All right, Doug we're back. It's been a while since we've done one of these in the normal format here here in Uruguay
Not too far from where I am, but there's a lot has happened
I mean so much has happened that some some of us now we're talking about it because past it's been washed away by other happenings
Yes, what was?
Kamala's phrase exactly
I'm we've been we're constantly unburdened by what has been has the new cycle drives on and
The new cycle only lasts about 24 hours for almost anything these days. So yeah, you're quite correct
Yeah, it's it's interesting. I would try to keep up on top of these things and you realize when you're not it doesn't make any
Difference anyway, so it kind of know what the point of anything is
Well, and there's certainly nothing we can do about it. So it's just it's just idle conversation on our part
perhaps I
Think you're right
But you know the the big thing that has happened geopolitically now just
This is you know, they're obviously the stuff in Ukraine is still happening. There were new weapons used by Russia all that but
It seems like Trump wants to solve that
Israel was flaring up with Lebanon and then they got a ceasefire and then immediately things explode in Syria and
You know just what's going on? What's your big picture take on what's happening?
Well, perhaps nothing's really changed because that I think was a Tom Leroy song from the 1960s and
If I recall the lyrics they're rioting in Africa. They're starving in Spain
and
the rest of it and
I think another part of that song the same song or maybe it was a related song
Franchate the Germans the Germans hate the Dutch and I don't like anybody very much
So nothing's nothing's really changed at least at least within my lifetime, but it does seem everything's accelerating and becoming more
compressed
The news cycle is speeding up for a number of reasons actually but
Okay, so
What was the question before I went off on a tangent?
What's basically the big picture on what's what's happening because I think that the thing that is
That seems to be spreading is the kinetic conflict in my mind
That's that's the one like there's less is a kids the chaotic system lots of changes are always occurring
But the fact that it's going to arm conflict conflict with so many different
Participants in it especially in places like Syria you can't even tell which side the Turks are on even in that whole thing
That's right
You don't know who's on first anymore and it's interesting that we even talk about Syria
because
Syria is always just been a region ever since
Pre-Roman times where there have been many groups with them
Different religious groups ethnic groups linguistic groups. It's not a real country
It's the most hits basically the most ancient part of the world and it's not a real country and
Right now as far as I can determine
I've been to Syria twice actually for about a week each time frankly and I saw a fair part of the country and
As far as I can kind of figure out from reports
Is it's about three or four or five or six or maybe seven or eight?
different regions that are under control by various
Governments and or criminal gangs, so it's not a real country at all
So you can't really talk about Syria as other than a region and actually the same is true of Libya
Which is definitely at least two separate countries
Only one of which I think is represented
Has the seat in the United Nations, but it's two and actually it's three countries. I think
But who knows I mean these places are falling apart and the
Governments of the world and the mass media
Pretend that
There's still entities, but they're not
Do you
What
You know, I felt like we've been in a in the Third World War for a while now
But it just doesn't takes a while to come to the point of public consciousness to recognize what's happening
and
You know and what you see in Syria now seems so confusing to me it
Reminds it makes me think of
We'll also put Ukraine in this category before of Spain in advance of World War two. There's so many different belligerents in there
You know jockeying for
Territory testing new weapons systems. Yeah, I mean, what do you think about that? I
think we're
Where I think we're heading towards World War three definitely because
it just seems like
Then pressures build up and then people have to fight it out at some point periodically
And it seems that we're heading towards that now
even if we look at World War one it was
The whole world or and really the whole world was really just Europe at that time
Was extremely prosperous. They've been
Everybody been growing their GNP and their production and their general prosperity
Handover fist for decades because of the industrial revolution
And everything was hunky-dory. Everything was going along tickety-boo as they say
And they got into a
Catastrophic war over just the assassination of an Austrian official
so
Things were going well then but I don't think things are going
particularly well in the world right now because
Back then
We were we had stable currencies
There wasn't
Much debt in the world
governments had only a minor
Influence on the life of the average guy from day-to-day anywhere. There were minor things in
five ten percent of the GNP was
Taken by the government so and
World War one was an utter and complete
Catastrophe that changed world history now
We've got a much more unstable
Situation
and
Everybody's kind of plumping for a fight
So, yeah, I think World War three is on the way. I don't know what what the exact nature of it'll be
But yeah, we're we're we're headed for the big one
To comments about
World War one. I read a book called the african kaiser actually and it was very interesting
I think you'd you'd enjoy us about this general paul von
Leto vorbeck, I guess
and it was interesting about it was this basically general who was
Fighting in world war one on behalf of the germans in africa
And
You know, I always think of europe you think of the centerpiece as
Only europe, but there's a reason why it was called a world war is that it spilled over all over the place
Yeah, so that would have been in germany when tanga nuka was a german colony or it could have been when
Namibia
Was a german colony or when cameroon
Was a german colony and I think I'm missing out of their place. So where would he have been?
