Trump's Price Tag

Summary

Podcast Summary: Doug Casey's Take – “Trump’s Price Tag”

Host: Matthew Smith
Guest: Doug Casey
Date: July 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode examines Donald Trump’s latest controversial moves, including the release of a new Trump gold coin, accusations of monetizing his presidential influence, and the broader implications of these actions for the United States' political and economic trajectory. Doug Casey brings his signature blend of historical perspective, economic analysis, and libertarian skepticism to topics ranging from US foreign policy in Iran to the enduring dysfunction of the US political elite, with discussions peppered by sharp critiques, historical analogies, and investment advice.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Trump Gold Coin: A Sign of the Times?

[00:02–03:47]

• Trump’s New $1 Gold Coin
  • The release of a Trump $1 "gold" coin is seen by Casey as egotistical and “shameful,” particularly since Trump is still president.
    • “It’s just completely inappropriate... a further indication that Trump really has something pathological wrong with him, that he wants to have a coin minted for himself.” — Doug Casey [00:45]
  • The coin itself is described as “phony,” merely gold-colored (likely bronze).
  • Analogy to Rome: Casey connects this to the decline of empires, noting that Romans only put living leaders’ faces on coins when the republic had truly become an empire.

2. Trump’s Monetization Tactics and Influence-Peddling

[04:26–05:59, 27:00–28:49]

• Selling Early Access to Truth Social Posts
  • Trump offering paid “faster access” to his social media posts for $100,000/month is discussed as unethical and a form of front-running.
    • “You’re getting the news before the hoi polloi, but you’re getting it after his good buddies... it’s shameful to in effect be selling your connections.” — Doug Casey [05:27]
• Proprietary Trump Club
  • Trump’s son operates a private club with a $500,000 entrance fee, an overt pay-for-access scheme reminiscent of influence peddling but now made legal.
    • “The money’s already laundered, it’s legal, it’s clever. But Trump and family are going to need all the money that they can scam...” — Doug Casey [28:13]

3. US Foreign Policy: The War with Iran and Lessons from History

[06:24–15:22, 36:59–39:43]

• Parallels to Past Wars and Manipulations
  • The US embroiled in war with Iran, allegedly at Israel’s behest; US spending billions per day on high-cost munitions.
    • “It looks good for Israel, but... Israel’s making more enemies hand over fist by doing these things.” — Doug Casey [07:22]
• Strategic Considerations
  • Could the US escalate with a ground invasion or attacks on Iran’s critical oil export infrastructure?
  • Casey sees the US as being “roped into” conflict, referencing Muhammad Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy and warning that the US is exhausting itself financially.
    • “This is a rope-a-dope.” — Doug Casey [11:12]
• Isolation and Reputation
  • Podcast notes a Reuters survey: Only 11% of Europeans now consider the US an ally — drastic shift from post-WWII perceptions.
    • “Now they’ve learned to hate the country, seeing it as a really dangerous force in the world.” — Doug Casey [09:01]
• Odds of Further Escalation
  • Casey gives “50/50 odds” of US boots on the ground in Iran before the November election [38:02].

4. US Fiscal Health, Gold, and Investment Environment

[10:11–19:49]

• Massive War Spending
  • US military expenditures running at $3 billion per day, with individual missile systems costing millions [10:11].
• US Gold Reserves
  • Skepticism about recent government claims regarding the size and security of US gold reserves at Fort Knox.
    • “There hasn’t been an audit forever... shouldn’t say things with certainty when there’s not been an audit.” — Doug Casey [13:39]
• Advice for Investors
  • Casey recommends staying long in oil, gas, and gold stocks, but acknowledges market confusion and volatility.
    • “You can always stay in cash... but in a high inflation environment... you’re losing 5 or 10% per year.” — Doug Casey [19:49]
  • Calls the current period a “greater depression,” not a crash like 1929, but a “slow-motion depression.” [20:51]

5. Technological Surveillance and Personal Liberties

[21:32–23:01]

• Flock Cameras and Mass Surveillance
  • Discussion of the proliferation of automated license plate reading “flock cameras” and the growing tension between security and privacy.
  • Cites “Three Felonies a Day,” highlighting overcriminalization and increasing risk for ordinary citizens.

