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- [00:03]
A
All right. You know Doug and I talk about the big picture here on the podcast. But inside Crisis Investing, our newsletter we turn our world view into specific investment ideas. Paid subscribers to the portfolio get. Well they get our portfolio, they get the buy up to prices, tranche guidelines, alerts and Casey free rides when it's time to take profits. In our December review our nine 2025 recommendations averaged a 53 return and our precious metals portfolio averaged 140%. Now of course past performance is no guarantee and these are speculations, they can go in any direction. But if you want to see how we're actually positioning for gold, energy, uranium, copper, rare earths and the monetary reset, go to crisisinvesting.com and upgrade today with that. Doug, good morning, how are you?
- [00:52]
B
Pretty good, Matt. And that was a fair to middling commercial because one thing we're trying to put into the letter and file members and all that is is anomalous situations that aren't suitable for the capital capita Kensey and the hoi polloi, the occasional pre public company, so forth. So that's also the picture I think. Yeah.
- [01:21]
A
And for the VIP subscribers we do these private placements and you know our, our best one of those, it's a company called Midnight sun which if you include the value of the warrants is up almost a thousand percent from when we recommended it. So that's a pretty good thing but
- [01:41]
B
and I think it's going higher because I still have my position which.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah, you said, you said when a recent conversation we had with them that you thought it was a potential 10 bagger from here. So that would be extraordinary. Who knows?
- [01:55]
B
It's possible. That's right. Well and I think, listen, the other thing people should do, it's completely free is they should tune in to Experts Roundtable, which experts Roundtable.com where various companies present what they're doing and the last
- [02:19]
A
one we had was company with Arizona Eagle Mining.
- [02:26]
B
Yeah, it was. I, I would say it's almost exemplary what they've got no guarantees but you know it's something that I'm willing to buy out of the market actually. So there's many paths up the mountain that we're trying to introduce people to.
- [02:45]
A
So yeah, we'll be publishing that roundtable session on Monday actually. So look forward to that. And Doug, so Spirit Airlines, what's going, what do you think? I mean it's when I saw you know, with this pressure on jet fuel prices, it's added to this already bad situation for Spirit, it was in bankruptcy and Then they. They thought they might just have to liquidate rather than work out of bankruptcy because of market conditions or whatever. And I honestly, when I saw that, I thought, well, there's one good thing that's coming out of this crisis, that they're going to be liquidated, because this airline is renowned for being terrible in many ways, but Trump seems to want to save them.
- [03:32]
B
Yeah, well, I understand that they have 17,000 employees, and Trump thinks, gotta save, gotta save the airline. But, you know, this is what bankruptcy is all about. They have assets. I mean, some of their people are going to be skilled. Their planes still fly. They'll just go to somebody else that can allocate the capital better. So. So let it die. But, no, what Trump is doing is taking 500 million. Yeah. This is a terrible thing when you become, like a Zimbabwean. You add too many dollars, too many zeros, and you got confused. So he's going to take that much money that the US Government doesn't have to get warrants. So if they get lucky, the US Government is going to be part owner of an airline again. So this is state capitalism in action. It's stupid and disgusting. And further proof that Trump has absolutely no philosophical or moral center at all.
- [04:37]
A
Yeah, but Doug, he said they've got some great routes. You know, they've got great routes.
- [04:43]
B
Well, this leads me to the next thing. The FAA should be abolished because in addition to using crappy old equipment, it should have and would have been replaced many years ago. And having the air traffic controllers to our government employees, they're all very unhappy. And you really don't want unhappy air traffic controllers. The FAA should be run by a consortium of airlines as a commercial enterprise.
- [05:12]
A
Same with tsa, as far as I'm concerned.
- [05:16]
B
Yeah, I even wonder. That's right. If you're going to have tsa, it's up to the individual airlines. And if you want. If you want to be probed, well, you fly that airline. And if you don't want to be flying, then you fly the other airline.
- [05:29]
A
Right. Well, I think there'd be a lot of probing on Spirit Airlines. So just. Just a hunch. I mean, they gotta check for weapons and things with their people.
- [05:37]
B
That's right. It's clientele that. That's right. Anyway.