least africa
Do you remember that?
Do you ever see the humphrey bogart and cathard heppern movie the african queen?
Yes, yeah, it's good. Yeah, great movie actually
Yeah, I really like it
Yeah, it was it was just shocking to me as I just didn't understand the scope of the conflict
Well outside off the continent. I just didn't even understand it. So
But we're like now
We see this too. I mean you could argue. There's what wagner troops
That are working in africa
You know, so there's there there is there is spillover. I mean apparently some ukrainian special forces have
You know been deployed to different areas to in africa as well
You know, it's it's it's bizarre
Actually that there is spillover already in these kind of minor no one even notices them conflicts
All over the world already
so
Yeah, that's right
and maybe we're witnessing the
The rise of genuine private armies and they've always been there because
When in the 19th century, uh, what was his name his first name it was walker
uh, who was called a
was called a um
He was a freebooter
but there's another name a um
Basically tried to conquer nicaragua and honduras and costa rica
A filibuster was the term they used for for for these guys and he almost succeeded
so
Yeah, I'm just reading about this guy actually now look at the looks them up. Yeah filibustering expeditions
He went to mexico and nicaragua at different points
yeah
I mean those were the days you rounded up a a few friends that
you know
You know this country looks like it's low hanging fruit. Let's take it over and have some fun
Well, I guess you could still do that today, but it's not as easy as it used to be because um,
you know, I remember, uh
taking a
Taking a course that was taught by gene kill
patrick who you may recall was the
American ambassador to the united nations
And she was one of my professors at at georgetown
and uh
I do remember very distinctly sitting in her class with a friend of mine vince auger later became a judge in
Cincinnati
and
We had different ideas
We were less law abiding in those days than we are now and kill patrick mentioned. Yes
in africa today
Uh, a few white men with military experience can easily take over a country and this is what kill patrick who is the
ambassador to the united nations was telling her students in class because it was factually accurate
Okay, I don't think you can do that anymore because
In those days there weren't any native african armies to speak of it was possible, but now it's not possible
because these guys
courtesy of the u.s. And others have
They've gotten, you know serious military training and serious weapons
So you can't just come in and knock over a country anymore
Those days will kind of go on
Uh, oh well, maybe they'll come back maybe in the after whatever happens in the next couple decades
Maybe there'll be a new opportunity for a new generation. That's that's right
It could happen as these african countries break up
Which they will do along tribal and ethnic lines and they'll need outside help to
Organize things a bit for them. So, yeah, sure the market always presents new opportunities and uh
And like and the religions and the russians are in a good position to take advantage of it now
They're having, you know, they're
Yeah, it's it's great
And maybe the chinese now there's going to be lots of lots of
Ukrainian guys with serious military experience that are going to decide
You know, i'm not really suited too much else others and go out and fight
Where's the best place to fight? Well, yeah, probably africa. Yeah
Yeah
Yeah, well, you know and in
the way the way that world war one became world war one is that the for some reason every
Major state was forced or felt compelled to pick sides in the whole thing and that's you definitely see that happening now
And those sides are getting they're firming up. I think that, you know, like what's what
This is a moment of truth for turkey. For instance, like what side are they really on and you're seeing, you know, they seem to be
Uh, I actually I didn't want to say it because it's so confusing right now
But it seems to be that they're on that they basically chosen to be on the opposite side of the russians and what's happening now at least
and um
Everyone's picking sides and you see this this transcends maybe the
Netic stuff it goes into the economic matters and they and then from that
The other day use we know about the rise of bricks as an economic union
It's been going on for a while and it was kind of a nothing burger until
the u.s. Took this
This cat has made this catastrophic error with seizing the reserve assets of russia
Um, and then now it started to become more of an economic reality
It's still a long way to go before, you know, it was a real serious threat, but
The first time trump ever mentioned bricks as far as I know
Uh was in his threat to them that he made the other day that if they did not
essentially kiss the ring of the dollar that they would be on the on the on the
business side of a hundred percent tariff
And what do you think of that whole?
