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- [00:02]
A
All right. Good morning, Doug. Good news today. Apparently straight up, Hormuz is open officially. You know, the Iranians agreed as long as the ceasefire holds in Lebanon, apparently that the Strait of Hormuz is open. What do you think?
- [00:16]
B
I think good news, bad news. Good news, bad news. It goes back and forth. So I don't believe anything that I read in the papers or on the Internet, quite frankly. So. One thing, however, is that oil is down today, closing in on like 80. So the market believes there's some reality to it. But on the other hand, gold is closing in on 5,000, which is a little bit counterintuitive. So.
- [00:51]
A
Well, the US says, apparently from the US Navy, advisory to seafarers. They say status of mind threat in parts of the Strait of Hormuz not fully understood and avoidance of area should be considered. From the U.S. navy.
- [01:09]
B
Well, that's kind of a me mouth. Yes, it should be considered. I think it's, it's a war zone.
- [01:18]
A
Well, it said it should be avoided though. It says an avoidance of the area should be considered. Just considered, I guess. Yes, considered. I got it.
- [01:29]
B
So our ships exiting now or not?
- [01:34]
A
I have not seen any of that happen yet. There's a great, there's a, a Twitter account you can follow called Tanker Trackers and they do a really good job of demonstrating which tankers get through each day. So I'll be watching that account and looking for, see if there's any real movement there. But the downside of all this is I have to say that even if it were open, fully open, unencumbered, many of the wells in the Gulf countries have, have been shut in. And so it's not as though the oil can simply be turned on and immediately start flowing again. It's a, apparently a serious process, you know, to reopen those shut in wells. And that has to be done for the oil to get going again.
- [02:28]
B
Well, I think that chances are this is just a pause in hostilities. Everybody's taking the opportunity to reload. And the Iranians are undoubtedly restocking their weapons full speed as. Where are the Americans?
- [02:49]
A
Word has gone out America's been flowing in enormous resources ever since the ceasefire with Iran was declared. I mean, you just see these. Yeah, dozens and dozens of, you know, C130 cargo flights, you know, coming from NATO bases in Europe into the Middle Eastern theater. So there's that. Plus they also for some reason thought it was important to go to GM and Ford and talk about mass production of weapons. So, yeah, war is on the mind and would be Wonderful to see peace break out all of a sudden, but I'm suspicious.
- [03:29]
B
Well, it's certainly on Pete Hegseth's mind because one of the, one of the most amusing things that I've seen in the news cycle was where Pete quotes Samuel L. Jackson's line in Pulp Fiction about see the righteous and my glory and furious. I mean, it was a command performance by Samuel L. Jackson in the character of Jules before and apparently, but who knows what the facts are. Hegseth took the lines that were created by Quentin Tarantino and Samuel in Pulp Fiction and modified them as a prayer. So I, I presume he didn't look it up in the Bible to see what it really was.
- [04:20]
A
No, he. It seems there was this video that was like a side by side of Samuel Jackson, his command performance and Pete Hagseth. The lines were the same. Performance was much better with Samuel, no doubt about it.
- [04:34]
B
Much, much better.
- [04:35]
A
But it was not a quote of the Bible. I mean, part of that is real, but there's a lot that's added to it that makes it, you know, that
- [04:44]
B
made it so strong. It was a Bible esque quote. Yeah, it was a Bible esque quote.
- [04:48]
A
Right.
- [04:50]
B
So. But I wonder if Pete thought it was real or not. Well, of course he'll have to backtrack and cover it. I mean, I mean, are you allowed to turn lines from a popular movie into a prayer? Bringing down hell and brim fire on the enemy? I, I suppose anything's possible today.
- [05:17]
A
Yeah. I guess the funny thing is it was caught right away by people and you know, certainly has to be some kind of an embarrassment for him. I mean, I don't see how it could not be.
- [05:28]
B
Well, the next time he does that though, I think he ought to put a red bandana around his forehead a la Rambo and strip his shirt off to expose his warlike tattoos and then deliver it with proper fervor, the way Samuel L. Jackson did.
- [05:47]
A
Yeah, he's got to get into character. I mean, this kind of half ass nit is embarrassing.
- [05:51]
B
That's right. It was kind of weak and mealy about the way Hexaf delivered those lines.
- [05:58]
A
Well, better next time. I mean, he is a B actor, you know, only. And he's, he's not in the big league, so what do we expect?