6. Accountability and Prosecutions (or Lack Thereof)

[23:01–25:12]

• Lack of Prosecutions
  • Casey laments Trump’s failure to pursue meaningful prosecutions, including for COVID-19 responses, Russiagate, and the Epstein scandal.
    • “All these things are being brushed under the carpet...” — Doug Casey [24:15]
  • Suggests that stirring up war is a distraction from domestic scandals.

7. US Political Class and End-Stage Empire Signs

[33:37–36:47]

• Congressional Dysfunction and Dynasty-Building
  • Criticizes the prevalence of political dynasties (Bushes, Trumps, Clintons) as symptomatic of a declining system.
    • “This is end-stage empire stuff where family members want to create a dynasty.” — Doug Casey [35:06]
  • Briefly discusses the death and legacy of Lindsey Graham, with brutal honesty.

8. Market Anomalies and International Economic Context

[16:39–19:49, 29:35–31:13]

• Market Troubles
  • SpaceX’s valuation and fall below IPO price; South Korean stock market’s margin call crisis, affecting about 1 in 30 Koreans.
• Russian and Ukrainian Oil
  • Ongoing war raising oil prices globally; Russia now a net importer of diesel, adding pressure to energy markets.

9. Historical Parallels & Final Thoughts

[32:41–40:15]

• Repeal of the Jones Act
  • Temporary lifting by Trump cited as a rare, smart deregulation move.
• Outlook on War and Politics
  • Anticipation that the Iran front will intensify; discussion of betting markets for geopolitical events and Trump’s term completion.
  • Casey’s clearest advice for listeners: Remain cautious, stay invested in oil and gold, and expect continued political-economic turbulence.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump putting himself on currency:
  “It’s just completely inappropriate... an indicator of a collapsing empire.” — Doug Casey [00:45-02:01]
• On US war spending:
  “Every Tomahawk missile costs $3 million for the missile alone.” — Doug Casey [10:11]
• On the collapse of American soft power:
  “Now they’ve learned to hate the country, seeing it as a really dangerous force.” — Doug Casey [09:01]
• On the lack of real accountability:
  “All these things are being brushed under the carpet...” — Doug Casey [24:15]
• On America’s economic malaise:
  “It’s a slow-motion depression is the way it’s turning out, it seems.” — Doug Casey [20:51]
• On political families:
  “This is end-stage empire stuff where... family members want to create a dynasty.” — Doug Casey [35:06]

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Important Timestamps

• Trump coin discussion: [00:02–03:47]
• Truth Social monetization scheme: [04:26–05:59], [27:00–28:49]
• US-Iran war analysis and market impacts: [06:24–15:22], [36:59–39:43]
• Surveillance state trends: [21:32–23:01]
• Congress and dynasty politics: [33:37–36:47]
• Investment picks and slow-motion depression: [17:58–20:51]
• On betting the future (Polymarket/Kelsey): [38:02–40:15]

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Tone and Style

The episode is candid, irreverent, and skeptical—marked by Doug Casey’s dry wit and historical perspective and Matt Smith’s probing but relaxed interviewing style. The mood swings between wry amusement at the absurdity of present events (“phony coin;” “selling influence, but laundered”) and grave concern about the financial, moral, and political trajectory of the United States.

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This summary captures the main themes, arguments, memorable moments, essential context, and key quotes, providing a thorough overview for those who missed the episode.

Transcript

[A]

All right. Good morning, Doug. It's hard to go a week and not have more sensational Trump news. There's a lot of things out there, and not that we're necessarily criticizing him, but seeing what's happening is like, it's an indicator of the times, I think. And, you know, one of the big announcements this week was the, was the new Trump coin that is, in fact going to be minted. You know, there was Talk about this $250 note in the past, but I think that's not going to happen. But this Trump, what they call $1 gold coin, is actually a real thing and it's going to be minted. What do you think of that?

[B]

I think it's shameful and unseemly for a currently serving president to put his image on the currency. It's just completely inappropriate. And to me, it's a further indication that Trump really has something pathological wrong with him, that he wants to have a coin minted for himself. But it's on the bright side, it's a pot metal coin, I guess that's going to have a sheen of a gold, like, metal, probably bronze on the face of it. So it's a, it's a phony coin. So that part's appropriate anyway. And nobody, nobody uses dollar coins or coins that he just wants to further glorify himself at the expense of the public because nobody will use these coins. Just like they didn't use the last dollar coin which featured. Was it Sacajon?

