Okay, here we are. Well, you caught me. Yeah, here we are in Montevideo, Uruguay.
We just came across the mighty plate river from Buenos Aires, and you flew down here last week from Ripley,
some Florida, and and you're here to play tennis.
Be careful where you invite me.
I had a guy that that I played with last year that said come play a new like a club they have and
I love red clay tennis and you have red clay tennis here all over which is a great way to play tennis.
It's totally different from hard court and I said he invited me. I came and I said be careful.
Invited me somewhere because I might show up.
Well, this is good. I don't presumably play much tennis in
Kyrgyzstan or the Congo. So I think you're in the right place.
Actually, this is and you're close to Punta del Este, which is the jet set capital of South America.
So right man in the right place. So that's what you're doing here.
But people don't want to hear about that. People want to hear about
the markets and things of that nature. So we've all got opinions.
What's your opinion? Where are we right now, EV?
Yeah, well, so we've had radical change.
As you know, the people were expecting a different outcome and I think the most interesting thing
that's happened is the gold price radically reset after the election, which tells you that the world
was afraid that there would be no adults in charge and the gold price is going to shoot
much higher. And then as soon as we had the outcome we had, it's back to 2650 and probably
stays there resumes and resumes and up climb. But it shows you that the
markets think there's going to be less chaotic turmoil than prior, maybe different type of turmoil,
not what it was expecting.
Well, I am so happy that Kamala lost. I didn't say that Trump won, but that Kamala lost and
actually cost me some money that she lost because I bet 100 ounces of silver
with the friend that she was going to win. It's pretty confident that Democrats were going to
engineer a storm election. It looks that way. In my newsletter I wrote, I went to DC this summer
and wrote about the scene in Washington and I can tell you that people were 100 percent convinced
that they were the regime that stays. So I think there's a lot of very upset people
and the town is flipping. So the arrogance is unbelievable there. As you know, as you know,
being from there, but it's an establishment. It really is an establishment and there's no
awareness that there's a country attached to the establishment. But the thing I want to
tell you is that my take on this really is that these numbers are all going to get bigger.
If you and I were working together eight years ago and we said that the debt doubles every eight
years, you go back to basically Nixon. You can take any eight-year period and it doubles and
$18 trillion. It's something like $38 an hour or something. It doesn't even really matter.
You'll go to 80 and people say they can't conceive of that, but the numbers have to get
bigger. I mean, what we have, this system that we have, it's kind of like, I don't think you
probably have ever slept on an air mattress, but you have it. I rather like them. It says
inflate with care. And so that's what these guys try to do is they inflate, but they try
to do it in a way that doesn't bust the seams, put too much air too fast or not enough air.
And this is the game that they play. And so let's expect that they'll keep trying to play the game
and they'll do what's necessary to fix. If they get too much air here, not enough here,
they'll make these adjustments. Are they going to be able to ring one more cycle
out of all this? Or is it all going to fall apart, either with runaway inflation or a
catastrophic deflation? Probably both. If you think back to last four years, we had both of those
things. And then they tried to manage their way around it. It caused a bunch of distortions,
but the system keeps moving. And so I think the way to see this is that it's a game.
Instead of looking at it like an ideological thing, this should be this way and this should be
that way, is it's a game and you flow along with the game and it becomes much easier to
see what they're going to do. Well, so we have at least morning in America for another six months
or actually morning only lasts for six hours, but we'll get bored in six hours. We'll maybe get
six months. So how do you think things are going to play out over the next four years
and the next eight years? And incidentally, I've got to mention to our watchers,
E.B. writes an excellent newsletter. It costs $300 a year. I ought to know because I pay for it
myself. I don't get a cop from E.B. or I simply pay for it and it's good value. Also, I want to
mention because some of you don't know E.B. He wrote a book called Why Gold? Why Now?
about a year and something ago and it was prescient and well written and he's got a new one which is
about to hit the stands. So we'll talk about that too. And I think I'm going to like the second
book more than the first one because it's more kind of life-centric. It's a sensitive book as well.