- [05:43]
A
God, so, what a mess. And just a sign of the times, I think. And you also was these eight Iranian girls that Trump apparently saved from execution. You want to. You want to comment on that?
- [05:59]
B
Well, this is really amazing. I've said for some time that Trump appears to live in a silo where he has no outside influences. All the people around him are sycophants. In other words, they really believe, first of all, they don't want to tell him anything he doesn't want to hear because it might make him angry and he might dismiss them. And Trump doesn't want to hear anything from people that aren't part of the sycophant coterie. So somehow he heard that there were eight Iranian girls, all very, very comely, very beautiful, that were going to be executed for some type of crime. And then he wrote these delusional tweets thanking the Iranian government that his request for not. It's all delusion, it's all fiction. And he does this in public, acts like a total fool that can be conned. I mean, what's the matter with Trump? I think he's actually losing his mind. I really do.
- [07:14]
A
And, you know, like, he's on Truth Social. So I think he's. That Truth Social is probably a source of information for him. And so he sees. And that's like, you know, the Trump loyalists basically use that as their Twitter, essentially. And so I think he's probably saw the, the news that was put out by some pro Israeli guy, saw it, assumed of course it's real, and then just ran with it. And then when he heard that they're not actually executing him, he's like, well, thank you, thank you, thank you for not doing it. I'm glad, I'm glad I spoke up.
- [07:51]
B
Yeah. And of course Trump will never, ever admit that he's wrong or never, ever apologize. This is one of his operating systems. He just won't. And, and that is so intellectually dishonest. It's actually really dangerous for anybody with any power at all. Have that kind of a psychology.
- [08:11]
A
Yes. And the, something that could affect people's psychology also is that you wanted to talk about was the marijuana reclassification. What, what's your thoughts on that?
- [08:22]
B
Yeah. This is a double edged sword because on the one hand, the dea, which is a cesspit of corruption, should be abolished and all drugs should be legalized as they were. Every drug was legalized in the US or it was. There were no regulations on it before. I think it was the Harrison act in 1914. I'm not sure about the date, but what's created all these drug cartels is the same thing, has created the crime wave with alcohol after World War I prohibition, you make alcohol illegal, then you create huge crime syndicates that cater to the fact people want booze, which Arguably is much more dangerous than most of the drugs out there anyway. Marijuana, the nature of that drug has changed from just something gentle to get mildly high to something that would just really you up for a long time and you can buy it easily. Yeah, it should be. Look, the answer to the drug problem, and this includes fentanyl and all other popular drugs of the day, is this is a matter of individual responsibility for you and your kids. And frankly, if you die because you take too many drugs. And the reason why people get into drugs, I'm very confident of this personally, is that they don't like reality. And drugs like alcohol shields you from reality. You can hide from reality. A buzz. So the problem we have at this point is cultural, not anything that we saw by legalisms making them. Anyway, is it good or bad that. Yeah. So at least now you can do research on marijuana, which you couldn't before. Anyway, this is a hodgepodge of.
- [10:28]
A
It is, you know, and as you know, Michael Yan's take is that it's, it's bad. It's a, it's a tool of warfare really, because it's a, is an attack on the population. And, and you know, I definitely see his point of view on that. And at the same time, it's, it's much more a sign of just decadence and our, where our culture is, where these things are. You know, this is, I'm sure it's a popular move for Trump to do this because people like, they're dope. And I mean, it's, it's amazing. I mean, like, I've met a bunch of young people who, they, they're high all the time. I mean, they just smoke constantly.
- [11:10]
B
I don't see how you can be productive if you're high all the time and getting a distorted view of the real world.
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A
Right.
- [11:19]
B
So, I mean, drugs are bad. Well, of course, at the same time, I'm a believer in the Aristotelian golden mean. Not too much, not too little. I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, but I don't generally like things that distort my view of reality and cloud the mind. So. Right. That makes me anti drug, but that doesn't mean that they should be illegal. And if people kill themselves by taking too much, too much of a drug, well, that's a choice they made because your primary ownership is your own body. And if you want to kill it, well, that's your business.
- [12:01]
A
Right? 100%. Well, we got some questions from people, Doug, so let's get to those first Question. Who actually performs better over time? Someone who understands economics but lacks psychological discipline or someone who has psychological discipline but not economics?