[A]

Yes, exactly. I remember they rolled that out, too, with a lot of, you know, a lot of fanfare. And I saw a few of them in circulation, but, you know, they never, they never took off.

[B]

Yeah, well, at least Sacajawea was a woman. And of course, you've got to honor women. And it was a Native American. And so you kind of got a twofer with that. But, but in the case of Trump, you get a. Anyway, it's, this is the type of thing, this is further, a further indication of a collapsing empire, because I'm sure most of you all will recall that the Romans before Augustus minted coins with thob ideal images of a God or a virtue or something like that. And it was only after it turned into an official empire that you put the face of a living person, an emperor, on the coins. And that's what's happening with us, too. So we're kind of following Rome's footsteps from that point of view.

[A]

Yeah, well. And yeah, it's, it's just the whole thing is Weird, but and to my mind I would be a little, you know, Trump. Trump's, he likes the big thing. You know, he likes the, he likes the big thing. It's like the 250 note that they were floating with his face on. It was like a big deal at least because it's a bit, you know, it's a big note. It's like something new and big to get on a fake gold, you know, gold colored $1 coin. Seems to me like it's kind of diminishing, you know, I don't know if you'd be so proud of that.

[B]

It's, it really is, it's kind of, it's kind of, kind of degrading. But then again, building the arc to Trump and putting his name on the Kennedy center and a whole bunch of things like that. I mean, yes, I guess he feels that in the future people will remember him and see his name, but at the same time I think people will remember the backstory and they'll think what a schlemiel that would do things like this would think it's necessary that he can get away with it.

[A]

It's amazing what he can get away with, actually. One, another announcement that came out today was that he's going to sell faster access to his truth social posts. And the whole idea with this is that, you know, there's, it's well out into at least the Internet domain that he's been front running all kinds of actions in his trades. So he will buy a stock and then the next week he'll promote the stock on, on his true social. So he's front running it now he wants to sell for a subscription cost of a hundred thousand a month early access to his true social posts.

[B]

I wonder how many suckers will pay that kind of money.

[A]

I mean, it's hard to imagine because I mean, what do you. The deal's done already. It's been front run. The front running occurred already.

[B]

You know, you're getting the news before the hoi polloi, before the capital Kenzie, but you're getting it after his good buddies have heard all about this stuff. So I, I can't see that it's me worthwhile. But, but it's shameful to in effect be selling your connections that you're in a position to do something with the public funds. And once again, shameful.

[A]

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

[B]

And, and I hesitate, I hesitate to add that I'm not a Trump hater at all. And I far, I thought, I far preferred him to kemala and I guess I still do because whatever he's doing now, it would be worse under the Democrats in Kemala. But this is, this is just not right.

[A]

Do you think Kamala would be preparing for a ground invasion in Iran?

[B]

Yeah, because you do hear rumors about that. But this would be the ultimate stupidity. I mean, this war between Iran and the US which the Israelis, clever as they are, are not involved in. I mean, it's. They got Trump to punch the tar baby and now they're uninvolved.

[A]

So isn't that amazing sleight of hand? They. They got us into it. That's. At least that's what the reporting was, is that we attacked because they were going to attack. And, you know, we didn't want to be caught on our back foot by Iran's response, so we went along with it. That was kind of the official story. And then, you know, then there's some, you know, motion over a few months and then they step into the background and we are conducting the war. The United States is conducting the war, only funny. It's amazing. Impressive.

[B]

It is. And the whole thing is as much of a fraud as when Colin Powell said, yes, they definitely have nuclear weapons, remember that? And that was the reason for invading Iraq, which has turned into a, A disaster for everybody but Israel, incidentally. So this is, this is really getting. Getting out of control. But, but the thing is, is that it looks good from an immediate, Immediate and direct consequence, it looks good for Israel, but indirect and delayed consequence. It's not like people are that stupid and they can see what's going on. So Israel's making more enemies hand over fist by doing these things. I mean, even the American, average American, who can't even find Iran on a map, it's going to sink through what's going on. And of course, the rest of the world doesn't appreciate this war because I, I'm of the opinion still, and I think you are as well. It's going to take oil to unprecedentedly high levels in the months to come.