I I know it's a kick we had negotiating play with them
He always starts off really hard, you know, like uh with rocket man in north korea, you know, the end of being friends, right?
So it could be a negotiation play, but
I don't know. What do you just think of the comment in general?
dangerous and foolish and
He's like setting himself up to not be taken seriously because it's kind of a ridiculous comment
I mean you can't
well can't
look
It bears saying again the major export by far of the u.s
for the last
Over 40 years has not been soybeans or bowings. It's been the dollar
So and the and the export of the dollar is
Largely responsible for the high standard of living we have in the u.s
We ship paper money to them and they ship real wealth to us. It's been a great trade so far
Except that's a huge liability that's building up. So yeah, I can see why
Why trump somebody explained to him probably that this is the way it works
So, yeah, he doesn't want to see the dollar not be accepted because it's going to result in a
Not only a collapse in our standard of living
But the re-importation of all those dollars in exchange for real wealth, which will go the other way
Yeah, I understand that
so, uh
But but listen, it's it's like you jump off the top of a building
How are you going to stop yourself from hitting the ground?
This has been going on for 40 years and just
Retaining these people which the u.s. Isn't in a position to do anymore
Isn't going to work. It's just going to create more antagonism
you know
Yeah, and it's one of my concerns isn't this bifurcation from an economic perspective
we should
I guess I'd like to talk to you more about it later to flush out my own thinking around it
but the idea is that the idea that
There does seem to be a real bifurcation of
The world and on economic lines where there's at least a preference for BRICS countries to trade with one another over
Western countries and that you start to see these things like china, you know
Uh
Has a new ban on certain minerals
To the u.s. Now and they're the great source of those minerals for us and
And maybe that's maybe it's just a warning shot. Maybe it's maybe you know, maybe it's something
It'll be a real big problem for us. I don't know but you know, and you see china working
To to make real inroads in certain countries
You know, they have this new port that's coming online in peru for instance
You know, they they've made huge infrastructure investments in africa and a lot of latin america
They're there are countries that have aligned more with them with the and the resources, you know
Or they get preferential sale to the chinese they they'd prefer to sell into that market than to the u.s. market
For a whole bunch of reasons and you you know our
My concern is really that the
We've taken for granted that the the we we know what the price of soybeans are because we can see it
You know traded on the chicago border trade we could see it and we could see how much
iron ore is going for
At least, you know in the futures market, and I know that's not exactly representative of reality
Completely in any one time because there's private contracts that the sales really hurt, but
I'd see this bifurcation of these markets themselves
and the price discovery mechanism gets really
confused in that because if china is the biggest consumer of all of these minerals
And more and more their purchases are opaque to western markets not going through western exchanges
What effect does that have on the?
On us on the western markets on the mining companies we invest in and you know
I don't know what does it was what i'm saying makes sense
I worry about the the buy as these markets bifurcate do we even
Is could we find out that there's not a market for things?