- [06:04]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was funny on that. They showed how the audience, I guess a lot of military guys, that he was delivering this thing too, and some of them had their heads bowed reverently and others were just, you know, their eyes wandering around the room looking, looking embarrassed.
- [06:27]
A
Yeah. Apparently this is a part of a prayer breakfast or something similar that he does regularly. It's, you know, it's a big part of what he does in the Pentagon. And I think, you know, when he got rid of the, what do you call them, the, the chaplains, he got ahead of the, he got rid of when he, when he fired several generals apparently fired people in the chaplain service. And, you know, rumors are that they didn't like what he was doing with these prayer breakfasts. You know, there was a, it was the rationale behind it. So.
- [07:02]
B
Well, they're kind of warlike breakfast. Prayer breakfast. War like prayer breakfast.
- [07:08]
A
Actually, this one was for sure.
- [07:14]
B
Well, I mean, if you're going to have a warlike prayer, then I, I think you ought to. Well, the Old Testament is actually the place to go with the, you know, smashing the Amalekites and all this type of thing. But I mean, you ought to draw references from Viking literature, too.
- [07:34]
A
Oh, maybe we'll get there, you know, still early.
- [07:37]
B
Yeah, it is. Exactly.
- [07:40]
A
Okay. So, you know, we're, we're, we're skeptical on the, on the Iran situation and we'll just kind of see how it goes. But obviously it was good news for markets. Crushed the oil price and I'm sure I haven't checked the S P and it's up.
- [07:55]
B
All common stocks are up and oddly, kind of gold is up as well.
- [08:00]
A
So anyway, yep, good news going into the weekend and then we'll see what happens on, on, you know, once the market is closed, that's usually when the action takes place.
- [08:11]
B
That's right. And any. Anyway, everybody likes good news. Everybody likes a higher stock market. Everybody does. Who, who don't like it. I mean, I like it.
- [08:20]
A
Yeah, yeah, of course. No doubt about it. Although I am kind of short the S P right now in one of my positions. So you know that that's going against me. I'll. Maybe I'll dollar cost average in anyway.
- [08:32]
B
I can't, I can't wait to hear Trump's next tweet. I mean, who knows what he'll say?
- [08:38]
A
You never know. Yeah, we've got questions from viewers. We don't have a lot of time, but we'll see how many of these we can get through. Doug, the first one is, do you think people today fundamentally think about money differently than previous generations? And if so, is that a problem or just evolution?
- [08:59]
B
Well, I think that people's thoughts about money have become more and more corrupted over the years and certainly since the Notions of John Maynard Keynes were put out into the public, which divorces current ideas of money from traditional ideas of money where it's just a medium of exchange and a store of value. But now it's acknowledged that the Federal Reserve controls these things and its money has really become as much a political football as a medium of exchange. And it's certainly not a store of value, losing value at several percent per year.
- [09:43]
A
Yeah. So is it, is that a problem or is that a natural evolution?
- [09:49]
B
I think it's a big problem. I mean a trivial aspect of it is, do kids collect coins anymore? When I was a kid, lots of us used to collect coins and those little blue books where you would take the different dates and mint marks out of circulation. But to kids even, first of all, there's nothing worth, there's nothing that goes back before 1965 at the moment because all those pre 65 coins are gone. So how can you collect coins and you're not collecting anything of value, you're just collecting recently minted slugs. I think coin collecting is dead. And that changes the fact that kids will no longer be collecting coins. Yeah, that's a degrading influence on perceptions of money.
- [10:40]
A
Yeah. And then the digitization of it I think also fundamentally changes it. You know, it's just the abstraction of it all.
- [10:47]
B
Yeah, exactly. It's not something you can hold in your hand. It's something that can be modified or hacked by a computer. So. Yeah, I think it's changed a lot and not for the better.
- [11:00]
A
Yeah, I agree. Okay. Doug, asking your thoughts on the situation in Ireland, if you have any.
- [11:08]
B
I don't. I haven't been to Ireland for God, 30 years. So any thoughts I have are completely non current. I hear, I read the news, is that Conor McGregor, the famous MMA fighter. Right. Is attempting to build a movement to get Ireland back to its roots. But I don't have any first hand information.
- [11:37]
A
Yeah, I think it's probably just relating to the protests between the, what they call the haulers and know and the, and the farmers, you know, where they were basically like the trucker pro protest in Canada, you know, they were blocking roads and stuff like that in an effort to get the government to change the. I mean the main initial thrust. Lots of other things have been thrown into it, other grievances, but the main thrust was to get the state to reduce its taxes on fuel, which apparently are something like make up 60% of the cost of a liter of fuel.