[A]

It's coming. I have no doubt about it. So, yeah, Israel is making a lot of enemies and the US is making just as many at this point. I saw a survey Reuters did of Europeans, and only 11% of Europeans today see the US as an ally.

[B]

This is a big change from the post World War II era when everybody loved America, American cars and American soldiers. They loved everything about America. And now they've learned to hate the country, seeing it as a really dangerous force in the world.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I was shocked by that 11%.

[B]

I mean, that's, that's, that's, that, that is an amazingly low number.

[A]

I mean, if you get like 30% of basically every poll, you know, there's always like 30% dissenters, you know, you know, that go the other way. But not with this, only 11%. That's pretty shocking.

[B]

Seems like unprecedentedly low. Is it a, is it a solid poll, do you think, do you have

[A]

the background on, you know, I don't really. I just know it was reported by Reuters is all I know. And honestly, I personally, I don't really care what the Europeans think of, of me or necessarily as a whole. However, it's again, another indication of where we're at today, what the state of play is. And I just, like the Trump gold coin is a measure of the state of play. I think this is as well.

[B]

Yeah. And as, as bad as things are here with the US Literally running out of money to finance this war against Iran. I mean, every Tomahawk missile, people don't realize every Tomahawk missile costs $3 million for the missile alone. Not, not counting the cost of the ancillary costs of the ships or planes that deploy the things. That's an expensive piece of hardware to blow up.

[A]

Right. And that's just one of them. Then you have the Jasms and the Prisms and the Himars. You've got all these different missile systems. You got the Patriots, you know, that are like 4 million bucks a piece.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's like, yeah, it's. We're going to go broke from this, I think, is what's going to happen. I don't think there's any way around it, as I think they peg the cost at roughly $3 billion a day.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For the war.

[B]

The, the, the Iranians are playing the same game as others have played, and it follows the Muhammad Ali's rope a dope. Just let him punch himself out until he's tired, and that's what's going to happen with the US this is a rope, a dope.

[A]

But I still think, you know, the US hasn't yet, as far as I'm concerned, really, really tried yet. I mean, we've done a lot of like, whiz bang, you know, missile and Air Force stuff. But it's not until they actually decide to put boots on the ground and get very serious about it that I think that they're going to feel that I, I think things can. Although what the US has done so far has been somewhat impotent and its effect on Iran. Like I think the US can do a hell of a lot more and I think I, it seems to me they intend to.

[B]

Yeah, it's like Kennedy said, but we can do more. And the only thing that they can reasonably do, it seems to me there are only two things that would make sense which is not the right word is launch a nuclear strike which would be incredibly stupid and dangerous or attack. Is it Carg island where the Iranians ship out most of their oil. So I, I suppose you could get enough soldiers, marines in there to conquer the thing but then they're all just sitting ducks for missiles and, and drone attacks until they're basically all dead.

[A]

Yeah, but I think they're planning something like that around those islands to try and get control over the straits.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It seems like Trump has really boxed himself into a corner at this point and of course the intelligent thing for him to do would be to say wait a minute, what are we doing there? We have absolutely no interest in Iran. They present no danger at all to us even though they don't like us and they don't like us for actually quite good reasons. But just go away and leave these people alone. It's the Israelis problem, it's not our problem. But I don't think he's going to do that. For some reason he's too proud.

[A]

He's had his chances, he's had the chance to walk away. You know there are points where he could have done it, where he could have de. Escalated and he's always chosen the other is every time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So yeah, I don't think he's walking away.

[B]

Yeah. So what we should do is remain oil, remain long oil and gas and oil and gas stocks and gold as well. And of course Bessant a couple of days ago came out with what impressed me as a bald faced lie. He said, I'm not quoting them exactly, but it was basically, there's no question we have 148 million or something like that, ounces of gold in Fort Knox and of course the rest is in New York and a couple other minor depositories. So how does he know that? There hasn't been an audit forever, frankly. And it's kind of common knowledge that that gold is basically still coin melt from the 1930s when Roosevelt confiscated everybody's gold, melted down the coins and you're not really sure how much is there. It's a guesstimate. But he shouldn't say things, he shouldn't say things with certainty when there's not been an audit. That's why they have audits.