I mean, it's some of the stories that people say I can't believe you wrote that. I mean,
I'm in what hopefully is the middle of life. So you're in this middle and you look back and you
think what are we doing? And how did we get here? And what's the point of all this? And so that's
when you think things start making more sense. And for me, my career has been, it's been like
a stock chart. And the transition periods have been where all the growth occurs, but they've
also been the hardest. And this has been a transition period now. And so I sat down this
year and wrote this book to kind of say to people, I don't have all the answers when I'm in these
periods, but this is what I do. And this is what happened in the past. And I think there's,
I think people need things like that now because they're in this world of advertisements coming
to them about instant success and all these different things. That's right. Yeah. I mean,
I met the CEO of a rally auto parts this year. This is like, he's like a country guy from
Texas named Brad. And he told, I was asking him about the competitors because they're quite a bit
better than the, that we talked about them in the newsletter. And he said hard times make good habits.
And he explained to me how their entire company mantra is that like nobody learns anything
during the upswings. It's always these like swings. And if these swings are so important
and so critical to your future success, then why are they so hard? You know, and so that
that was kind of like the genesis, but why gold was really successful because people wanted to know
how do I make money in the gold market. It's like, you know, it's not that hard to do, you know,
but this is more fun. This type of stuff is the things I'll tell my kids. I mean,
these are the things I think that help you spot the next thing, you know, and you know that
and I know that. And it's, but most people just want the answer. But it's the question
that usually is what you need to focus on. Yeah, the questions are much more important actually
than the answers in many ways. So what is this next book about? It's about just what you said.
The subtitle is how to survive and thrive in a world that wants to control you. So the world
wants you to sit down here and do this and don't do this and do all these things. But
the reality is, is that you have a little compass in you and it's all the time kind of going around.
It's getting curious about things and meeting people and pursuing different things and the teachers
tell you don't do that and everyone's trying to control you for their convenience. Companies
are trying to do this. It's very understandable. You know, it's not personal. It takes a while
to learn that. But this little voice within knows what you need to do. And the more you
listen to it, the more you integrate into life and the better things get. And I think everybody
recognizes that little thing. It's not just like a success thing. It's part of your overall journey
through life. And so for me, I had some difficult times when I was younger. I went to reform school,
as you know, and chopped wood for three years. It was weird. And so I tell those stories too
and what it was like to go through that. And I didn't really make much sense to me. And then
this time goes on and you make sense of these things. And then you go into the corporate world
and I'm not really a corporate material. And so that was hard to figure out. I mean,
you enter this thing and you think, here we go. We're going to do this or that or whatever.
I'm going to succeed. And then you just, you know, constantly you're trying to be the people
are mangling. You know, it's very difficult. And so that all starts to make sense because
I have a journey that's a path that's kind of autonomous. And when you talk about the newsletter,
the Tucker letter at ebtucker.com, the thing is, the reason why you like it is because it's almost
like the old days of supporting the arts or something. You know, you would, you would,
there's only a new thing that people sell art for $50 million. It wasn't that way before.
And he would say to have someone that can paint, you would give them enough money to live.
And then they would paint stuff. And it would just be fun. That's what we did for centuries.
And so with my letter, there's no advertising and there's no nothing. I mean, it's like,
it's me every two weeks writing to you and people support that almost as an art form. It's very
direct. Whereas a lot of the letters you and I used to write would have all these banner ads and,
you know, promises of instant riches. That wasn't, that wasn't my fault or your fault.
We, we fell into bad hands. We fell in among thieves.
It happens. Yeah, but we, we emerged. And that's interesting what you say about art being $50 million
because of course it was just a couple of weeks ago that some fool, well he's not a fool actually,
he's probably very, so the banana that's taped up to a wall for $6 million and somebody ordered.
I can't believe it actually. You probably remember in the newsletter,
I wrote about a piece of art I bought this year. This girl in New York uses colored pencils and
takes two or 300 hours to draw lifelike, basically looks like a photograph of various things. And,
and so I met her through a friend and bought an original piece that she did of Japanese.
It's a Marilyn Monroe magazine cover and then a tabby shoe that's worn out from rebuilding
after the war. It's a juxtaposition. Anyway, so the $6 million banana is fairly useless. It's
kind of good marketing, but it's fun to find things where someone has an unbelievable talent.