- [12:21]
B
Well, I mentioned in the past that one of the relatively few things my father said to me that I remember I asked him a cosmic question one time and his answer was it's all a matter of economics. I asked him a different cosmic question somewhat later and he answered it's all a matter of psychology. And actually it's true. Everything's a matter of either psychology or economics. When you get right down to it, both are important. But look, this is one reason we wrote the preparation. Because if you do, the things that that book has in should prepare you to deal with both psychology of your fellow humans, normal and abnormal both, as well as economics, which very few people understand because nobody's. Very few people have made a proper study of economics. And I'm not talking about the gibberish that they teach you in college, right?
- [13:25]
A
Yes. And it's also got tools in there to help one fortify your own psychological discipline. For sure.
- [13:33]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So look, the answer lies in the old Roman dictum men's sana incorporated a sound mind and a sound body. I mean, that's, I guess that's one thing we could say. And part of a sound mind is studying economics, which is the way the world works or the way the material world works. And psychology is kind of where the non material world, the psychological world works. So that kind of puts it together.
- [14:11]
A
Yeah, and I was thinking, I was think economics are like psychology and mass in a way.
- [14:17]
B
Yeah, it is. Because if you're going to provide goods and services to your fellow men, you've got to know the way they think and what they want and the way
- [14:28]
A
they'll, the way they behave with incentives and disincentives and that kind of thing, Right?
- [14:34]
B
Yeah. But just as economics has been corrupted by Keynesianism and Marxism and other things of that nature, psychology has been corrupted as well. We have a plague of psychologists and psychiatrists in the US that don't solve anybody's problems. Well, psychiatrists, when they attempt to solve anybody's problems, it's generally by loading them up with really dangerous psychoactive drugs. Much more, much more dangerous, many of these things than recreational drugs.
- [15:15]
A
Yeah.
- [15:17]
B
And charge people a lot of money to sit there and listen to their problems. Many of these psychiatrists are looking to work out their own personal problems by getting to talk about this thing and bounce it back and forth. My problem, your problem, learn something more about themselves. So, you know, did Freud And Jung make some interesting observations. Yes, but listen, most psychiatrists are doctors that really couldn't make it as a doctor. So you got a medical degree and you get to sit there and listen to people's problems. You don't have answers to them. Most of those people certainly don't and them up by giving them dangerous drugs to disguise their psychological problems. So anyway, that's.
- [16:15]
A
Both have been perverted, I guess, is the big thing.
- [16:19]
B
Two of the most important studies that we have have both been corrupted and perverted in today's world. It's.
- [16:28]
A
Yeah. Doug, what do you think of the concept of an intrapreneur? That's basically an entrepreneur who, somebody who acts entrepreneurial as an employee. And how do they apply to today's business market?
- [16:41]
B
Sounds like a great idea to me, although I'm not the person to ask because I've really never been an employee my whole life, so I don't think that way. But it sounds to me like a great idea.
- [16:54]
A
Yeah, it makes, it's, you know, for me, it's like an employee who takes real ownership over their environment and tries to fix things. It's kind of what an entrepreneur is. And that's certainly a way to make yourself a valuable employee and to move yourself up the, you know, up the chain of command wherever you work. So I think it's, it's a great attitude to take, you know, instead of just going, here's my job, try and deeper understand the problems of the work of the business. And if you, you know, devote your extra energies to try and solve them, you'll create big opportunities for yourself. So it's a good idea.
- [17:35]
B
Yep. Just don't act like a cubicle dwelling zombie. I guess that's what you're trying to escape from, being an entrepreneur. I totally agree.
- [17:46]
A
Exactly. So, Doug, invading Iran before summer sounds almost as stupid as invading Russia before winter. What do you think about that?
- [17:55]
B
I wonder if Trump is actually going to do something like that. He's unpredictable. He's, he's, he's acting very irrationally. Everything he tweets, people he talks to, people outside his silo that he fails to talk to. Fact that there are now three carrier groups offshore of Iran. Not too close because they might get hurt if they got much closer. Yeah, he might do something stupid in the summer.