[A]

What he said specifically, Doug, I have the court in front of me was, I'm happy to say all gold is present and accounted for. The US has the largest gold pile or pile of gold in the world, over $1 trillion.

[B]

Well, he fails to mention that it's only a fraction of what it used to be in terms of size. Most of it's already gone away so.

[A]

Well, and most, and most the smart people I know believe that China has a gold hoard that vastly exceeds that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, they've been buying gold for a long time and selling US dollars to do it. So anyway, all these US dollars though have been going into interesting places, directly and indirectly. Most directly, it's SpaceX, which on several conversations here we've talked about as wonderful as Musk is and as wonderful as space technology is and the rockets and the satellites, it's all wonderful. But not SpaceX which was grossly overpriced. It got up to. What did it get up to? 220 or something like that. I'm not sure what the peak was, but we've been saying it's a bubble. And of course now it's finally below its IPO price. And as privately held stock starts de lettering and coming out in the months to come, it's all going to, most of it's going to be sold and the stock is going much, much lower. I think

[A]

think so too. I mean, it's a bad sign for it to already be below its IPO price when, you know, a lot of people are still restrained from selling their shares.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And you know, and related to that, we saw a lot of other signs at the top with the, with the Korean stock index, which, you know, was, has been really rough lately. And apparently one of the craziest things that I saw with that is that about 1.2 million South Koreans were margin called and about 360,000 of them were liquidated. But the, the margin call, that amounts to about one in every 30 Koreans.

[B]

It's a lot of people losing a lot of money and I have not looked at the Korean stock market to see whether it's cheap or dear, I really don't know. But it's interesting to observe that there's a Korea ETF and it's going to present a wonderful opportunity for us at some point in the not too distant future. But hopefully we'll be able to buy it.

[A]

Yeah, let's hope.

[B]

But in the meantime, if you want to buy anything, there are Top quality gold stocks that are yielding 5% or more in current dividends, selling it eight or nine times earnings. And the oil stocks are even cheaper and better. So that's where you ought to be.

[A]

And yeah, it's definitely some opportunity, but you know, the markets feel so uncertain right now and confusing. It's like the most, it's, I, I, you know, it's, I don't know. To me, my, my just intuitive take on it is that they're as confusing now as they've ever been because you see things like the oil price, which doesn't make sense given what's going on and hasn't made sense through this entire period with Iran. You know, you see and, and how bad it's been for gold stocks. You know, know, I know gold had to come back and have a breather after its, you know, unreasonable run up to 5,500 bucks, but still there's been a big pullback in a lot of these gold stocks since then. And you know, I don't know, like, they, like a lot of things just aren't making sense I guess at this point.

[B]

Oh, gold stocks have been cheap all along and I think they're still cheap now. And this is even more true of the oil stocks. So I'm long both, of course. Well, you can always stay in cash. Yeah, you can. And the argument can be made it's better to lose 5 or 10% per year to inflation, to the depreciation of the dollar than take a chance of losing 40 or 50% if the market in any of these things crashes.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Okay, that's, that's, that's fair enough. But in a high inflation environment, which we're still in, although we don't really know what the actual inflation is because all we get is reported figures which are made to look as favorable as they possibly can, just as they did in Argentina, frankly, it, you know, if you're standing still, if you're in the same place, you're losing you 5 or 10% per year. And that's true of everything. The price of your house, the price of your car, the price of your savings, the price of your stock portfolio, unless it's going up by that amount of, you're losing ground. And this is, this is one of the reasons why I say we're in the, a greater depression, but it's not a crash type depression like started in 1929. It's a slow motion depression is the way it's turning out, it seems.

[A]

Yeah, the, I looked up a stat the other Day just looking at the inflation numbers and you know, you have their headline number which is I think 3.8% just to show you how bullshit these numbers are. But you know, if you look underneath that for the underlying. What inflation was at different things they showed year over year, electricity prices in the US are up 23%.

[B]

It's a shocking number. Well, one of the wonderful things that all these data centers are bringing to us in addition to the ability to monitor everybody 24, seven in everything, in every way.

[A]

Yeah. Which I think is the point of them. What's your opinion on. Have you heard about all these flock cameras?