When you buy that, it's not notable. You know, it's $15,000 or something, but it's like
300 hours to sketch that. It's wild. So to me, I'm fascinated by people that have a skill
and then watching them use the skill and then being able to support that is very circular. It's
very fun. Yeah, technical excellence is one of the things that you need and art is worth having.
Of course, there are millions and millions and millions of paintings.
All the museums have basements that are cluttered with paintings that paintings everywhere
that are being turned out more and more. I go on auction sites where you can find tremendous
bargains where people just have to get rid of it. They don't want to burn it. You can get these
things for a few dollars or whatever. Yeah, it's not always money. It's people to understand
that it's not always like you spending to collect all these different things. It's the
character in these pieces. It's not the thing that costs the most. You can find these
little things and that's what's fun about life is you go around finding these things instead of
aspiring to do things that people think are popular. It's like that's why I like it down here.
This is not like going to East Hampton. It's kind of more fun than East Hampton.
And then people in East Hampton will say, well, why would you go down there?
Or does they're just serving burritos down there? They don't know what's happening,
but this is one of the hippest places where I've just come from. I'm playing
tennis and reg clay every morning and then eating octopus at the beach
place or whatever with all these Argentine billionaires or whatever.
And it's unbelievable and there's no gringos. Yeah, and because they're not the East Hampton,
they are less pretentious than the people that are in the East Hamptons.
The fun of life. I mean, that's kind of like the journey is the fun. It keeps getting better,
actually. Yeah. Well, unless we have a global thermonuclear war.
That's a problem. Yeah, it is a problem. Just yesterday I was on a Zoom call with
Scott Ritter for an hour and a half and it was absolutely fantastic doom porn
about how serious the situation is and the way these weapons are going to be used and what
happens when they're used and blah, blah, blah. So I feel better being down here up there for that
reason. Also, I've got to say. Well, you're in a geographic position that makes strike
unlikely. I remember when there was news that a lot of ex US president types won't name the name,
but bought places in Paraguay. And this is very popular. There's an aquifer there and there's
all these different reasons why you would want to do that. But it's also not a strategic
cross point. I mean, the problem with Portugal would be if New York is whacked, then the wind
pretty much takes you right out. It's second order effect. But not really,
I mean, here no one is really going to hit like Easter Island and then it's not going to blow
over. No, there's absolutely no strategic targets out here. You don't want to waste a
perfectly good nuclear bomb on some place. Well, so one thing I'm sure you read this last week in
my newsletter is that I'm totally fascinated right now by the AI race. And it's not really about
chips. It's about power. And so you there's a silly Bloomberg headline where where Biden is
shaking hands with Xi Jinping and saying we've agreed that we're not going to let computers
control the launch codes. And if you really, if you know what's up, which which you know which
way the wind is blowing, what that means is just if our computer was towering over yours,
we probably would let it, you know, whoever wins that race, you know, will will control
the launch codes. I mean, it's it's it's we're in this Cold War type race, and it's all about
power and whoever can achieve the power scale, you know, first is going to win. I mean, you can't
power the AI. It's not the chips, you know, it's it's it's literally the electricity. And
and I think people this is just lost on people, you know, they think like, well, what's the
next Nvidia, you know, it's like, well, the chip is not really the thing. And it's not
really like the problem. They kind of know what the chip, you know, issue is and how to deal with
it. Right. And they know all this works. But the power, it's like, you need the amount of power
that powers the state of Texas to run these advanced facilities and the faster they run,
the faster they grow. And if you don't get launch speed, you know, you're never going to
you're never going to get there. Well, that's a good observation because going back to this
conversation I had with Scott Ritter yesterday, he was he started it off talking about what's
going to happen when all these nuclear bombs are set off. And I said, well, that's serious. But
secondary effects are what these governments were all doing lots and lots of research on
biological weapons. Won't they also do that to kind of clean up some of the strands around.
And then of course, there's cyber weapons, which really weren't an element 20 or 30 years ago.
Also space space take out the the global positioning systems, which by the way,
are almost useless now for military. There's new systems that work on the earth's magnetic fields
so that they can fly and operate with no GPS. You can see the GPS is totally vulnerable. And
when you look at this, you think, I mean, what a complicated game. It's very complicated play.