- [12:15]
B
So I would say that that's typical of all the countries In Europe, though, I mean, it's unbelievably expensive and it's all taxes anyway, insofar as they have any social problems in Ireland, I guess the native Irish have become so weak and degraded. With the exception of Conor McGregor and his crew, I'd say that there's absolutely nothing wrong with Ireland that importing 10 million Muslim Nigerians couldn't cure.
- [12:42]
A
And, well, they're definitely working hard on that, delivering that solution, that's for sure.
- [12:48]
B
And that's definitely a solution. There are others, but that's the one I think they're working on.
- [12:54]
A
So next question is Doug and Matt. Maybe a good guest on the show would be Joel Saladin. It'd be good to have his views on how the Middle east crisis could impact farming. If all farms were run like his, then maybe there wouldn't be such a big impact. Well, I definitely agree with farms were unlike his. Well, which. Everything would be completely different. He does an excellent job. But we did have him as a guest in 2022. He's a friend of Doug's. And in fact, when he was down in Uruguay maybe a year and a half ago, we hosted him for lunch at our house. And guess I got into his take on our. Our little operation here, which is pathetic compared to what Joel does. I mean, he's just a creative genius with. In that regard.
- [13:44]
B
Yeah. And he didn't come out to my place, which is. I wouldn't.
- [13:50]
A
You came here. You came here instead.
- [13:52]
B
I came there to visit. Visit you. But my place is. I wouldn't even credit it as being a hobby farm. It's kind of a large backyard with.
- [14:03]
A
With some large animals there. Eat the grass.
- [14:07]
B
Yeah, but. But I'm not nurturing them the way Joel would. And of course, Joel's approach to farming is basically that farms should be done using updated technology the way they were historically done. A family runs the farm, and it's not a giant monoculture with highly modified seeds that must use specific types of poisons and so forth. I got to believe that the current path that agriculture is walking on is going to result in disaster at some point because these giant monocultures that go on for mile after mile after mile with corn, usually corn in the middle Midwest, you think some bug or some fungus or something would say, oh, this is happy hunting grounds. I'm going to take it all out.
- [15:03]
A
Seems. It seems like it's inevitable at some point. And in the meantime, all that super nitrogen thirsty corn is going to have a hard time with fertilizer supplies reduced or price driven up.
- [15:15]
B
So on top of the fact that most of that corn shouldn't even be grown because a huge portion of it, I, I think it's like 30% is harvested at great expense to be turned into ethanol to make low quality gasoline to be added to gasoline. So it's all government stuff already. And of course the subsidies and the price controls, it's all insane.
- [15:46]
A
Yeah, it's a giant fraud really. Okay, so let's see. If Doug were to create a citizenship by investment program or the equivalent of this in a backward country, where would be on his shopping list in 2026?
- [16:04]
B
Well, I guess, I guess our inquirers, I mean, I like to believe in my heart of hearts that I originated that whole thing in dominica back in 1979. But answer to the question is none of these backward. All of these backward countries are going to citizenship by investment to bring in money. But the problem is visa free travel with those passports if you have one of those crappy passports. Lots of African countries will issue a passport now, but you know, you're not going to look like a citizen of Gabon if you're using their passport. So people will question that. And you need it and doesn't get
- [16:59]
A
you very far either.
- [17:00]
B
That's right. And you need a visa to go anywhere and that's a nuisance. So it's not what it used to be.
- [17:09]
A
I mean, it'd be better to have these more second tier countries, you know, you know, roll out programs like that just as Argentina did. But I don't know if you saw that they pulled it back because there was some question about who won the offer or something like that. So it's basically completely shut down.
- [17:27]
B
Yeah, I read about this. Argentina was going to do a cbi, as they say, and there were six companies that presented proposals to run the program for them and there were big problems with all the proposals. So they withdrew their offer.
- [17:50]
A
Now it's just on ice with no clear plan for what might happen next.
- [17:55]
B
No, and it's apparently not the good old days either where if you came down here, all you had to do was live in Argentina six months of the year for two years and you're home free. Apparently that's changed too, so.