[B]

Flock cameras. Flock cameras,

[A]

license plate reading cameras. But they do more than that and they're popping up all over the country. And then there's some people that are. There's a website called dflock.com which maps them all out where they are and people are using that information to go vandalize or destroy them.

[B]

Yeah, And I can see how that would definitely piss people off. Well, as somebody who always looks at the bright side, it's going to make it easier to catch criminals because everything, everything is going to be recorded visually and probably audio wise as well in the near future. So it makes crime harder and more dangerous to commit. There's always a bright side, of course.

[A]

Well, the downside of that is that book, three felonies a day, that reminds us that each of us are committing three crimes, serious crimes, on average, every day.

[B]

Yeah, well, that book was written years ago. It's probably up to five or ten felonies a day, I bet. But fortunately, our overlords are kind and magnanimous, gentle, and they don't prosecute these things unless they decide that they want to make an example out of you.

[A]

Right, yeah. Speaking of prosecutions, you know, there have, I think one of the great disappointments of Trump is that there haven't been any prosecutions for the things that, the wrongdoings that had occurred in previous administrations, including his previous one, things related to operation warp speed and the way all that was handled. You know, you had Tulsi Gabbard come out and on her last day that she was in office and say that you talk about all the biolabs we had in 70 countries around the world, which is a crime, you know, because we, we're not supposed to be having these, we're not supposed to have these things at all. And you know, there's been no prosecutions around any of that. Anything related to Covid, which I think was a giant disaster for the country. There's been no prosecutions for Russiagate for the incitement and entrapment around January 6th. And you know, so, so I think

[B]

people are very disappointed or anybody that has anything to do with Epstein except for J. Maxwell, she's I think the only person that's serving time. Right.

[A]

How could I forget that one? That's, that's the biggest one that sets people off.

[B]

All these things are being brushed under the, under the carpet and perhaps this is a good argument for Trump ramping things up and invading Iran to distract attention from these other things. There's nothing like a war to unite the country.

[A]

Yeah. And I, I mean, well, you know how they've been floating this idea that, that he's under real assassination risk now from the Iranians. I don't know if you saw those reports about that.

[B]

I did say that then it would be logical for the Iranians to try to take them out. But who the hell knows? It's probably just another meme floated by the Israelis.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, you know, a wartime president can certainly get away with things that a, not that a peacetime president would be able to get away with. So you can see the advantage of it.

[B]

But.

[A]

So in terms of these prosecutions, yesterday Trump held a primetime address where he basically explained all of the problems with our elections. He put a lot of blame specifically on the Chinese as far as foreign interference. And the 2020 election also implicated the heads of the NSA and CIA in covering this stuff up because apparently they discovered a bunch of burn bags at some place in the FBI that had all this election interference material in it. And he was basically, he's fighting it out in the, in pr, I guess by doing this instead of through prosecutions. Like if.

[B]

Yeah, you know, I, I was not very sympathetic with. Who's that chap Dan Bongino, who is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Supposed to be joining Cash Patel and cleaning up the FBI can. At this point I'm sympathetic with why Bongino resigned. I haven't listened to his explanations if any of why he did it, but it's probably pretty much why Musk jumped ship. You can see that it's point a pointless waste of time and nothing is going to happen. And certainly Cash Patel seems like, well, I hate to use that. Tired. He's like, he actually looks like a deer in the headlights with his bug eyed stare. Like he's always in a state of shock.

[A]

Yeah. I think, just as I think he's just happy to be able to use the FBI jet. And as long as that as long as he gets to use the jet and his girlfriend gets Secret Service security, I think he's a happy guy. You know, go, go with the flow happy guy.

[B]

And once he's steps down from head of the FBI, he's going to get the usual book contracts, consulting contracts, speeches, blah, blah, blah, the usual type of thing. But there's some other scam that's just come up to get payoffs that are legal. And this is with, not just Trump radio, with a hundred thousand.

[A]

Oh, you mean with the true, more than true, social. There's a true social thing we talked about already was, yeah, it's a hundred thousand dollars a month.

[B]

But you were talking about Trump's son has a club in D.C. oh yeah. A five hundred thousand dollar entrance fee.

