WEBVTT

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Yeah, it actually does seem like we're experiencing a war against the middle class in general and

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white people in particular. I'm shocked that to come to that conclusion, I mean, actually quite

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shocked that I can say that and it seems reasonable. But I think it's happening. I mean, your enemy,

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I've always felt, of course, that the U.S. government is your clear and present danger,

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your main enemy. It's not the Iranian government. They're not in a position to do anything to us.

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They may not like us, and they have plenty of reasons not to like us, but they're not a danger.

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What's a danger to us is our own damned government, which over the last 12 years or so

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or more actually has been filled with Jacobins that hate the middle class. And basically,

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even if they're white people, they hate white people. I mean, it's just, there's reasons for this,

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but yeah, something wicked this way comes very quickly.

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All right. Good morning, Doug. Well, it's morning for me. It's 440 a.m. here, and I

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guess it's what, like, the time is where you are. Yeah, it's 340 on Friday the 4th for me here in Phuket.

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And I've been to Phuket several times before an island off the coast of Thailand,

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but we'll get back to that in a moment, perhaps. Yeah, okay.

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Today. Yeah, we always like to do what happened this day in history, and I'm just

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seeing what notable things there are, and there are a couple of interesting things.

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And today in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite.

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Well, I remember it started the space race, and I think most of us Americans,

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and of course, I was just a little kid back then, were quite amazed that those primitive,

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risky peasants stomping around in the mud with their great stomping boots were capable of

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putting something into orbit that the Americans had not up until that time. So the space race

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started, and all the rest of that nonsense. Anyway, this day in history, and we've gone a

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long way since then because the next step is to Mars, hopefully not with NASA, but with Elon

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Musk, I'd say. But that's no different subject. What else happened today?

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Well, we also had today in 1927, they started sculpting Mount Rushmore.

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Yeah, it's a marvelous thing. I've seen it, and it's impressive. They have Washington

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and Jefferson, but then they put on Abraham Lincoln, who fought an entirely unnecessary

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war between the states resulting in 700,000 deaths and basically tearing up and destroying

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the Constitution. So I'm not a fan of Lincoln on any basis. And I guess I don't know if we've had

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discussions of the so-called civil war and its very aspects, but in my opinion,

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Lincoln does not belong on Mount Rushmore or on the penny or on the $5 bill,

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but the penny is going to disappear soon because I think it costs the government about

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$80 million per year to mint zinc but copper plated pennies that nobody uses. Anyway,

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the fourth character is Teddy Roosevelt, who I would say that if I was going to hang out with

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anybody for a week of all the presidents, he would be one of my top choices. I mean,

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he was a genuine Renaissance man, many, many admirable qualities, except politically,

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he was a statist, fomenting wars and loving it.

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An imperialist, really, right?

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An imperialist, yes. So he started, from that point of view, a very nasty trend in American

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society with being involved in the Spanish-American War and its consequences thereafter.

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So anyway.

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It is interesting that the other people would have been on, you know,

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they're much more historical figures. I mean, he was almost contemporary

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to the time when they were doing Mount Rushmore. Isn't that strange?

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Yeah, it is strange. And the same thing is happening with the national currency where

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in the past, we used to have Indians and mythical figures and all that.

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The currency in the past, founding father, okay, Washington, special, special deal.

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But, you know, in recent times, we've gotten up to right after World War II,

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well, first thing was putting Lincoln on a penny. I mean, this is like ancient Rome

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used to have just gods and goddesses and concepts on their coins. And it was,

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it started to show the show its degradation when it put current or near current people and

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that across the emperors were always enshrined. And I guess it started with Lincoln and who was

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the next person? Well, they put Jefferson on the nickel and I think it was 1939,

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but was really objectionable was in 1946. What was that? Two years after FDR died,

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they put him on the dime. I mean, this is something that's just died is enshrined on the dime.

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So, well, but all our, all our, the good, the good news is all of our

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coinage will cease to exist in the very near future. So we won't have.