that there's the value and because
Just a general comment
That I don't think anybody really considers very much
It's that people talk about china is doing this the us is doing that germany is doing the third thing
But wait a minute these governments don't produce anything. It's the companies
within these countries that actually mine things and build things and sell things
So it's uh
It's dysfunctional
that
You know individual companies should be making these decisions as to who they buy from and sell to and for how much
And when they talk we talk about china or the us or any other
It's actually the government. It's like they actually control all these companies and tell them what they can do and can't do
Which is really dysfunctional because governments naturally make decisions based on political
Realities political wants as opposed to economic wants which have to do with
Your standard of living and how well
So, you know, that's that's wrong to start with I hate talking about what a country is doing
as opposed to what
many individual companies within that country
might want to or might not want to do but um
Yeah, uh, the us has tried to cut china off from
technology and investments
And it's kind of tit for tat. I mean, this is like game theory
If somebody does something
Well, you have to do something back. That's like standard game theory. Otherwise
If he gets away with that, well, let's do twice as much the next time. So you really have to
For every measure there has to be a countermeasure. Otherwise, you're going to be walked over
and uh
You know, if the chinese do this then trump
Is kind of belligerent as he tends to be
We'll all say oh, oh, you're cutting off our supply of gallium
Well, we'll do something else to you and how the chinese have to do something else and this is how it escalates
So it's it's bad news
What happens is something like a big resource like copper if
The major consumer of it is china
um
You know, we have copper investments. So like yeah, I just wonder what happens to those
If you know if if things escalate and this bifurcation continues
It's possible you could be sitting on a great you could own a great company in a great
Otherwise jurisdiction that allows them to produce it and all of that but somehow
It ended up the whole investment be spoiled because of this idea that you know, it's a
It's you know, it's it becomes a national strategic priority of some kind to not do business with those bad guys
Yeah, uh
china needs all this copper to make all kinds of goods
And then if they can't export the goods certainly not to the us at 100 percent duties or whatever ridiculous number
Trump has come up with and maybe he'll talk other countries into punishing china the same way
And so you you're not going to be using that much copper anymore
I mean, this is it's really hard to uh project. It's like a kaleidoscope
You change the kaleidoscope, you know the kids toy just a little bit
And everything changes just with a tiny little turn
Yeah
Yes, it's definitely you can't project anything in a linear basis anymore
Wild okay, um
Well, we uh, I wanted to hear we have a few questions from some of our file members
I wanted to get to but first I want to just get your thoughts on this
public assassination of this CEO of this health insurance company united
The company
Yeah, well, yeah from from what you know
Listen, I don't have health insurance
I don't need health insurance down here and if you can avoid having insurance
You want to avoid it for all kinds of reasons. That's a whole separate discussion
But uh, so I recently discovered that united health is a gigantic health provider with what
30 million 40 million
Policy holders or whatever. Yeah, something like that. Yeah
something like that and
another number that's
In the news is that their their rate of claim denial is
Twice the industry average and larger than that of any other company
and another
you know factet that's come out is that
the
the management
And I generally hate management and suits just unless they're fine founding entrepreneurs
These guys are making a lot of money
and so, yeah, I think uh
Some little people might be pretty pissed off if they get their claims
Yeah, so my my general feeling is I'm a nonviolent guy
Because yeah, he had it coming
Yeah, I mean, you know at least there's a apparently he made
I don't something like 10 million dollars in compensation for 2023
He sold 20 million dollars worth of stock earlier this year in 2024
So he's a rich guy walking around the streets of new york alone and um
Yeah, this guy what did you just did you watch the video of the hit?
Did you did you think that any thoughts about that specifically about what he did and how it was done?
As you wrote a book you wrote it was a picture. It was a novel
But a part of your trilogy the last one was called assassin
Yes
Yes, and assassin which is a as a novel I can recommend it as something that's fun to read with lots and lots of
information in it that
In today's world certainly is best presented in the form of fiction as opposed to nonfiction
If you don't want to get into a lot of trouble and um
Yeah, I think a case can be made
for uh
selectively punishing
high up officials
Certainly government officials but really corporate officials too since big corporations are
hand in glove with the government and a fascist system
and assassin talks about the
moral case and the technical means for um
Taking out uh
cancerous elements
Well, hey, that's vigilanteism. You shouldn't do that
but uh
when the court system because and
The justice system becomes thoroughly dysfunctional
Uh, the market has to handle it
So, uh, yeah, read the book
It's on amazon
What is the uh, what is the the root of the word?
