Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Oct. 10, 2021
Did you buy the crypto dip? Did you ignore the debt ceiling to the benefit of your bottom line?
We hope so, and we outlined how to do it in last week's episode.
This week, we look forward to what's next in the commodity melt-up and how you can invest in it.
We discuss the continuing trend of businesses moving to more favorable tax jurisdictions.
And we wonder why the FBI raided the NYPD's sergeant's union. He must be a good apple.
Plus: Did we catch the Zodiac Killer? What's next for gold?
It's all in this week's episode of Bizarro World.
Table of Contents
1:40 Weekly Markets: Bond Yields, Inflation, Dollar, Gold, Earnings, Volatility
4:44 The Security of Social Security
10:17 Upward Mobility & Investing Against the Herd: Commodities, Cryptos, Real Estate
19:13 Did They Find the Zodiac Killer?
21:01 FBI Raids NYPD's Union, President Resigns
23:25 Tennessee Police Arrest 11 Little Kids for Non-Existant Crime
31:03 Alex Jones Found Liable Over Sandy Hook Hoax Claims
34:17 Market Week Ahead: Uranium, Earnings, Risk Back On
Gerardo Del Real: The NYPD was raided by the FBI, hilarious. Bitcoin is back, $55,000. Who told you? Nick Hodge told you last week. Gold, not so hot, $1,757. The Zodiac killer, apparently, has been found. We'll get into the details of that. We'll talk about Tennessee police going wild. We'll talk Tesla coming to Austin. The Pandora's Box of I don't even know what yet. A lot going on in this Bizarro World. I am Gerardo Del Real, along with my cohost, Mr. Nick Hodge, and this is episode/therapy session 138 of Bizarro World. How are you, Mr. Nick Hodge?
Nick Hodge: You can get away with a lot of stuff in South Dakota, apparently. I'm doing pretty good, Gerardo. How's it going?
Gerardo Del Real: It's going well. Thank you for asking. Yeah, South Dakota, some quietly, some not so quietly, is apparently a place for the naughty sick people to play.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, and store their money.
Gerardo Del Real: And store their money. I heard a story about a guy who was trafficking kids who paid millions of dollars just to kill himself.
Nick Hodge: What?
Gerardo Del Real: How sick of a guy do you think that guy had to be?
Nick Hodge: When was this?
Gerardo Del Real: You know, we'll talk off air.
Nick Hodge: Okay.
Weekly Markets: Bond Yields, Inflation, Dollar, Gold, Earnings, Volatility
Gerardo Del Real: Anyhow, a lot going on. The markets were... There's a lot happening in the space. Look, the 10-year yield is back up to 1.60%. I'm surprised, to be frank, that gold has held up as well as it has, given the rise in the 10-year. Let's start there. I love your take on it. You've had your finger on the pulse of the 10-year, the correlation between rates and the price of gold. I'd love to hear your chartist take.
Nick Hodge: It's complex for the past couple of weeks, Gerardo, because no one can think ahead a little bit, and they all have to react to the moment. When Bitcoin was banned by China last week, for example, or when the debt ceiling was going to roil the markets, for example… Both of which, I said, were nothing-burgers. And both of which have already been remedied. And so, when you look at the markets, you had the end of the quarter, obviously, in September. You had a really bad September for stocks. We've talked about this. The worst since March 2020. And you had indicators, let's say, the big ones that we watch that you were just talking about, not wanting to make up their mind, or going in opposite directions than they had been, but not truly breaking out. What I mean by that is you had the dollar rising, and then that tapered off a little bit.
I don't think, and I said this last week, it's in danger of breaking out above, what was the number, 94?
Gerardo Del Real: 94.
Nick Hodge: On the DXY, and rates, on the other hand, continued to go up. Are still not breaking out, but they're going up stronger than the dollar. And that's what's keeping the lid on gold, for now. I think that continues for, at least, a couple more months. You had a, I'm doing air quotes, “bad jobs” report today that showed you, basically, that more people are dropping out of looking for a job, leaving the participation force, even as pandemic benefits come to an end. A couple of weeks ago, it was “all these benefits are coming to an end, and these are people are going to get back into the workforce.” And that has failed to materialize, which gave gold a bit of a boost this morning.
Tying it all together, I think you get back to more of the same, and what I mean by that is, stocks accelerating, risk being back on and, again, I've said it for two weeks, but earnings reports starting to come out in the next two weeks. And so, I think people will have very short memories here in the next two weeks and forget about the downward stock action in September. And, I guess, the last thing I would say there is volatility is waning in the stock market, as well. Was never in danger of breaking out.