- [18:12]
A
Right. I even heard, you know, they moved it from being managed by the judiciary to now it's managed by some immigration office and that there isn't even, you know, like a kiosk, like a place that you can go in the immigration office just to begin this process. So in fact, the entire Thing is now broken. Unless you happen to be grandfathered in, you know, with your. Your deal was essentially on the desk of a judge already. Then there. It's all been halted at this point.
- [18:46]
B
Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, it's a government. It's a government program. When does a government program they ever. Well run, Right.
- [18:59]
A
And even, even in this case, they tried to outsource it to private institution to do it, but they couldn't come to terms with them. So would have been. Could have been interesting doing that, doing it that way. But anyway, okay, so in Doug's experience, with all the heinous acts the US his words, not mine, terrorist state is perpetrating will fall out against U. S. Gringos, become a serious expat consideration. And how will that play out?
- [19:30]
B
Yeah, well, that is an interesting question because having traveled a lot during the Vietnam War era, which was very unpopular everywhere in the world, the whole world was against the US Intervention in Vietnam. Look, one good buddy of mine, when we were in Europe together, he had a Canadian flag on his backpack because everybody loved, at least in those days, Canadians. So, yeah, people will take it out on you if they hate what the US Is doing because, hey, you're an American, you must have voted for Trump or whatever. Yeah, it's not good.
- [20:15]
A
Yeah, I definitely agree. It's not good. I mean, because, you know, eventually Americans, you know, I think in my lifetime, I've been treated very well. You know, everywhere I've traveled in the world, they've always treated me well. And I remember. But the effect of the leadership does have. That does have an impact. And I can tell you, when Obama was elected, the world was very happy about it. I'm not saying I was happy about it.
- [20:40]
B
That's right. That's right.
- [20:41]
A
And. And I would get into a taxi cab and they would talk about it, and they were, they were much more enthusiastic in the reception of me as an American. Given that American Obama was the president there and given all the bridges that Trump has been burning with everybody, there's no doubt that it's going to have some consequences to it. I mean, even our casero, when the, when the Venezuelan thing happened, when we kidnapped Maduro, like, our casero asked us how we thought about it, you know, because they were against it. Like, they don't like the idea of the US Coming in and kidnapping the leader. And we're like, oh, don't worry, we're totally against it. We're totally against it. But they were, you know, they were wondering, like, you know, we have a Great relationship with them, but they were wondering maybe we're on the wrong side of that, you know, so these things are going to happen more and more.
- [21:33]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's. It's. It's really. It's really not good. It's better. Who was it? Was it John Adams has said to be a friend to all but an ally to none? And certainly don't go around promiscuously attacking other countries? That's just not good.
- [21:58]
A
Not good.
- [22:00]
B
Okay. Even if they're nasty countries, because frankly, there are 20 or 30 countries in the world that have equally nasty governments to the Iranian government. I mean, I'm totally opposed to this attack on Iran, but I'm not supportive of the Iranian regime in any way.
- [22:18]
A
Wait, Doug, that has to be. I think if you're. If you're not supportive of the attack, you must be an anti Semite, first off. And you're definitely no longer maga.
- [22:26]
B
Well, in addition to the fact that if you're not with us, you're against us.
- [22:30]
A
That's the point.
- [22:31]
B
Whatever it was the baby Bush said that was it.
- [22:35]
A
That was it. Which is why, as the war escalates, at some point in the near future, we won't be doing these podcasts anymore, because that's going to be the way it is.
- [22:43]
B
Just be too dangerous.
- [22:45]
A
Yep. All right, Doug, I'd like to ask your thoughts on clones. I remember Dolly the sheep being cloned in the 90s. At the time, they said it was the first animal to be cloned. I've done some reading up and discovered it wasn't the first. They have some Source from the BBC. I'm reading it was first recorded in the 1950s, and lots of animals, as well as human embryos were cloned. Throughout the years. Finding this has made me question, are there human clones walking amongst us? I didn't believe this when people told me years back, but now I'm starting to question the atrocities and bizarre behavior from on the world stage. Let's. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on that?
- [23:29]
B
Well, I have no question that technology will keep advancing and it will become possible. And there was a movie with Michael Keaton, who was a very good actor, where he cloned himself. And the first clone of himself was an ultra macho man. And the second clone, a clone of the macho man, was, you know, a mincing gay. And the third clone of the gay was an idiot. And it was a very good movie. What was that movie called?
- [24:09]
A
It was called multiplicity from 1996.