Vigilanteism though vigilante. What's what's the I don't I don't know
Could it be from the word vigil and
anti
before
Let me see if I can find because I just curious what what, you know, vigilanteism has a
Bad meaning but the etymology of it. I just wonder what it actually means
um
It's derived from the latin word, uh, vigilantes
Which means watchful
Mm-hmm, and uh
Ah
Yeah, so it's yeah, it's it's watchful guardian
Right
Well, vigilanteism
No, I don't think so and really it's
uh only a bad thing when you have a
a functional and just
court system
but
uh
Let's say let's say you lived in
What would be a good example?
if you lived in a
chaotic country where there was no
reliable
system of justice
Well, you have to straighten things out on a
local individual level
and there are problems with it, but um
Well, listen this court case this this case in new york with the marine who uh
Was defending the Daniel pair Perry
Yes, defending the other members of the other riders in the subway car from a lunatic
Well, I think he did the right thing and what he did is completely justifiable
And he should get off with no penalties at all. That's what I think because you can't just let and an award from the city
a good
He should get an award from the city because you can't let
A crazy dangerous lunatic wander around like that. So yeah, he's a he's a vigilante
And I think there's a place for vigilanteism unless you're gonna put a
An official uniform cop in every subway car and on every street corner and turn the place into a police state. Yeah
Yeah, I mean you have to have a have to have room for that because the idea of
The police is really that they're
I mean the role that police really act as though they have and my you know my
Dad is a retired cop. It's it's a
You know, they have a presence to have make people feel that there's someone there and then beyond that
It's to do the paperwork and you know
And to process after the crime. It's not to stop crime
No, they don't it's just not how it works
Yeah
Yeah, that's right
You have to have citizens that are engaged with with the public order or else you have public disorder
I don't know how to avoid it. Otherwise
Yeah, and the way things are set up today
citizens that try to do the right thing
like daniel perry did are
punished and
intimidated
for
Trying to do the right thing
so it's uh
Our system is becoming rather dysfunctional and this is uh something that
Was that I was talking about a lot more and uh was actually in the news and this is the um
Visual anti-ism within a courtroom and this is the um
Jesus why can't I remember what we call it? It's where a um
Jury nullification
In other words, it used to be in the united states that uh a jury
was the final
Arbiter of what was right or wrong
And it didn't matter what the law said if somebody was being tried for well like in daniel perry's case or many many other things
For breaking the law
Uh, if the jury thought no it was justified and he should have broken the law
Well, the jury would nullify the law
And I think that's the way it ought to be
but today
Uh juries are universally instructed that they're supposed to follow the orders of the judge and the court and they can't
uh
acquit a person just because they don't think the law is just
or
That just because he violated the law
It was a good thing in this case
So I'm all for jury nullification. Which is a form of vigil anti-ism actually
But uh, when did that change? When did that change? Is it and is there uh, was there a
Court case that changed that the role now when when did
jury nullification become
um
Well actually kind of illegal
Uh, when did that?
When did that trend?
Reverse that better change. It's a good question historically
Because I was involved uh with the jury nullification movement
Which had uh, this is about 15 years ago
uh
But I would
Even the organization
That I used to belong to
I was the director of it actually. I should know I should be able to remember but it never got traction. Nobody cared
Hmm
It says
Uh
So technically they say it's still legal. They say it's it remains legal, but
Bridges are not required to inform juries about it attorneys are often prohibited from explicitly arguing for nullification
Yeah, and jurors can be removed if they express intent to nullify during selection
Yeah, yeah, exactly
I mean, I've never been on a jury
And I had very mixed feelings about
Being on a jury because I'm sure if it was anything substantial
Uh
You know, I wouldn't want to lie beforehand to the judge about because they ask you these questions if you believe in it
So what am I going to do?
Tell a lie to the judge you can get in trouble for that
So it would be impossible that I never would have been on a jury even if I'd been selected, which I never was
by happenstance
But uh, yeah, I think it's a great thing
Yeah, it'd be nice to see that make a comeback. Maybe if that could be
Somehow popularized in the zeitgeist that people have the ability to do that
You know, I mean, I know always tries to get out of jury duty
But if you, you know come into the jury duty with you think you can actually
Do some good
Of course because jury nullification a jury being forced to serve on a jury. It's actually involuntary server to it
and uh
So my solution to that problem would be that everything should be voluntary and
You should have professional jurors
who are
Who selected as jurors
because they are
knowledgeable
They're wise. They're incorruptible
Those are the people that you want for jurors
Not not just, you know, any bum off the street
who
Yeah, I'm happy to serve and get $35 a day and
And and and three hots
While I'm on the jury. That's not the kind of person you want on a jury. You want somebody that's
That's, you know
properly qualified by what I just said
Yeah
There's so much energy put into uh, like jury consultants too to try and
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah
Selecting the right. Yeah, the whole thing is a charade
Yeah, it's a charade. I agree. Okay. So let's get to some of these questions. Um
Someone asks about what's going on with an cap radio. So they haven't been broadcast since july and haven't heard anything about it on x
Well
That's really
Dave Henderson's baby
Dave is a very old friend of mine
lives in new zealand
And in new zealand he ran he's he's got a very interesting
Backstory and there was a movie done about about his life called be very afraid
And uh, he's absolutely fearless and incorruptible among other things. He ran
four radio stations in
New zealand in the four major cities
That were actually an cap radio stations
Anyway, don't want to get into that. So we decided to do this
in the radio thing
on x promoting free market values and that and
So
Dave is trying to figure out a way to make it viable and viable means economic and economic means
You know, not a money loser anyway, so, uh, I think it'll come back
okay
All right next question is
Do you believe prohibition impacted organized crime? And if so, what impact might cbdcs have on organized crime?