Gerardo Del Real: Nope.
Nick Hodge: I live Tweeted that for the world.
Global Contag-yawn. $VIX pic.twitter.com/nxHG3NMLea
— Nick Hodge (@nickchodge) September 20, 2021
The Security of Social Security
Gerardo Del Real: Timestamped, yeah. Look, we have to talk a bit about the debt ceiling, not because of the debt ceiling, as you mentioned, a big nothing-burger. It didn't mean anything. We knew that. They're going to do what they always do. They'll have scotch on the rocks behind the scenes. They'll laugh at all the people in the street fighting. Both sides are doing it. If you think politicians care about you, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd happily sell you, except I wouldn't, because I'm not that type of person.
But one thing that I thought was curious is politicians' willingness to begin to talk about the restructuring of Social Security payments. I think that's the first time in a couple of years, and definitely recently, that I've heard a willingness to actually publicly say that. Typically, they'll float out a white paper and they'll talk about the risk, and the potential for defaults, and how they would have to restructure. It seemed a little bit more pronounced this time around, when they were bringing up the debt ceiling. It seemed like they were willing to make sure that everybody knew that, yes, you're going to get your checks this time, which is what they said. The checks will go out on time, if the debt ceiling goes through, and if it doesn't, we'll figure something out. We'll print a trillion dollar coin. It's the stupid shit they're saying again.
But the fact that it was so front and center tells me there's probably going to be a change in the way that Social Security is paid out over the next several years. I don't think they're going to be giving anyone more, by the way.
Nick Hodge: Well, certainly not. I'm not a Social Security expert, so I'll just tell you how I operate, and some of the things I've read. I'm not really up to speed on the connection to the debt ceiling, as it happened this week. But, first of all, as a millennial, I operate like Social Security doesn't exist. It's not a part of my financial plan. I don't consider that I'm going to have income from Social Security. It's just going to be a nice to have, if it's actually there and the payments are still coming, when I'm of age to take those.
The other thing is that you read a lot about Social Security running out. While I haven't done deep, deep dives in it, I have read enough to know that the way that it's funded, there's going to be something. You might not get 100% of your expected payout, but you're going to get 85, 90%, even out to, I forget what the date is, I think it's like 2070-something, for example, that the CBO has put out, the Congressional Budget Office. And so, it's not one of those things that I worry about on a day-to-day basis, but the broader thing is that a lot of people do. It's like pensions. It's like pensions in the 2000s, and 2010s, when they started getting taken away from people who thought they were going to have them forever, autoworkers, steel workers, et cetera.
And so, it's part of a larger debt thing that's going on. Obviously, we're at $29 trillion. That's unsustainable. We don't really stop and talk about this stuff anymore, because everyone's glued to the Fed and has forgotten about the money printer going brrrrr. All those chickens are going to come home to roost eventually. And so, if you're dependent on Social Security, or think you will be dependent on Social Security, of course, what I would say is think less about that and more about investing now and learning the public markets, so that you can take that risk off the table for yourself, if the government is not going to send you your Social Security check. Which, again, I don't consider or even really want in the first place, but I pay my taxes, so I'll take it.
Anyway, what did you think when you were seeing them talking about the Social Security thing?
Gerardo Del Real: I feel for the people that really depend on this, because politicians are taking a victory lap because they can guarantee that, at least, up until December, seniors will be able to get their Social Security checks on time. That didn't feel really reassuring for the most vulnerable amongst us. That, maybe, the older or the lower income people who really depend on these checks to get by, and in a time where inflation is not transitory. By the way, that word wasn't used one time in the Fed's statement this go around. For all you Fed geeks out there that thought it was going to be transitory, even the Fed is stopping using that word, but I digress.
Going back to my take on Social Security, it's a little concerning to me that they're proud of the fact that they got the payments out in time, and that they'll be able to do so until, at least, December. It tells me that people should start looking for alternative ways to make a living, to get a secondary income. I know that's harder the older you are. I also know that's harder the worst off you are economically. It's getting harder and harder in this country to see upward mobility, especially if you come from a disadvantaged position. And so, no, my heart hurts a little bit, especially for older people and vulnerable people that depend on this. Because, I think, slowly but surely, they're going to chip away at this. You know I don't have much confidence in government, Nick.