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Yeah, the bad news is eventually it'll all be digital and, you know, we won't have faces

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on it anymore, but we'll be attracted to it when we spend everything.

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Yeah, exactly. So what are you going to do? All right. So what else happened?

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The other interesting thing is that in 1883, the Orient Express made its first journey

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from Paris to Istanbul. Yeah. Well, I'm all for the railroads and being able to go from

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one place to another over long distances. I rode the Orient Express both ways,

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not quite from Paris. I rode it from Baron Switzerland to Istanbul as a hippie. And

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we were, we were in third class coming and going, maybe we were in second class

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going to Istanbul, but we were definitely in third class coming back with, with

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the unclean toilets and gypsies in the, in the aisles with their sheep.

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But listen, nothing against the gypsies because they shared their food with us because,

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you know, our financial planning is basically hippie college kids was we'd pissed away all our

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money in Istanbul and we just had enough for the plane train tickets. We were prudent enough

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to figure that out anyway. So on the way back, we, you know, we're bumming food from gypsies

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who very kindly gave us something to eat and, and cigarettes, which were only 10 cents a pack

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back in those days, local cigarettes, which were actually quite good. So. So they didn't

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gyp you? No, they didn't. They realized that we were too poor and bedraggled to be worth

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trying to gyp. Anyway, we're no longer gypsies. They're aroma, if you please. Right. That's

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right. And if you go to Romania, especially, they're such a damn nuisance because they sick

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their kids on you. The kids attached themselves to your legs like limpets, and they won't go away

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until you give money to them. They've got to let go of your leg to take the money or until you

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drag them into a shop and the shop owner will kick them off your legs.

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They hold you hostage, essentially. Oh, they do. Gypsies are not popular in

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any place in Europe, but certainly where there are large numbers of them. And they say

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after the Jews, gypsies were Hitler's prime prey. But there are so many of them,

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and they were so obvious. I thought he killed them all, but I guess not. Anyway,

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who knows? This is one of these questions that it's impossible to answer if only because it's

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totally politically incorrect to actually look into what the facts may or may not be.

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Exactly. Yeah, totally incorrect. Just real quick on, talk about the railroad.

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I don't know if you see there's like, we have a for in the crisis investing portfolio,

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we have an investment in a copper company, small copper company in Zambia. And

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there's this railroad that they utilize still. And the Chinese are spending huge amounts of money to

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improve this railroad. This is on the east side of Africa. And then at the same time,

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on the west side of Africa, the U.S. is now getting into this huge amounts of money in

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order to build a competing railroad that basically doesn't go quite over to Zambia,

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but it goes to Congo. And it's funny to see these railroads becoming a huge,

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important thing again when they've been basically discounted for so long. Have you seen that?

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Yeah, because actually, I'm here in Phuket with Michael Yan, the war correspondent and combat

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photographer who makes it his business to monitor all that kind of stuff. And I'll talk to Michael

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about it. He's quite interested and he's concerned about the Chinese expanding over the world.

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So, well, I'm kind of happy as a speculator in that stock we recommended, because it's up from

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22 cents to 38 cents. So, it's treated really well over the last, what, five months, I guess it is.

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And that's not even warrant, which is a big extra freebie. So, I'm all for building railroads

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and to enter around Zambia and the Congo because it will make it easier to develop

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compromise. When I was looking into this, what I learned is that the railroad that they're still

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utilizing that the Chinese have invested huge amounts of new money in was originally built by Mao.

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It's not right. So, the belt thing started long before

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Xi. Mao did it. Mao did it. You know, in my gym in Virginia, I have a collection of

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when I get back to Virginia, assuming I'm ever able to go back to Virginia,

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I have a pretty good collection of Mao era posters showing the workers and the peasants

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around the world. Of them, they're all on the wall, so they're easy to see.

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I have about three or four of them show the Chinese and Africa during the days of Mao

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with the Africans all having their little red book and all this type of thing. So,

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yes, I think you're, I think you're quite correct.

