inventory number is going to force the price up. It's just, just going to be reality.
- [32:24]
B
Yep. So I guess I would say stay long oil via solid oil stocks. It's kind of the way I'm playing it. But the other thing, but the other thing I'm thinking of doing is in the futures market, they have options for different months at different strike prices. And rather than just buying an option, like buying an August $100 oil option, you can do that. Probably the safest way to do it is to put on a spread so that yeah, you buy the 100 but then you sell the 110 and get back most of the premium so you can make like $10,000 a contract. Because anyway, there are ways to play this that limits your risk. And I'm thinking that now might be a time to do something like that.
- [33:32]
A
Okay. The other interesting thing he points out and is worth talking about just briefly, is that how China has cut its imports. I don't think it's 5 million barrels a day, but it's a lot. It's something close to that. And people wonder how is that even possible? It certainly has Kind of saved the oil market. The fact that this, the, the, the biggest buyer has just said, oh, we're going to step back, you know, to the tune of millions of barrels a day, you know, keeping some oil flowing through the system and not chasing the price up. So people wonder how is it possible that China could just stop importing all of one day? Just decide, no, 4 or 5 million barrels, we don't need it.
- [34:13]
B
I haven't seen a good explanation of that from anybody that is knowledgeable, quite frankly. And I look at natural gas prices, which are still around $3, and yes, those are American natural gas prices. And natural gas prices are 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more times higher in other parts of the world. Seems like that's an anomaly too. But look, there's a lot of things, especially in today's world that we just can't get good, reliable information on to make a really well informed decision.
- [34:52]
A
Yeah, no doubt. Okay, next question is, I think Howard Ludnick is positioning himself to run the next iteration of this multipolar world financial show based on stablecoins. He came from being the primary broker dealer in Treasuries. I think he wants to ride his chariot and triumph financed by stablecoins. On the way, he will attempt to hoover up all the bitcoin he can uncover along the way. What do you think about that idea?
- [35:25]
B
Well, I just don't trust anybody that's in or around Trump. I, I really don't. I mean it's, I hate to say that. I mean, I don't know Lutnick personally
- [35:41]
A
obviously, but it doesn't seem like a good guy though.
- [35:46]
B
Doesn't give me that impression at all. I mean. No, no he doesn't. And they say he was a good friend of that guy, that Epstein. Oh, not just Epstein, but the guy that, that owned the Building 7 at the World Trade Center.
- [36:11]
A
Lucky Larry Silverstein.
- [36:13]
B
Yeah, apparently they're good buddies.
- [36:16]
A
Lucky Larry.
- [36:17]
B
So yeah, Lucky Larry is building this. It look, it looks like a controlled demolition. I mean there wasn't a plane that hit it. It's just odd. A control, it's crazy. So they're good buddies and Lutnick doesn't go into the office that day. And it's too bad that this whole company's. I don't know. God, I'm so glad I don't have anything to do with these horrible people.
- [36:50]
A
Yeah, I'll say. About, about this guy's question is the assumption that he wants to hoover up bitcoin along the way in doing this. I'M just not so sure, like, these banking guys are about transaction fees. Not really about assets, you know, not really about getting assets. They're all about the transactions. You know, they want the. They want a piece of all the dollars moving through their hands. So I don't know if his motivation would be to Hoover up all the Bitcoin, as you say.
- [37:18]
B
But on the other hand, if he knows Trump is going to say something that's going to have an effect on the markets the next day, why not position yourself to take advantage of it?
- [37:29]
A
Oh, I'm sure he's involved in trading this market and Trump's tweets. I mean, we know that there have been a lot of suspicious trades around oil. You know, where big shorts will come into the oil market just a minute before the tweet is posted and closed shortly thereafter, you know. Yeah. So I'm sure he'd be the guy to execute those trades. No doubt.
- [37:51]
B
And I have no doubt that one of the big reasons that they're not releasing the rest of the Epstein files is Lutnick, but the really big reason is Trump. I mean, I have. I have no doubt that Trump was making. Taking advantage of everything that Epstein had to offer. So, of course that's. There's no reason not to release these files. Epstein is dead. Well, maybe he's not dead. Who the hell knows, frankly?
- [38:19]
A
Yeah.
- [38:20]
B
If he's dead, he was certainly murdered. He didn't commit suicide. So this will. Hopefully this will all come out at some point.
- [38:30]
A
Yeah. And I don't. This is something a lot of people won't let go of. This Epstein stuff, you know, they just won't let go of. Bothers them too much.