I mean, it's, well, it's like from the movie. The only way to win is by not playing. But one
point, I'll just make this apropos what you just said. Scott said, well, after the nuclear
weapons, actually, it's the collapse of computers and power grid that will be the most deadly
thing. So the so the so the what I've learned in the research is that the grid actually will not
power the the AI race, because the so the fast forward 10 years and the grid will be how we
turn the lights on and we charge the Tesla and all these different things. But the AI systems
will run on power that's dropped into the facility that's the equivalent of, you know,
like millions of homes usage in a year that's running only for the facility. Because as you
notice, like Amazon tried to use three mile island to get it restarted and and you've seen
this and the federal the federal regulatory would said, no, you can't do it. It's too
complicated. Dominion Energy says there's too many systems now pulling in the mid Atlantic
and we can't put anyone else online and you know, the grid can't the grid is meant for
light switches and dimmers and these things. Are you recommending small research companies with
fifth generation reactors? Yes. There is technology now that is safe, that is compact,
and you can the thing that's cool is see the last boom in the data centers, you had to be
locationally close to to whatever you were connected to for latency. You know, if you
wanted to trade in front of the Citadel wants to be in front of every retail trader and take an eighth
of a penny or something. It's all about the distance to the exchange, but that's finished now. So you
have all these data center stocks, you know, are really not where the action is. You'll be able
to put the AI center in the middle of Eastern Oregon or something and drop the power in and
secure the place. And it doesn't need any so real estate costs goes to zero. You know,
the county out there will be so thrilled that you want to be there to give it to you.
So I think that's what's happening. You notice Gates is in there and the Amazon guys have things
going on and everybody's in this race. And there's there's a couple of public companies that we
put two of them in the letter, which I think are I think it's better than the mining stuff.
The mining thing, if you think about it like you and I have extensive experience in this
business, but the mining business doesn't work anymore. And the thing people can't quite understand
is that it doesn't get the operating leverage that it used to get. And I think it'll be the
same for uranium. It's like the energy space is so hot and there will be so much uranium used.
And I'm not sure that the mining company is the right way to play it, which is kind of like
against all what we used to think, we would think operating leverage to the rising
commodity price, but it doesn't work. I hope we just to get one more kick at the mining cat,
because it is a crappy 19th century chuchu trade. It really is. Scott, if you had to pick a crappy
business that you shouldn't get into, mining would be very high. Very high. Yeah, very high.
And the end and it goes down during the downswings and it goes not that far up during the
upswings, which is like the worst of both outcomes. I hope I'm not living in the cat in the past,
but I think we'll get one more kick at the cat, but those could be famous last words or wishful
thinking. And the thing that's crazy, I mean, I'm in New York all the time and you when you
socialize there in the finance scene, I mean, there's not one person that you'll meet that
has any equity exposure to anything related to any commodity related thing. Of course, that's good
news. Zero. I mean, and it's almost like a no fly zone. It's kind of like you just forget about it.
So you would say to yourself, well, that's how much upside is it? But it's not really the case
because you look at what they are doing and the amount of momentum and money that's coming in
would swallow the entire mining world with one goal. I mean, so it's almost like the world
is left behind, which is which is hard to understand in a way, but it's the facts. I mean, it's
like if you've played in that sandbox, the last five or six years, you've missed gigantic rallies
and other things. And at some point, you're becoming much poorer. So I, you know, it's funny
because I think now this one of the things that I'm really big on is I think during this Trump era,
I mean, assuming he is inaugurated, you know, we actually are still in the red zone here.
Real, but assuming that he's in there, I think that there's yesterday I had a call with an idea
that I've been cooking up that I just getting a lot of buy-in, you know, business that I'm going to try
to put together, we'll see if it works. But I think there's going to be a lot of mainstreamed
Bitcoin activity that people are really having a hard time conceptualizing because when I pitch
the idea, they go right back to like 2018 or something. And I'm saying to you, no,
JP Morgan will be making a market. There'll be futures, there'll be options,
there'll be prime brokers, there'll be lending, there'll be, I mean, this is like, this is a big,
this is a new chapter. This is not Mt. Gox and, you know, people that are ideological,
walking around with thumb drives and all these different things. I mean,
you've got an entirely new asset class that providing some of the plumbing mechanisms in
that business, it's going to be a new thing and you're going to see more and more of it. And I
think you want to be around that. I mean, I think you want to be generally kind of exposed to things
that are new industries that are coming of age. And it's, for the next couple of years, I mean,
I think it's a mistake to kind of look the other way on that.