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Yeah, it's apparently it was 5600 kilometers that they did and they did it in,

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it's called the Hazara Railway. Yeah.

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I was shocked by that. I was like, whoa, so we got in a way, we have to

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you know, thank Mao for that, for that investment, because if they didn't have

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any infrastructure there to get the stuff out, it would probably be bad.

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That's right. You know, there's so much history behind the scenes that we're just

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unaware of. Anyway, that's interesting. Well, tell us what your experience has been in Asia so far.

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I know you were in Malaysia, you were in Kuala Lumpur for a while, now you're in Thailand.

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What are your impressions? I haven't, haven't been to Asia since before COVID,

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before the COVID hysteria. And so I spent 10 days in Kuala Lumpur and so far I've been

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in Thailand. I guess I've been here a week so far. I'm staying another 10 days.

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And I'll stay here in Phuket. So just to bring people up to date, because I don't think

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that Americans go to Malaysia at all. The other Farangs,

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which is the word for foreigners in this part of the world generally,

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were all Europeans, really no other Americans in Malaysia and KL at all. And as far as KL is

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concerned, when I first went there in 1980, it was a totally different place. It has been

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terraformed since then. It has an extremely modern building with dozens, well certainly

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eight dozen, really tall skyscrapers, including several of the tallest in the world like the Patronas

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Towers and others that they're building now that are even taller. Very advanced, very clean, very

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safe, very civilized. And what's interesting to me, very comparable to Singapore, actually KL,

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but much lower cost than Singapore. You can get everything you want or need. The hotels are excellent

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and inexpensive, very inexpensive, even cheaper than here in Thailand. So having spent time in Malaysia

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before and been to a number of places other than KL, I've got to say Malaysia is developing

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nicely. In the past, I mean, this must have been 20 years ago when I went up to the northern provinces

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of Malaysia. And it's very seriously Muslim up there. And it was kind of visible and uptight

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and couldn't get a beer, this kind of thing. So those northern provinces,

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Malaysia was put together after World War II from a bunch of sultanates, basically. I think there were

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like 10 that were cobbled together to create Malaysia and then the British had what they call

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the war of the running dogs against Malays that didn't like the British there. Anyway,

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bottom line, if you're going to be doing any traveling in this part of into Southeast Asia,

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I would go to KL and be favorably impressed, even though it's definitely a Mohammedan society,

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but it's kind of a mellow variety of Islam. So I was last there in 2011. And it was the only

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time I was ever there. And I didn't had no idea what to expect. And I was really impressed.

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It was clean, nice. You could definitely live very luxuriously for very cheap and

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may felt perfectly safe and very comfortable for as a for as a Westerner there.

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Everything works. I mean, you know, it's so it's really a great place to live. I mean,

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you're always going to be a Farang. That's okay. But there's not a whole lot of Farang. So

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you're not considered a threat because there's not a horde of you there. So it's a candidate,

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definitely is. Any, any other observations about Malaysia? Just like surprises? Yeah,

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let me make another observation. It's that one thing that couldn't help but occur to me

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is that how this city and we're not talking about a famous place that has been inundated with oil or

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anything like that. But it's that the KL is transformed. It's a new and delightful city

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compared to American cities like Cleveland or Baltimore or Cincinnati or Chicago or

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a hundred others. They haven't changed at all. I mean, since I was a little kid and

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actually since they haven't changed at all, many of the buildings are decrepit and the streets are

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pockmarked with ruts and potholes. And so and the railroads in the US are crappy. And I flew

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into Malaysia on cutter airways. There's no question that the two best airlines in the world

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are cutter and Emirates. And they're not just better than American and European and South American

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airlines. They are orders of magnitude better. It's, it is so noticeable. It's actually just

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embarrassing. The way from just business class, you're picked up at your hotel in a proper car.

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You know, not a crappy old New York taxi that you pay for yourself. And you know, on the plane,

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they give you a pair of pajamas and and you don't just have a nice lay down seat. It's

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actually a compartment. And I'm not talking about first class. I'm just talking about

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business class. The food is it's not airline food. It's the service is it's perfect. It's

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perfect. It's just perfect. You lack for nothing. And it's ultimately and it's completely polite.