- [24:12]
B
Yeah. So I'm sure, it'll happen. I don't have any indication that it actually has happened yet. And cloning a human is probably a lot more difficult, and people clone their dogs now all the time.
- [24:26]
A
All the time. Yep, all the time.
- [24:28]
B
But it's probably more difficult to clone a human because the human brain is much more complex than that of a sheep or a dog. I presume that's the big problem, but I don't know.
- [24:41]
A
But don't you think somebody would have experimented on this at some point and tried, you know, because if it works so well with a dog, you know, why not just try one, see how it goes?
- [24:51]
B
Exactly. And if we, if we can't make bionic soldiers like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Terminator, maybe we can just clone super soldiers to, to use.
- [25:07]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Well, who knows? We don't know. They certainly wouldn't tell us if they were doing it. All right?
- [25:16]
B
We're just leafs drifting down the river of time, so we shouldn't concern ourselves with these things. They're above our pay grade anyway.
- [25:27]
A
Yes. So just a couple more questions regarding tax reporting of gold held in a vault, she says, I did file an FBAR in the past year for it, but based upon Doug's short comment in one of the recent videos, it seems it does not need to be reported to the irs. My accountant wasn't sure. Do you guys report it enough for the irs, or no? If no, and I did report it in the past and I wouldn't report it this year, is it an issue? The last question about whether or not you did and then didn't, we have no way to know. But according to our looking it up, you're not required as long as it's in a non bank facility and they don't have control over it. Like they can't do any trading around it or know leasing it or whatever, then it's not required to be reported.
- [26:17]
B
That's my understanding as well.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, we're not, we're not lawyers or tax accountants, so you just don't take our word for it. But that's, that's what, that's what we understand.
- [26:26]
B
Yeah, that's an understanding. And something just occurred to me on the last question. As a polo guy, the most famous and most competent polo player in the world is least at his prime was Adolfo Cambiaso, and he was cloning his best horses so that apparently you can competently clone large animals.
- [26:50]
A
Of course, then someone has tried this with a human. Somebody somewhere.
- [26:55]
B
It, it, it makes sense. But they wouldn't want to advertise, I don't think.
- [27:00]
A
No, because it's like, well, does this person have rights? Like, I made them, now what do I do with them? You know, like, yeah, there's a problem.
- [27:09]
B
Things get very complicated. And I. I remember in the Baltimore Catechism, the very first question and the catechism was, who made me answer was God made me. Very simple answer to a simple question. But that would. If somebody cloned people, it would become
- [27:30]
A
complicated, to say the least. Yeah, but you gotta believe someone's tried it at this point. I know when they're doing horses. And how long ago was.
- [27:39]
B
Oh, he's been doing that for at least 15 years.
- [27:42]
A
Oh, yeah. Come on. Someone's done it. Someone's tried it. I have to believe it. Yeah. Okay. Just the last question is a question about Alaska Energy. And, you know, that's one of the private placements that we offered to our VIP subscribers. He says two out of my three are winners, but. But Alaska is, as of now, a loser. And he said, you know, maybe Alaska will come out of consolidation for the better. I don't know. Do you have any comment on it?
- [28:13]
B
Well, they're not all winners. This is a very risky business. I mean, going on Easter egg hunts in the middle of nowhere for valuable economic deposits. I mean, we have a pretty good track record on it.
- [28:31]
A
Well. And even this guy who just participated in three of the ones that we've offered, he says two out of three were winners, and some of them, depending upon which ones you participated in, were gigantic winners. You know, we did. There was a Midnight Sun. What did it go up? 500 and some percent. There's.
- [28:51]
B
Plus the warrant.
- [28:52]
A
Plus the warrant. Not including the warrant, it's up over 500. And then we were just talking about another one, Blue Moon, which didn't have a warrant, but that one was three bucks, and it's trading over ten today, so.
- [29:02]
B
And Axe Cap, which is another one that was done at 20 cents. It's trading at $5 now or something like that, Right? Yeah.
- [29:13]
A
I think there are rocks. More resources now. Is that right? They changed their name.
- [29:16]
B
Yes. Yeah, they changed their name.
- [29:19]
A
Yeah. So this is the kind of. When you're doing these, that's the whole point of doing multiple of them, because they aren't all going to be winners. It's really just. That's the way the game is played. Yeah. Okay. All right, well, we got to run to another call, Doug. We're a couple minutes late, so we'll wrap it up here. Thank you very much, and you have a great weekend.
- [29:39]
B
Thanks, Matt.