So what would you suggest that readers, how should they position themselves
generally over the next few years? So two weeks ago, I get this question all the time. And I,
so what I did is I designed the portfolio you would give Aunt Lucy if she won 100 grand
in the lotto or something. I mean, you would not tell her to do alternative esoteric deals and,
you know, you would kind of give her something to come out a little ahead and have exposure to
different things. And so I put that in the newsletter as like a pie chart. You know, I'm
like this is if this my aunt came to me with that problem, this is what I would give her.
And I would feel really good about this advice. And so part of the issue is you have to know what
you're capable of. You know, and so I manage a trust, you know, and in the trust, you know,
we're not really like treading out into, you know, like micro cap placements and these things,
because it's just not really something we don't sum, you know, but it's not really the kind
of thing that typically is what we want to do. So you have to look at your system, your situation
and say, you know, what am I capable of? If you have a day job somewhere, and you know,
you want to do like bond arbitrage, you know, you work at the target or something, it's not
really, you're not really set up for this. You know, so I think for the average person,
it's a matter of saying, what are the industries that are going to have the wind at their back,
and let me just own those. And I think when you do that nowadays, I mean, the Fed wants
you to make money. That's what people have a hard, people are talking about, we need to audit the Fed
and shut it down. But it's like, maybe, maybe you're right. But the Fed wants you to make money
and to pay capital gains tax, and then to spend the profit. That's what they want you to do.
And you should indulge them. Because, you know, Scott Besant and all these guys are gonna,
that's all they're trying to do, keep this thing, this thing moving and keep their mattress
inflating. So you can help them do that. And I think there's some industries that are
going to fare better than others. I mean, some of the industries that have done well,
you know, under the last regime, I think you're going to stall a little bit. You know,
I don't think they're collapsing, but you want to own things that are moving
bottom left to top right. Well, that makes sense. You probably wouldn't want to buy
Jaguar at this point, for instance. Someone showed me, by the way, a guy I played tennis
with told me about this Jaguar advertisement. I don't have a television and I don't have
Facebook or Instagram. I also spend a lot of time by myself. It's no surprise, you know,
because you to meet people, you have to be constantly looking at your foot. You know,
one thing, by the way, you know how people would say, you know, you called someone and they would
say, Oh, I didn't see the call. I mean, it's you know, it's a lie now because everyone is
walking with the phone. I mean, they didn't want to talk to you.
Except me. I have a cell phone, but it's on charge. Yeah. 90% of the time.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's a real blow. You know, if I were to text someone and they were saying,
I didn't see the text, you know, it's a total lie. You know, the American is glued to the
but I didn't know what this Jaguar thing was. And this guy I played tennis with
showed me the commercial and I couldn't really understand what was going on there
because I feel like I'm pretty open-minded and pretty, pretty like, you know, a little more
classically liberal than people would assume, like a bit of a paradox.
And I couldn't figure out what they're doing. I mean, it doesn't really make
What's your point? The chairman of the company has his pronouns after his name.
I don't know if you've noticed that. No, no. Oh yeah, there's all kinds of pronouns.
He and him in his case. I like when it's a day, you know, because the reason I like when it's day
is that I'm a writer. And so I have a thing with words, you know, and how you use them.
And it's very fun to once you start getting into that, you know, I mean, I have a big
dictionary physical and my kids, when they don't know a word, will look it up, you know.
So when you use they to address someone, it's the sentence structure becomes very,
very fun, you know, because you then have to maneuver around the thing. So I like to
see if people say to call me day, please, when you just see if they can because a lot of people
don't have the reading and writing kind of capabilities that you would think. I mean,
they've been texting so long that they don't they can't the sentence structure, you know,
is kind of lost on them. Well, that's right with auto corrupt correct and all this type of thing.