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It's not like flying on United Airlines where where the stewardess is my mother's generation

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because she flew for United during World War Two when I was, you know, you had to be a

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registered nurse and all this and young and good looking and single. So

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forget about that through all Teamsters employees. Now, now, now these Cutter and Emirates,

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which we're going to fly from Colombo, Salon to Buenos Aires in a couple of weeks,

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this is far and away, unquestionably the best airlines in the world, Cutter and Emirates.

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So anyway, another sign of how the U.S. is falling down and its cities are falling down.

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What is what do you think is driving all the economic growth in Malaysia?

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I mean, whoa, how are they able to do that?

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Well, I've got to look into it because and, you know, mea culpa. I didn't research why is

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Malaysia doing as well as it is. Because in the past, they just had chin and palm oil.

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And they still have those things. But why are they doing quite so well? I think this is worth some

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research that I'm very embarrassed that I haven't done to find exactly why this is.

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Why is it like, why does nothing work in the U.S. with these giant budgets? And

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I mean, I would suspect like the tax rate is much lower in Malaysia, too. You know,

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people pay less of their income toward it. And still you have all of this

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building and activity and safety and I don't know.

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Yeah. Yeah, it's you don't have a giant underclass that's drugged out. I mean, there are some things

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that as a libertarian, I'm somewhat flummoxed by. It's that unlike 50 years ago, how many years

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ago have I been? Well, 45 years ago when I was first here, there's no slums. They put all

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the people into acceptable apartments. Well, they tried to put the black people in cities

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in what were acceptable apartments and they all automatically turned into slums.

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In KL, you can see that these are government built high rise apartments, but they're well

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maintained and they really look like ordinary decent apartments for people that aren't rich.

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So there's no beggars. There's no people laying around in the streets.

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There's none of this San Francisco phenomenon. Why? I'm going to have the next time we're here.

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Well, I'm still here in the exotic orient. I'm going to find out why is Malaysia of all places

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doing so well. Yeah, it's interesting. Okay. What about Thailand? What observations there?

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Well, here, we didn't even go to Bangkok. We went right to Phuket and I've been here before two years

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ago and I can tell you that this island, how big is this island? Because we drove all around the

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island just to see what was going on. It's a giant beach resort, but it's not a little

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crappy Caribbean island. That's a pretty big island in the Andaman Sea in southern Thailand.

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And it is full of ultra high class resorts. I mean, we're staying at a pretty good one

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right now like where I am. I don't know if you can see it. I've got a backyard and a

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swimming pool, not a big one, but an adequate one and all this type of thing. It's a

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very nice resort with a first class gym and all the rest of it. So we're staying here,

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but the island is full of these things. And on top of that, rich Asians and rich Europeans

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and some rich Americans are building like really rich houses on the ocean here or

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overlooking the ocean. Because Thailand, for what faults it has, is a peaceful,

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quiet, happy place, notwithstanding the fact that there are separatist movements

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in Thailand in the far north with basically Muslims and in the far south with basically Muslims

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where the army is battling them. But in Thai, purely Thai areas of Thailand, it's

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extremely safe and just delightful. And once again, you can get everything that you want,

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even though this is a resort island. We're not talking about Bangkok where,

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you know, you can get anything you want in Bangkok. So one thing that kind of disturbs

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me and I'm going to talk more to Michael Yan about this because we're spending the next

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few days hanging out together is a new phenomenon here in Thailand is that there are pot shops

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everywhere. You drive around the island, I think we probably saw and there are many we

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didn't see, obviously, probably saw 30, 40 pot shops. And so I'm all for your body being

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your own possession. Do what you want with your body. I mean, and I have no problem with people

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that want to experiment with drugs or for that matter, do 10 heroin shots a day. I don't care.

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Not my business, not your business. Certainly not the government's business. But it,