prohibition impacted organized crime very very favorably. I mean prohibition actually
Supercharged if not actually created the mafia
Because before the mafia, you know, he had some, you know, low-life Italian migrants and you know, they engage in
Minor unorganized crime shaking people down on that
But when you when you uh, illegalize a whole class of
desirable
Drugs if you would alcohol
Uh products products. Yes
You need an organization to provide
These products on a mass scale and it happened to be a criminal organization because alcohol was made illegal
So as usual laws are wonderful for organized crime and the same is true of
Illegalizing drugs drugs are bad gotta illegalize them. Well, okay, they're bad, but it's not your body
It's not your choice and by illegalizing it. You've created these giant court cartels and so forth
So it's counterproductive and stupid like almost everything the government does
so, uh
that answers the first part of the question and uh
I don't think that there's any way for uh
Cartels or or the mafia or whatever to get involved in
Cryptocurrencies or or whatever
but
Because the biggest thing with this the idea is that if there's a black market in the money
Or if money is made uh outside of the central bank digital currency illegal
Then maybe there might be a black market of the criminal
organized crime that forms around it. But the problem is is that
With the prohibition the uh criminals were delivering a known product
They had to produce and distribute and sell a product but and with the cbdc easier. It's you're not selling a product. You're not providing an alternative
product you want to provide an alternative means of exchange and that's that's not really uh
No, that's right much harder
Yeah, in other words, um
digital currencies are things that
people doing illegal things might use
But it's not the basis for their existence like alcohol during prohibition was
So, uh, I'm all for I'm I'm a strong supporter of bitcoin
And any other digital currency that
Might arise it seems viable like bitcoin is I'm not in favor of the government having a cbdc because that will be
A means for them to control absolutely everything
Because everything will go through them and their digital currency whereas bitcoin is
Informal and owned by the market not controlled by the government. So different things totally different things
Okay, so next question is could trump get rid of the term limit on the basis of needing more time to complete his plans
And to compete against long-term leaders like putin and g
Um, and that would give them the ability to provide stability like these long-term leaders can in our four-year cycle
It's hard to it's easy to see how we might be outmaneuvered by countries that
They have leadership and policies that sustain beyond that
yeah
well
the world in general and the us in particular is becoming increasingly unstable
and uh
Who knows what kind of a crisis?
situation
Will arise during the next four years
And maybe trump or the people around him will decide
My god, we can't have an election in 28 because there's just going to be chaos
We can't have it. Maybe because there'll be secession movements in the country. Maybe that'll happen
Maybe because there's a gigantic economic financial crisis
uh
Who knows what it could be they might decide that like Zelensky everybody's
Everybody's candidate for the best and wisest ruler in the world who runs the ukraine
I mean, he decided not to have an election
And nobody ever talks about that. I thought I thought it was supposed to be ukraine
The ukraine was supposed to be about defending democracy against russia. It's a really stupid idea, but there's no, you know
You know anything could happen
in in this
Multicultural domestic empire called the united states now
All right, uh next question is about roger ver
He asks if given the recent imprisonment of roger ver also known as bitcoin jesus an early advocate for bitcoin
Have either of us read his book hijacking bitcoin
Um, we haven't we discussed this earlier. I need one of us to read it
But yeah, I know you've met roger ver and talked to him at least a couple times, right?