Yeah, you're quite quite right. So we don't want to own Jaguar. But
you recommended a company called sweet greens. I did. Yeah, I like sweet greens. And I think
there's been a food craze in the US. You know, people know that Kava has shot up and sweet
green is cheaper per store. You know, Kava was trading at 40 million per store front,
sweet green at 20 million per store. I mean, imagine that it's a salad. I don't know if you've
had the product, but it's quite good. I mean, when I recorded the audio book of my new book,
I ordered sweet green three days. You recorded it yourself. Yeah, it's going to be out like
this weekend. So I ordered sweet green for the entire studio crew. You know,
they have like all these sound engineers and people they couldn't believe it. I mean,
they never had it. So it's actually quite good. It's very good. That's feel that's boots on the ground
feel tested. It's a qualified business expense as well. You know, you say, you know, audio
recording lunch in the office, you know, and so I think you want to maximize these types of
things and might as well be our company. But look, I mean, the Chipotle is the
Kava's I mean, what's dead is the casual dining. That's what's dead. You need all the people to
come and say, would you like, you know, more roles or whatever, they're feeding you like bread,
big, you know, this is the old the old way of serving. We've made fun of red lobster.
If you remember, we did a big red lobster thing. This is going back some time.
One of the subscribers started his career. He sent me like a note about how during the
endless shrimp promotion, they would they would push as many cheese rolls as possible
out to the tables because then you would eat less shrimp. That's right. That's right.
So anyway, I thought this was very funny. So they would they would have a pep talk
before the night started. And they would the manager would say, I want to see roles on
every table, full basketball. But which is kind of basic economics, right? I mean,
this is what people don't understand is that you don't need to go to school.
You could just work at a red lobster and essentially learn everything you need to
know about how people make choices. So you live in southern Florida now.
We just got mulled by multiple hurricanes in a row this year, which was quite quite an event.
And you're looks like a FEMA camp. But you're kind of contemplating
getting the second crib down in this part of the world.
This is a nice place to be. And when I try to explain to people what I'm doing down there,
it doesn't it sounds like I must be a spy or something. I'm traveling around with a small
carry on like a little tiny overnight bag and two tennis rackets and clay court shoes. And
that's about it. You know, and so I send out the laundry. I think people in the US travel
way too much. Way, way, way, way too much. There are so many laundry places that are
real, you know, to do the laundry for five, six dollars, you know, it's like,
well, not only that, but if you do travel and you need something, it's actually cheaper many times
to buy something that new than it is to do the laundry in a hotel. Sure. Yeah. And so I'm always
taking as little as possible. But I'm so I'm walking my point is I'm walking around when I
got to be a the I went to have a cigar and the the pilots, the captain and the first officer and the
flight engineer were in the cigar place and they shouted one alpha at me and I came over and
they said they recognize me because I had such a small bag and all the tennis gear they thought
truly your professional tennis player, you know, but we said we hung out for a while super
interesting guys, you know, and they make that big JFK to to be a route all the time. But anyway,
but so yeah, I mean, I come down I play and the weather's good. It's opposite,
opposite weather. And I don't mind flying. It's two hours difference, you know,
your body is a little easier on the change. And so I would come down a lot more. And
it's nice. I mean, it's there's a reason why smart people are hanging out down here. Well,
that's right. And talking about clothes, it's that the world has become much, much more informal,
so that you don't have to. It's not like the 19th century. We have to be a Victorian
dragging around steamer trunks. That's right. With all of your clothes. Yeah, you don't
really wear suits anymore. And you don't. It just doesn't it doesn't. In fact, it's the opposite. If
you go into the bank to the private bank, you know, with a suit, they are skeptical. If you go in
looking to shovel, they think you must be a tech millionaire. Well, or just wearing a t-shirt or a
polo shirt. You might be a friend of Mark Zuckerberg. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's
everything has gone opposite. You don't really need that much. But people have too much stuff,
you know, as it is. And I was telling you, I've been apartment in New York, you know,
that I'm spending more time in New York. And the whole thing there is they was not much storage.