[A]

Yes. Yeah, I, I don't know why I can't remember the name of the club now. But essentially he has a private club. It's $500,000 to be part of it. And essentially what he, what it promises is you get to hang out where the important movers and shakers are. So not in the White House, but you know, they can get, he can get cabinet members there. If you're having a problem with the epa, I'm sure they can get Zelda in there to meet with you. So, yeah, that's, I mean, these guys are good at monetization.

[B]

Yeah. Because in the past, I mean, if you were caught selling influence, usually in the form of $100 bills in a briefcase, that doesn't happen anymore. Hey, this is so much neat and clean. The money's already laundered, it's legal, it's clever. But Trump and family are going to need all the money that they can scam because when the Democrats get in office, it's going to be ugly in lots of ways. But one of them is going to be prosecutions in and around the Trump family.

[A]

Yeah, it seems like it part, I was, I was hypothesizing that maybe part of this, you know, the Iranian bargain is somehow that he'll be able to, you know, that's like that, that will cut him some slack if he'll go along with this totally senseless, totally stupid war, that, you know, maybe he would be less targeted after his administration is done.

[B]

Yeah. And of course, we're not at the moment thinking about the war between the Ukraine and Russia, which is not going away and is, is ultra dangerous as, as both of those countries get tired and desperate, especially the Ukraine.

[A]

Yeah, well, and that's, apparently, it's like there's you know, that Russia is now a net importer of diesel.

[B]

Well, that's going to put further pressure on the price of oil and its derivatives because it's not just a question of oil being blocked out of the Middle east. It's Russia, which was an exporter, no longer being an exporter because of all this. Yeah, oil's got to go higher, a lot higher. It's going to surprise people.

[A]

Yeah, you know, we're a weird kind of repercussion of, of Ukraine going after the refineries though, is, I think it's actually increased Russia's oil exports because they can't refine it. So they're, they're selling, they're putting more oil on the market,

[B]

but there's going to be less oil someplace if you can't refine it. I mean, it's like using a balloon press at one place, it blows up someplace else. Bottom line is less oil in the world.

[A]

Yeah, it's a disaster. And I don't know why that it's not getting more attention. Like, I guess just with Iran and everyone's just so tired of the news cycle. But the whole, just the recent developments over the last few months with Russia and Ukraine, you know, it's seems it's really accelerating there and at some point Russia's gonna have to strike back a lot harder in order to, you know, get some escalation, dominance of some kind, because they're just getting crushed, getting mowed down little by little.

[B]

Yeah. About 103 million barrels a day of oil are lifted every day, or that was the case until recently and because of stockpiles and oil in transit and one thing or another. But I, I, I never cease to be amazed at the free market coming up with materials to solve these problems that governments cause with their wars and whatnot.

[A]

It is astonishing. I mean, the fact that we haven't, with that there haven't really been any negative economic consequences yet to the straight or Hormuz situation is actually amazing and does show you the, the wonder of the free market, like how they've had to reroute things. You know, one good thing Trump done is Trump did, is he got rid of the Jones act, which basically then probably bailed out California because so they could pull oil from the Gulf into, into California because, you know, California was importing from the Gulf. Like they're the most dependent part of the country for sure. And you know, without that kind of the free market filling these gaps, honestly, they would already be like pumps dry on diesel and gasoline In California.

[B]

It is an amazing thing about Trompu. Like Caesar describes the world like a colossus, that he does these stupid things, which we've talked about. But then he also does some excellent things. I mean, like getting rid of the Jones Act. I mean, that's something that should have been done decades ago. And he did he as he really finally does it, or is it just

[A]

it's like a 90 day cycle. Like it's executive order that is that he's, you know, invalidating it for a 90 day window and he's renewed it once already.

[B]

I see.

[A]

So it's not gone.

[B]

Well, hopefully it'll be gone, but that's up to these people in Congress and they're, they're the bottom of the barrel, almost everybody in Congress.

[A]

So they are the bottom of the barrel. Yeah. I mean, complain about Trump, but then you go to Congress and, well, what can you say?

[B]

We haven't even mentioned the fact that one of the worst of them, Lindsey Graham, has finally kicked the bucket. So I, of course you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead. I've never observed that homily. I think that you should, you should be honest in describing anybody, especially people that are, are dead. And of course, the usual types are apatheasizing him, but he was a totally horrible and contemptible person from everything I can tell personally and God knows professionally. So the fact that he's gone means that a major. And he was Trump's bff. I mean, he was such a. From hating Trump when he realized, oh, I better like him becomes his bff. So listen, this is one Trump whisperer, very negative one, which hopefully will be replaced by somebody who's not quite a craven fool.