- [18:25]
A
Big mistake. Okay, let's see. A YouTube podcast guest who had dealings in Iran claimed that all countries have a deep state. Assuming it exists. Assuming it exists, how would you define what a deep state is? And if it would differ from country to country.
- [18:44]
B
Oh, it definitely exists almost everywhere. And the bigger the government, the bigger and the more cancerous the deep state is. And it's always there. What it is is that some people that are in and around the government that use it to their personal advantage. We have a. We have a nasty deep state here in the US The Russians have one. The. Every. Every major country has a deep state. I wrote an article about. I wrote an article about that. Is. Is it on the internationalman.com?
- [19:25]
A
yeah, if you go to. If you go to internationalman.com and you search for deep state, it'll come up. So, yeah, you can read about it there.
- [19:32]
B
Yeah, it's actually a rather good article where I go into that in some detail, and I think you'd be amused if you read it.
- [19:40]
A
Okay, Doug, of all the places that you've been, which country would you say has the best health care services?
- [19:50]
B
I'd say the countries that are richest and least regulated. As a general rule in Europe, I'm pretty confident that Switzerland has the best medical facilities available. But if I needed a serious operation, then, of course, I don't have insurance. Generally speaking, medical insurance, not health insurance, because you can't insure your health. You're just insuring for medical problems.
- [20:25]
A
Costs.
- [20:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. From what I hear. I would. I would probably go to Thailand, where they've made it into a specialty. Top doctors, top facilities, latest technology. I've used the Argentine medical system. I had an emergency appendectomy here some years ago, and it was excellent. The doctors in Argentina, excellent. The facilities, excellent. And even the hotel room I had is. Was a suite, and that was standard. And the food wasn't hospital food. They have an excellent restaurant within the hospital, believe it or not.
- [21:08]
A
That's weird. Yeah.
- [21:09]
B
Oh, yeah, but excellent. So there are a number of choices. And of course, if you go to a doctor in the U.S. they're so constrained. Few of them are entrepreneurs anymore. They're all employees. And like, employees dealing with, you know, important things, they're highly regulated. What they can say, what they can think, what they can do. The administrative apparatus is actually bigger than the medical apparatus in most US Practices. So I wouldn't put the US at the top of the list. I think you might have 50 years ago, but not today.
- [21:53]
A
All right, where does Doug believe there's the most amount of gold? In private hands, like he says. The Germans and Austrians have more gold than Swiss per capita, for instance. But where do you think the private gold hoards are? What jurisdictions?
- [22:13]
B
I think those countries you Just mentioned, but I put my finger on China because it's been, it's been a decade since I've been to mainland China. But all over China there's gold shops. Makes it very easy for people to buy gold and they do. I mean, they're not just sitting there, they're always people in them. So I think China's probably number one.
- [22:43]
A
Yeah. There was something in the news recently about some corrupt Chinese mayor. I think it was a mayor who had in his home hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold, you know, that he had basically stolen from the municipality over the course of his career. So that guy certainly had quite a hoard. I don't, you know, I don't know if that's an example. It just shows you how much money, how much gold is in China. It's pretty amazing. I mean, show the pictures of it. It's unbelievable. I mean, really unbelievable how much gold this guy had.
- [23:19]
B
Well, if he had it on fiat currency, that would have been foolish on his part, so. Well, it's foolish steal it to start
- [23:26]
A
with, but yeah, especially there. I think he got sentenced to death. So. See, next question is for some background. I'm 23 years old, working a traveling construction job in historic preservation for the last three years, which has allowed me to save up a nice rainy day fund, learn new skills and purchase an investment property which I've held for two years now. I'm so grateful for your book the preparation, and I want to pursue my own preparation, but I'm hung up on the nuances of managing my investment property. Do you think it would be wise move for me to sell my property and reinvest the cash into myself or to hold the property and try to pursue a condensed version of my own preparation?
- [24:15]
B
Well, yeah, I think you can do both. I mean, if that building, you didn't tell us what kind of building it is, what kind of income it yields you. I presume it does. You may not want to give up ground that you've gained there and you know how to work it, but what you got to do is redouble your efforts to learn lots of different stuff, both academically and hands on doing it. So I think you can do both, it sounds to me. I mean, maybe you won't be able to take six weeks off at a time to, to go to the Orient and learn martial arts, but you can go to a local karate studio. That's a good local boxing gym. Good start. Maybe, maybe you can't take a month or six weeks to go to Italy or France to learn proper cooking skills. But I think there's got to be good nearby substitutes for that, considering your circumstances.