Yeah, no, I'm yeah. No, I've spent some time with roger. He's a very likable guy
um
And a very sincere guy
And I think a very rich guy also having been a very early adopter of bitcoin
but um
I think roger suffers from ptsd because of his interactions
With the us government and having already been imprisoned because he's he's really a sensitive and gentle guy
Not the kind of guy that does well in a prison. Okay
and
That being the case
I don't understand what he was doing in spain because for some reason
um
Who's unmak if he was young mac right who became a friend of mine before he
What the hell was he doing in spain?
Which has an extradition treaty with the u.s. He should have gone to brazil for god's sake where
uh
There's no extradition
and
Uh
What was roger doing in spain? I don't understand that
they hadn't um
Brought public charges on him yet and and as I understand that he had this dispute with the irs
But it was being you know, they were it was the lawyers talking and there weren't charges filed. That's the way I understand it and so
um
It was I think he was blindsided by the by the charges that showed up
Yeah, well, I think he would have been better off
in brazil or some other non extradition treaty
government uh country
that's
Somewhat or odds with the u.s. Government that would help I mean look
I think wrong with russia
frankly
I mean
It's actually not a bad place to hang out. I mean just as you know if you're a citizen there who's got some money
I mean
It's not like the
Fsb is gonna follow you around or anything like it's not like in the soviet days
It's actually kind of an okay place whether you like butan or don't like butan
and
Other things but it's it's actually a normal country
It would be a normal country if the u.s. Wasn't making war on it should have gone to russia worked. Okay for um
Edward snowden edward snowden, right?
Yeah, that's too bad this situation with him's bad and the thing is is that this because of the arrest happened
Right after this book was published
There's it's great fodder for
Conspiracies that it's because he's revealing these
Details about bitcoin and how he I I haven't heard the book but as I understand
He feels like it's been fundamentally captured, which is why he which is why he
You know was a great endorser of the bitcoin cash fork and why he you know
advocated for that for years and years
um
And but I think
The fact the timing people think is suspicious this book comes out where he lays it all out
And then he's arrested of course these issues were going back years and also should be said that he was arrested
He expatriated more than eight years ago like gave up his u.s. Citizenship a long time ago
And this is his alleged tax evasion comes from
part of his
You know renouncing process, you know we have to you have to do uh
You know you have to basically
Act as though you sold all the assets you own on the day before you
expatriate right
right right
Yeah, well
Roger ought to be
thankful that
Kamala wasn't
Elected because he'd been a world of trouble. Maybe
Maybe it'll be a story with a
Satisfactory or even a happy ending now that the trumpies are involved because they're they say they're pro bitcoin
and
He's and trump has said that he wants to
Not tax american citizens who are living abroad
Which is fair
We're about the only country in the world that does that
So
We'll know more in two or three months
Yeah, I hope so the the thing is that if he's so if the like the bitcoin community really turned against roger
Because he was a strong advocate
For this bitcoin cash and the major selling point was the flaws
That he saw in bitcoin that didn't enhance freedom. I guess was it was the major theme of it. So
I'm not wondering if it'll work against him in a way. I hope not
I mean, I hope that trump will come in and I mean
Especially if their biden's gonna do a bunch of these silly pardons, maybe even vouchy
Silly destructive evil
pardons, but even hopefully trump comes in and
you know
pardons snowed and
pardons roger and
Oh, I can't what's the guy's the poor guy the silk road guy who's been in prison for a long time now
Oh, uh ross albright ross albright. Yeah, hopefully pardons these people and
Gets it, you know, and all the j6 people too just gets it
Puts these issues in the past. Yeah, I hope trump does that
Well, if if he doesn't if he doesn't pardon ross
Then I I think there's an unforgivable oversight on his part. He should have done it in his first term
Should have done it in his yeah, the problem with trump, of course, as I've said many times. He has absolutely no
philosophical core
He's just got gut feelings
And since he's a cultural conservative
We like a lot of his gut feelings, but they're unpredictable and based on nothing but
Gut feeling that's the problem with trump
So I pardon a little little wane, you know, let's resin some other rapper, but didn't pardon albright
Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's it crazy. It really is
This is gonna be so interesting
The next four years in fact the next two months might even be interesting. I mean
Things are like every week has been interesting for the last
Four years really let's be honest
It's been exciting
And you know right now it's like it's like one of those old western movies where
They're under attack
And the one soldier says to the other, you know, it's quiet out there. You know, the guy says, yeah
I think it's too quiet
And it's kind of like that now in between now in january what 20th or whenever he's installed
Yeah
Yeah, no kidding. There's one there's one more question. I didn't mention it to you beforehand, but someone just asked for
comments on the uruguayan elections
Uruguayan elections happened here. I guess the final round was
last week or 10 days or something like that and
The center left candidate one
and uh
I don't know. Do you have any comments about uruguayan politics or the candidate anything at all?