And I'm trying to explain to people when I was buying the place that, you know, I'm not only
I'm a minimalist. I mean, I don't have more than two of anything, you know, and people are,
they think that's strange, but you don't use any of this stuff. No. And it helps you to
cultivate the proper attitude, which is that of a Taoist monk, actually, in the world,
but not of it. And you don't need a lot of physical crap to make you.
So on this topic, one quick thing that I have been writing about is, is that I'm
fascinated in the US by people's attitude towards money. Okay. Because everyone has this,
I'm going to hoard up all this money. And then I'll start enjoying myself. Right. But it's not,
it's actually not how things work. You know, I noticed they, they are willing to stab people in
the back and, you know, betray friends and sacrifice smart employees to get this money that
they're afraid to spend. It's really when you back up a little bit, it's, it's interesting. And so
I've been having a lot of conversations this year with people about what is the purpose of money.
And it's become clear to me that money is like energy or something. You kind of like,
you spot it when your mind is open, you tap into it, pretty much you can get as much
of it as you need to do whatever it is you need to do. And there is no, you know, piling it up,
you know, it erodes anyway. You never really use it all. And so what's the point? I mean,
we've never really missed any meals. I mean, in the US, if you know this, but the homeless
feeding arrangement is they've got stacks of meals. I mean, they, you know, you can,
they don't want the meals, right? I mean, it's like, so no one is really starving,
but we have this thing of like, we can't enjoy ourselves until we get to this amount.
You know, and so in a couple of, several years ago, I decided I didn't want to do that anymore.
And so, you know, a lot of my friends thought I was crazy because they thought, you know,
you could be earning 10 times what you're earning. You know, and my, my newsletter is
like our art we talked about. And so it's, it's, it's, I just was sick of it, you know,
and, and, and I'm not like anti money. I'd say I like, I like, you know, nice Japanese tennis
rackets or whatever the whole thing. And, and it's been fine. Like my report back to people is,
so far that there hasn't really been any problem crossing whatever bridge
showed up and it's highlighted how crazy people are about money. You know, it's like,
and I think it doesn't even work their attitude, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're zero
some approach to, to getting this thing that they're afraid to use. And then by the time they're
ready to use it, their body is falling apart and, you know, they're like, it's over.
It's totally perverse. You're in some ways following the path of Paul Terhorst,
who's an old friend of mine. Have you heard about him? Does that name ring a bell?
Well, he used to be a up and coming top accountant for one of the big eight back when
they had them and had to have two cars and five suits and a gardener because he had to
show that he was hip to the other partners and the clients. And he finally decided,
I don't like this. So we sold everything, everything went to cash and lives in BNBs
and plays chess and reads books. And he's much happier and healthier than he would be if he was in that.
And he wrote a book called, um, how to retire under age 35 or something on that order.
And people need to understand it's not the, see, they always say, easy for you to say,
because you're rich and you don't have the same, but it's, it is exactly the same.
I mean, you have all of the, the same issues at whatever level. It's just magnified.
And so when you shift your thinking, all of a sudden it looks easy. Like,
there was a guy wakeboarding out here when we were talking, you saw, but it's like smooth and
easy and, and you just go and like it, instead of fighting it, you know, it works. So
it's a lot of times you'll end up having a much more fun, like much more interesting
experiences. And, um, you look back and you think it actually, it was a paradox. You know,
it, it got better when I quit beating it to death.
Well, I think that's why you tend, you in particular tend to make good recommendations
because you're not attached to money. You like it. You realize there are methods of getting
more of it when you need it, but you're not attached to it.