- [25:21]
A
Yeah, I think it's a good point. I mean, you know, one of the, the first cycle in there is becoming an EMT and that that is available almost anywhere you are in the country in the US and it's done essentially on a part time basis. The classes are over a period of one to two months depending upon how intense it is. And after that you've got that additional skill and you know, you could certainly. It's not a full time thing, so you could pick that up pretty quickly. That's just one example. Some of the other ones that require more time might be a little harder. But maybe you could look into a property manager too. If the property itself is just. If you don't want to be away from it, if that's a problem because you're the manager of it, that's a consideration. But I think most of it's a psychological problem where you feel like you need to be totally free in order to pursue those things. And I don't think that's the case at all. I mean, you know, certainly for Maxim, when he first started he was doing all kinds of part time, you know, dumb shit jobs basically while he was doing it to help finance the entire thing. So you know, it 100 of his energy wasn't devoted to it and there's still plenty of time. So I think he's in a good spot to do it. Just you just gotta pick something that you can do right now and start that. And the EMT one is the easiest obvious one because it's everywhere.
- [26:42]
B
Makes perfectly good sense. I mean you've got to do the best you can where you are with what you have. And it's basically a matter of self discipline and motivation.
- [26:55]
A
It is, it isn't, but sounds like he's off to a good start with what he's been doing. 20, 23.
- [27:01]
B
23, yeah, absolutely. Congratulations.
- [27:06]
A
Okay, so next question is about Roth IRA as a retirement plan. He says, I'm mostly holding gold and some silver and a small amount of bitcoin in his Roth ira. I guess I understand the volatility of the stock market, but I would like to continue to accumulate precious metals while maxing out my annual contribution interest. Interested to hear your opinions on that and if it might be a good idea. I'm 22, so just starting out. I love this young guy is reaching out to us with questions.
- [27:32]
B
This is great. Very gratifying. Well, I have a Roth, but I think that they're best suited for productive assets, stocks, businesses that will grow as opposed to savings vehicles like the metals really are. Because my personal attitude towards gold and silver is you buy them and you're never going to sell them unless there's a real particular reason to sell them. Like, you're sure that the great bull market and gold and silver are over. Okay, now that point, definitely want to deploy it into a productive business that's going to grow. But in the meantime, productive business is the best thing to put into your Roth ira.
- [28:26]
A
Yeah, and I was telling you about the most famous example of this is Peter Thiel. And he, he Basically, he put $2,000 into his Roth IRA and then he used that to buy 1.7 million shares of PayPal when it was still private for, you know, less than 1, like 1/10 of a penny per share. And later when, when that was sold to ebay, he got $30 million. So then he had $30 million in his IRA, Roth IRA, which when you take money out of it, it's tax free. But he then used that to invest in more companies, including Facebook and palantir. And in 2019, it was reported that his IRA was worth $5 billion at that point. I mean, a shocking number. But. But the key is he invested in productive assets.
- [29:20]
B
And if he had that much starting from $2,000 in 2019, all of those companies have done much better since then. So he's a. He's a rich guy.
- [29:31]
A
He's a rich guy in the tax. In a. In a tax free way, which is very rare.
- [29:36]
B
Yeah. Yeah, it is. So the Roth IRA is a great thing. Use it properly, and I think that's the most proper way to use it.
- [29:45]
A
Okay. Hi, Doug and Matt, in the recent podcast, you spoke about investment ideas pitched to the VIP member tier. That's like this Midnight sun that I mentioned earlier. What would be the minimum investment required into investments like that? Well, the minimum, if they. The minimum that they typically have is $10,000. So you wouldn't want to do less than that. And most of them probably wouldn't allow it. But yeah, I'd say about $10,000. It's the minimum.
- [30:14]
B
Yeah. And some companies, the minimum is much more.
- [30:18]
A
100, 250.