[A]

I hope so. I'd hope so. What do you think about the idea of his sister filling his seat?

[B]

Well, once again, this is end stage empire stuff where, you know, family members want to create a dynasty. I mean, look at all these Bushes. I mean, you had Papa Bush and then baby Bush and then there was going to be a third Bush that flashed Jeb Bush. Yeah, Jeb Bush who just couldn't quite cut it, but almost did. So it's kind of getting like that. And of course, the young Trumps are kind of being groomed. And I don't know if Chelsea Clinton is competent enough to fill in at some point in the future. She's not rich enough, so.

[A]

Well, but I think Trump has shown the way to solve those problems as president. You don't have to be that rich as president. You can become that rich as president during president.

[B]

Right. And, you know, it's funny. Nobody ever asks themselves how all these people become multimillionaires on a congressman's salary. It doesn't seem possible.

[A]

That's one thing about Lindsey Graham that came out, that his net worth was only like 2 to 3 million dollars.

[B]

Surprising, actually. And I guess that's one thing, the only thing I can think of that speaks well of him.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

As much money as he apparently took from Israel, he wasn't using it to kind of line his pockets. But he doesn't have any kids. I mean, it's. It's sad. It certainly seemed by looking at him that he was a light in the loafers. So no kids there. Yeah.

[A]

Well, Doug, anything else you wanted to make sure we covered today?

[B]

No, there's nothing that's especially wild and crazy or. It's happening.

[A]

No, for me, it's still. It's still the Iran stuff. Just expecting something. You know, they started targeting infrastructure, Iranian infrastructure, and, you know, they're striking back and apparently blew up some power plants and the desalination plants in Kuwait. And the Houthis are, you know, talking about stepping it up and closing the Bab El Mandeb straight. And, you know, so as I just keep waiting for the next shoe to drop on the Iranian front, really. But other than that, there's not a lot going on.

[B]

I. I think I'll be surprised if nothing major has happened in between now and the time we talk again. I hope not.

[A]

What do you think the odds of Boots on the Ground are in the next. Let's say before. Before the. The elections in November. What do you think the odds are before the elections?

[B]

50. 50.

[A]

Okay, 50.

[B]

50. So I'll have to. I've never used Poly Market or the other one. Kelsey.

[A]

Kelsey.

[B]

Yeah, but I'll have to check it out and see if I can get adequate odds and place a bet, just as a matter of principle.

[A]

Yeah, I know there's a couple things that you. You've said in the past few weeks that you'd be willing to bet on. And I remember someone saying in the comments, well, Doug, there's Poly Market and Kelsey, you should go place those bets.

[B]

Yeah, I could. I could do that. I mean, how much should I bet that Trump is not going to complete his term? $100 to make the point. $1,000? 10,000? A million. I mean, this is. This is gambling. And I like to play poker, but not for the kind of. And I'm reasonably good at it, but I'm just not interested in playing for the kind of money that would be meaningful.

[A]

Interesting. Yeah.

[B]

Other than entertainment money, that's all. And I kind of feel that way with this, but, yeah, maybe I should.

[A]

On principle.

[B]

On principle? Yeah, maybe a thousand dollar bet would, you know, be enough to say, oh, that's not completely trivial. But it's not.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I think you should.

[A]

I think you should. And if you. If you do place those bets, let me know as I. I don't know if. I don't know if you're able to publicly see other people's bets or not, but it'd be kind of fun to monitor those, see how they. If they come true.

[B]

I. I'm gonna have to investigate and see what kind of odds I can get on those two things. And boots on the ground by. By the elections and Trump not serving out his term. There's two bets I'd like to make.

[A]

Yeah, I hope you can do it.

[B]

I'd like odds. You know, we'll see. We'll see what they're offering.

[A]

Yeah, of course, of course. That makes all the sense in the world. All right, Doug, well, we'll leave it there for today and I hope you have a great weekend. We'll be back next week with more.

[B]

Thanks, Matt. Same to you.

[A]

All right.