It's not a, it's not a, there's no level or something. I mean, it's not like you entered
into some other realm. It's kind of coming and going. And the more you let it go,
the more it comes. People think it's focus, focus. But if they read my new book, they'll
see it's not, when you do the things you like to do, you know, do you remember you and I
used to go drive around Alberta and like do all these wacky things. And then the publisher would
say, like, why are you wasting your time doing that? You should be filming a promotion so we can sell
more. And what they understand was that, you know, people would read the, the essay from Alberta
and they would, they would just be like, they couldn't stop reading it. You know, and it's
the magic of the magic of that. That's exactly right. Remember, remember the fires? We went to
2016, there was the fires and we went to Earl's and the guy was explaining that the Louis the
13th consumption from the oil field workers was so high that Remi Martin sent a representative
from France to ask what is Earl's and where is Fort McMurray because it's our highest consuming
establishment in the world for Cognac. And it was unbelievable. Like the guys said,
these workers would come out and they would take shots of this stuff, you know, from the
Baccarat crystal boss and the French were mortified. I mean, I thought it was like the
funniest thing I'd ever heard. I mean, I just never, this is people that know Earl's is
like a TGI Fridays or something. Well, it's interesting, but it also helps you
hear a bell ringing at the top of the market perhaps. Yeah. So, you know, it can actually be
it was the top then up there. That was the that was the the it never really has kind of resumed its
peak oil greatness. Yeah. Yeah, I love observing this stuff as people will just tell you they'll
just tell you the craziest things with absolute certainty. And then you listen to them and
you just think I mean, if you only knew what you were absolutely absolute certainty is so
dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. So I think now like we were saying in the beginning going into the next
period, what is the you kind of need to think what is the thing that would get the most people
confused? You know, that that's and sometimes just asking that question is the you know, is the
the magic, right? Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say that there are few newsletters that I read and
subscribe to and read. And EBS is one of the I'd say three. And you shouldn't really have more
than three because that means that you're you're way too involved getting conflicting and confusing
information and so forth. So I recommend that all you guys go on Amazon and look up EBS last book
and his current book. And if you subscribe to his newsletter, I'm not getting anything from this.
I just like you be in the way. Thanks. I think you want to subscribe to it. And I think you'll
benefit from it. I enjoy reading it, which is helpful. Next week, we'll probably talk about
Argentina depends, you know, I've gone back to my favorite Parisian, see what the scene is like
and the pricing and, you know, we'll see if something comes together. I'll be there for
the next couple of days. The city feels better, though. Last year, I was there. If you remember
when me late was elected. Yes, literally the day after something. It was like I landed it was,
it was, you know, boom, he was. Well, I'm still making a bet that within by the end of this
election cycle in Argentina, he'll be in office another three years, I think he'll be reelected.
And unless something very bad goes wrong, Argentina will be well on its way to being
one of the most free and most prosperous and pleasant countries in the world. So I'm very
happy to be down here. And what about the difference between mockery? Because if you remember,
we were here when mockery was running. I met mockery with the Raymond James junket that
came down, you know, when he was a candidate and everybody was optimistic, but he didn't,
he didn't get it done. You have to be absolutely a wild man. You have to be radical. You have to be
an end cap, which is what Millie is. That's why I'm optimistic about him. It was like mockery was
kind of like hoping that, like a society guy. Exactly. I'm not going to say he's not like
George Bush was a horrible person, but you can't have a conservative who conserves things
when the system itself is rotten and shouldn't be conserved. What surprised me about Millie is that
he's fixed some of the arrangements with other parts of the world. If you notice, he's gone and
done things with certain key partners and strategic interests. And then he, what I thought was a sign
that things were going to work was he shipped all the country's gold to the LBMA, which means
they can loan it out to people. Usually it's a sign that you understand how things work. Did you
notice this? I can't figure that. Well, that's the deal is that you put it in London. It's still
yours, but then they're allowed to hypothesize it and do all the tricks and everything like that.
And it means that you understand that you're either in the game with a jersey on or you're
not. Yeah, well, one thing. It's an odd, it's, but things have smoothed out. If you notice
since then, I mean, the inflation is going down, down, down every month. But listen, if I was,
if I was Millie, at this point, I would default on Argentina's debt for all kinds of reasons.
Sure, of course. I do other things are even more radical, but he's not,
he's not a military dictator like he knows that to really, to make the thing fly.
There's a combination of radical things and
somewhat unpleasant, like things that are a tip of the hat to the bigger system that everything
has to work. And it's working. I mean, it's that you can feel it when you're in the city.
You can. Money's coming in, you know, it's, it's, yeah. Well, I think he said he wants
to join NATO. And I hope that was just a tip of the hat as opposed to a serious proposal.
Right. At least you understand how things work. I mean, you had prior, you know,
groups that were, were rogue and you've got boxed out of the capital markets entirely.