- [30:20]
B
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
- [30:22]
A
But the ones we've done, I think 10,000 has been the number. So let's see. A technocracy question for Doug. It says, each and every time you travel from South America to the United States, do you enter through customs at The US Airport where you land. And each and every time, do you have to present your passport to an official sitting in a booth behind a glass with a facial recognition camera pointed at you while they ask you what your name is, where you were, the purpose of travel, et cetera? Do any of the countries in South America do that when you arrive there?
- [30:56]
B
Well, let me think. Sometimes in Argentina, they ask me where I'm staying because I'm not an Argentine citizen, but that's the most of interrogation I've ever gotten from Argentina. And it's the same in Uruguay, too, so.
- [31:22]
A
Yeah, it's the same in Brazil as well. They want to know how long you stay in and you know, where you're staying. That's. That's the two questions I hear.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [31:33]
A
So no, but no third degree about where you've been, why you've been there and all that?
- [31:38]
B
Well, I'm. Yeah. I mean, I. I don't like being interrogated by low ranking government officials anyway, so it's a good thing they don't ask me a lot more, but they don't. It's never been a problem.
- [31:55]
A
Oh, Doug, do you ever vote your personal shares at annual corporate meetings?
- [32:02]
B
I don't think it does much good, frankly.
- [32:07]
A
Okay. So no. Okay. Although it's supposedly a good practice. You're supposed to E.B. tucker, I know, is really big into doing this and, you know, being. Making your voice heard and all that, but I kind of feel like all voting, it doesn't really matter. And the way I've seen these board things structured from the inside is that it doesn't really matter or they don't ever put anything up for vote unless they know the answer to it in advance.
- [32:45]
B
I don't think it serves much of a purpose to vote unless you're a major shareholder. Then it does serve a purpose, but. So the answer to the question is no. It's just more busy work for me to do, and I don't think it serves much of a purpose. I really don't want to be that major a shareholder that my vote actually counts.
- [33:12]
A
Okay. Doug, do you speculate or invest in any helium stocks or companies, and do you foresee a helium shortage?
- [33:23]
B
Well, apparently there already is a helium shortage because most helium is produced as a byproduct of natural gas. So I don't know if there's any effective way to invest in helium by itself. I mean, I think there actually are a couple of little companies out there that are pursuing major helium deposits, but highly speculative. Most comes as a Byproduct of natural gas. And so it's one of those things that it's kind of off the radar from an investment point of view.
- [34:01]
A
Yeah. The biggest producers of helium are Qatar Energy and ExxonMobil. To put it in perspective, it's a byproduct natural gas. And so, you know, I mean there might are. Those are the ones who move the market. Those are the big guys.
- [34:16]
B
Yeah. Can't, can't reasonably invest in Cutter at this point or Qatar. There's long been a question of what's the really best way to pronounce that word. I'm still unsure.
- [34:27]
A
I like cutter personally.
- [34:29]
B
I think that's okay. And of course with Exxon, it's, it's not even rounding error to their balance sheet and income statement statement.
- [34:39]
A
No. What about more niche metals like titanium and are there with the vast rare earths on the critical minerals list? Can you zero in on any that may be worth investing in over the next few years?
- [34:55]
B
Well, my attention has recently been drawn to tungsten. And I'm sorry that tungsten is kind of the big one that got away from me early. It's gone up a lot since the war, has heated up in the Middle East. Tungsten's an unusual metal. It's got a specific gravity of about 20, which is to say it's 20 times heavier than water for the same volume. And there are really only two other elements that are as heavy, gold and metallic uranium. So tungsten is the cheapest of these three. Very interesting. It's a military metal used for armor penetrating shells, among other things and also combined to make tungsten carbide, which is almost as hard as diamond for purposes of grinding and so forth. So tungsten, it's a unique element. It's also unique or almost in that 80% of it comes from China, which makes it especially for a war friendly element, very strategic. So I'm sorry that that one got away from me, but at this point there's a private company that I'm putting some money in and I think you are too, Matt, that hopes to be soon the largest tungsten producer in the world at a small market cap. So anything can go wrong. But yeah, tungsten is one of those things that should have looked at but have only caught it a little bit late. Yes, but not too late.