Well, I don't follow it because
I really don't like the the last guy
What was his name?
Cajet Poe
Yeah, I don't even know the names of these people
But from everything I could see and feel
He was a you know decent guy an okay guy
and the new guy is apparently uh was mentored by
Pepe Mujica
who was a
Ultra left radical during the 60s, but when he was in office, he didn't steal any money
I mean he lived like a simple farmer
And didn't really screw things up greatly. Well, he did a little bit like he had
I guess it was under Mujica that they installed a 0.00
tolerance
for alcohol driving
Which for a resort community a beach community is really kind of stupid and unrealistic
So he did that
and the other thing that Mujica did was that uh
You know, they used to say Uruguay was a Switzerland of South America with bank profit secrecy and
Things of that nature and he kind of knocked those barriers down now so
You can determine one way or another who owns real estate
and and so forth which
So
And this guy is was mentored by him so
Yeah, I mean
But on the other hand, this is kind of a slow-moving socially stable country
I don't know no snow for him opinions. He's not a raving lunatic, which he might have been could have been
Yeah, it's uh
Just the big thing with Uruguay and I'm just you know, I've only been here for three years. So, you know, you don't really
You can't it's very hard to comment on
Unless you're really really been in place for a long time and you understand the nuances of the the political wins and everything
But I asked my and cap Uruguayan friends
Uh before he won I said, well, what happens this guy wins. Are you worried and they're like, oh, no
No
Reality it won't make any they're basically all the same
You know, they don't like the state, of course in general and they're like, yeah
You know around the edges you get some things like we got the under the last president
They increase the number of guns that an individual could own for instance. Oh, yeah, right
Now so you get these little benefits, you know, and so maybe they'll for the new
You know, maybe there's something around the edge where they they move that back down to where it was before
But you know, like it's just trimming is around the edges
Um is probably what's what I would expect
I think you're right. Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. Yeah, that's why I read it too
So no no big negative change
One positive thing is that, uh, you know, we were trying
Uruguay has been trying to get a free trade agreement with China for a long time
and uh
Because we're in the trade block with the the Mercasor
Countries here. So brazil and argentina it was always
Made impossible by our much larger much more powerful neighbors
But mille of course wants a free trade agreement with the us and other countries
so he's
uh pushing very hard to break that rule and get it broken for all of the countries in this trade block, which would be
Really good for everyone down here. Maybe not great for
Short term for controlled interest in brazil, which is kind of the major veto on all these things, but
Yeah, I mean, I think we'll hopefully we'll get some positive things from mille even, you know, infecting things here
Indirect, yeah
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean as argentina straightens up and starts flying
Flying right
Yeah, it'll have a favorable influence on
Uruguay certainly and maybe brazil too
Maybe chile too
Yeah
All right. Well, I think that's that's it for today, Doug. So we'll leave it there and then we'll be back today is that
Jesus, what's it? Oh today's friday
Right. Yeah. Yeah
Today's friday. I'm getting lost right with day the week it is
Now it's academic
Yeah
And we're advancing towards the end of the year
It's coming fast. We got our christmas tree already, Doug. I'm not already, but it's about that time
Yeah, well once again to quota
A rock song which and rock songs
Actually are the poetry of our days, you know, it's not like people don't read poetry anymore
People don't read words worth and god knows who but they quote rock songs and rocks
Rock song lyrics are the poetry of our days. So it's an what is that?
It's a work a day world and the whistle blows
And another day goes down the drain
As is another podcast, all right, thanks Doug. I'll see you next. Okay, thanks
You