- [38:40]
B
Yeah. Yeah, it kind of bothers me, too. Just because it's been around for so long, I'm kind of interested in seeing just how corrupt things actually are. How many lies have been told.
- [38:54]
A
I think. I think. Well, already what we've seen with the Epstein files is pretty shocking. And they held back the borscht stuff, apparently. So. Next question is, do you think the advances in humanoid robotics technology will further extend the AI bull run? It seems like the bubble narrative and betting on, you know, shorting the S and P is quite risky.
- [39:21]
B
It is quite risky. And, you know, we've mentioned this before, but I Understand there are 200 separate robot companies in China that are all doing their best to develop robots. And then, of course, you've got what Elon is doing here and outfits like Boston Dynamics, but there are lots, lots more in China doing this than in the US at this point. So no question that with the advances in battery technology which are being made thanks to the electric vehicle boom, which has kind of underwritten that and AI and robots generally. Listen, I'll bet in five years, if we are still doing this in five years, we're both going to have a robot in back of us that'll do what we tell it to and maybe be one that looks human because you'll cover it with, you know, plastic type skin that's indistinguishable from. Well, I have mine look like, let's say, Cameron Diaz at her peak. I don't know if my wife will let me get.
- [40:38]
A
I don't think she'd appreciate that.
- [40:40]
B
No, probably not.
- [40:44]
A
She would like one that looks like Trump, I think.
- [40:50]
B
Okay, I'll make that trade. Okay, that's, that's fine.
- [40:56]
A
Could entertain you.
- [40:57]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it'd be great if I could have my own Trump and, and have a conversation with them where, you know, his AI says everything that, you know he's going to say. It ought to be really simple because he only uses 500 words. Franklin ever so.
- [41:16]
A
But he uses them well. I mean it, it's amazing how his, even after now 39 times officially is the count of when he says we have a deal. Somehow through his words, he can convince millions of participants in the markets to be persuaded. So these, like, he's really powerful with these 500 words.
- [41:42]
B
It's amazing. It's amazing. This time, I'm serious, you know, this time, yeah, it's Linus or Charlie Brown and Lucy pulling Lucy again and again, again and again.
- [41:55]
A
But it still works. It still worked. I mean, yesterday turned the markets around from they were way down to all of a sudden they spike up, oil goes down. Setting the stage for a good. I mean, maybe Trump want to make sure that Elon had a good IPO today. I don't know.
- [42:10]
B
Who knows? Who knows? And I, I can't wait to see what happens after the Trump term is over. And I think it will be over prematurely. I don't think he's going to make it through the full two years. But that's when the fun really starts, when the Democrats counterattack.
- [42:29]
A
Yeah, you know, I saw some note that he just said some made some offhanded remarks. It was on in Zero Hedge said Trump said he might just quit politics. It was like a, you know, like a thrown out comment, you know, but it was kind of interesting to hear. I'm sure he's got to be frustrated with the Way things are going in Iran, I mean, it's got to cause him for some frustration.
- [42:54]
B
Well, he's punched the tar baby, and he can't pull his arm out of the damn thing now. So, sure, why not declare victory and pass it over to Vance? It's his problem. Exactly.
- [43:07]
A
Yeah. And in the meantime, he can have Lnick play some really smart trades for him and the futures markets, and he can. You know, he can leave. He can leave being worth 10 billion instead of 2 when he came in as.
- [43:21]
B
And Vance can pardon all of these people as they walk out the door, you know, with billions. Not. Not millions. I mean, billions that they've made.
- [43:35]
A
Billions.
- [43:36]
B
It's.
- [43:36]
A
It's actually crazy to me that it isn't a bigger topic, even for the people. Even, like, for the New York Times, people who hate Trump. You know why. Why they aren't cataloging the corruption and going after that as hard, you know, as they could. I'm surprised.
- [43:54]
B
For all I know, it's because 25% of the country is on psychiatric drugs, and 25% more are on marijuana that they buy. I mean, I don't know. I don't even know if those are accurate numbers. I think they kind of are.
- [44:09]
A
Yeah. But it's weird, though. Just. It's weird they can get away with it, so. All right, Doug, well, that's all the questions we had for today. Anything else you wanted to add before we close out for the weekend?
- [44:21]
B
Well, nothing happens on the weekend, so I guess we're safe until Monday, right?
- [44:26]
A
The news cycle slows down, so it can't be anything important.
- [44:30]
B
Thank God.
- [44:32]
A
All right, Doug, well, have a good weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Thanks, man.