- [36:49]
A
Not too late, not too late. That's one of the ones we hope to bring to VIP members. I don't know if we'll be able to make that happen or not, but that' the kind of deal that we like to bring to people. So next question, Doug, is He says these dollar cost averaging into South African REITs based on the institution of race relations political analysis. He says the prediction is the anc, which is the dominant party there, loses Johannesburg's municipal elections to the da. I guess that's the competing party. Similar to what happened in Cape Town, which was a massive property rerating that caused massive property rerating in, in Cape Town. So any thoughts on that thesis? And if not, what about Hungary? Another place that might be up for rerating with the loss of Orban, I guess.
- [37:40]
B
Well, from what I understand about what's happened taking him in reverse order in Hungary is that the new guy. Is anti mass migration. So that's not going to change in Hungary. That's a good thing. I don't know what else to think about them.
- [38:01]
A
But yeah, we don't know. It seems too soon to tell.
- [38:05]
B
Too soon to tell. And anything they say when they're running for office is almost certainly a lie anyway. I mean, certainly wasn't the case of, case of everybody that runs for office. And as far as South Africa is concerned, I think it's on the slippery slope. Has been for, for years and the slope is getting steeper and slippier and Cape Town is demographically pretty different in the whole Cape Province. That part of South Africa is demographically very different from Joburg and other places in South Africa like Durban is different again. But I'm not favorably inclined towards putting money in South Africa and certainly not in the Joburg area. I think this race situation is going to get worse. And the way the ANC, and frankly any other African party is going to run the country, the government's just a vehicle for theft.
- [39:04]
A
So
- [39:06]
B
I don't know what kind of yields do those South African REITs yield? I'd like to know that. I mean if it's like 20% or something. That's kind of interesting as a speculation.
- [39:18]
A
Yeah. We were just looking at coal stocks recently though, and I believe there was one called Xtaro Resources, a South African coal producer that has a eight and a half percent dividend yield. You know, in an environment where coal demand is going to go up. So if it doesn't beat that, then I definitely don't think I'd look too seriously at it.
- [39:40]
B
No, I, I agree. And the problem is anything that's a profitable business in South Africa, they're going to look to steal it or tax it to death or, or something. The, the basics in South Africa are not good. I mean It's a place for speculation, not investment, as far as I'm concerned. But that's true of almost all America.
- [40:02]
A
Okay, I lost my camera, Doug, but that's okay. We're on the last question. Have either Doug or Matt watched the movie Barnum World? It's made from the same guys that did the Jones Plantation, which I know you're a big fan of, and it focuses on the use of blanket statements and rhetoric by politicians. They just encourage you to watch it.
- [40:23]
B
Oh, it sounds good. If it comes from the Jones Plantation guys, you can be pretty. Pretty sure that it's a good product. So.
- [40:33]
A
I saw it. I. I saw it. I was. I. I liked it. I. I know Michael Yan was. Was encouraging people to watch it after he watched the Jones Plantation. And basically what it is, is he's basically saying that politicians say these phrases all the time that, you know, invoke in the mind of the listener. You know, good things, good thoughts, but they don't really say anything. There's nothing concrete there. They're these Barnum statements essentially, like, make Americ good example of one of those. Where. That sure sounds good, but what does it mean? And, you know, some. Some people who supported ma, you know, or would have called themselves maga, for instance, a year ago are now like, wait a second. This isn't what I thought you meant by MAGA with what they see happening right now.
- [41:24]
B
Yeah, exactly. And anyway, everybody. Almost everybody, thinks that whatever they're doing is actually good. Like, look at Mom D in New York City. I presume, what he thinks he's sincere about thinking that what he's doing is good. So.
- [41:42]
A
Yeah, and I'm sure he's got a lot of clever statements that he says all the time that mean nothing. I just don't follow him enough to know what they are.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah, he's a clever guy, and he's got a winning smile, and I guess that's enough for most people. It.
- [41:57]
A
I guess so. All right, Doug. Well, that's it for today. I hope you have a great weekend, and we'll be back next week with more.
- [42:04]
B
Okay. Let's hope that things are not radically different in the world next week, but they might be.
- [42:10]
A
They might be. All right. Take care, Doug.
- [42:12]
B
Thanks, man.