Upward Mobility & Investing Against the Herd: Commodities, Cryptos, Real Estate
Nick Hodge: That's it. That's what it's always been. I mean, that's part of the genesis of the business that we're in, the newsletter space, is not going with the mainstream, certainly, as finances are related, and wanting to manage it ourselves, take it in our own hands and not be reliant on the government. Again, as I've said, we've got to keep harping on it. It's only the result of your government's policy and your Federal Reserve's policy that those disadvantaged are finding it harder to have upward mobility. It's not the system.... It's not the capitalistic system that's at fault. It's the way that it's been operated, maintained, and the policies that have been layered on top. And so, I'll continue to say that, while I continue to manage my own money, and watch the value of it inflate, while they tell me that it's not.
Gerardo Del Real: Agreed, agreed. You've got to position yourself ahead of the herd, as Mr. Dines would say. That requires some conviction, and it requires some risk. When I moved to Texas in 2013, I had my reasons. When Nick moved to Washington State, he had his. Those were pretty consequential decisions to take your kids, and your spouse, and leave a place that you have been in for quite some time, and go to a brand new place, and buy real estate. And then, leave a steady check, and launch your own company. And then develop and build another one. And so, all those things come with risk. But, luckily for us, it's literally paid off, and having inflation protection in our portfolio has really paid off. But there's still a lot of runway to make money in this space.
Hopefully, again, I'm going to talk our own book here, Nick, but people can go to Resource Stock Digest or Daily Profit Cycle, and get some of the free content. For those of you that are able to act on paying for a subscription of more guidance, and research, and insights that are specific... it's probably not a bad time to do that. It's not getting harder to make money in the market, I can tell you that much. So check out our premium publications too.
Nick Hodge: The commodities are literally melting up. I mean, I was reading, and we're going to be speaking about this soon. I'm having fun putting together these presentations... but lithium prices, I mean, there's not even a word. Ripping isn't even the right word. They're exploding higher. These commodity prices are, literally, melting up here. Yeah, you've got to be in the market. I guess another point I would add on there is that even though inflation has been around, we've talked energy, we've talked about metals, and we've talked about how officials have positioned it as transitory. Because of that positioning and because of the mainstream media's unwillingness to report honestly on inflation, people are late to the trade and that's what makes things go up further. Climbing walls of worry, bringing new audiences into the thing.
I'm seeing it more now, the natural gas price stories in Europe. I read this morning that they stopped producing aluminum in, I think it was, the Netherlands, or something, because the electricity prices are simply so high. And so, yeah, you've got to be in there owning things that are inflating.
Gerardo Del Real: Winter is coming. Natural gas, power prices in Europe and Asia are at record highs, as in all time. All time is a long time, folks. US prices, they've doubled this year, and there's still people that are saying that this inflation is transitory. Have fun with that trade, everybody. Did you hodle all your Bitcoin and your Ether?
Nick Hodge: I hoddled and my Solana, yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: And your Solana... tell me about it. That went well for you, not a bad week?
Nick Hodge: It's more pounding the chest, but you've got to do it.
Gerardo Del Real: Fuck yeah.
Nick Hodge: Because people are going to realize that they have to act, and they have to get ahead of the news cycle. And if not get ahead of it, at least, synthesize it in real time. And if you can't, get someone who can synthesize it. By synthesize, I mean the stuff that we just talked about... tuning out the noise with the debt ceiling... buyuing stocks when they're down 600 points, and you're still in a bull market.... Buying Bitcoin when it goes down below that 4$5,000, and China says it's going to ban it, and it's still in a bull cycle with commodities ripping higher. Yeah, I think, Ethereum got down to, I don't know, $2600-$2700 bucks, and it went immediately back up to $3,400. It's part of that commodity's thing.
And so, it worked out really well. I was able to tune out the noise and, literally, time stamped it. I told you last week that I was buying Ethereum and stuff. And so, we'll be writing and publishing more about crypto here. There's a whole world there that we don't really have premium research on. But are looking into it more, because... And it goes back to that Social Security conversation, as well, because these people that don't have retirement, or who lost pensions, or who didn't save, now need a moonshot. And you and I know that you can get a moonshot in stocks, but with the advent of a whole cryptocurrency universe, and new coins, literally, being minted every week, people, the herd, are seeing this as an opportunity to make up for lost time in the markets.
I still think, Gerardo, and it's been a long time since I said it... that there's a lot of crypto soldiers being trained for the gold army. It's not time to join the ranks yet.
Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. I'm going to give everyone something to do due diligence on, outside of the markets and crypto: real estate, which is where I started my investing career way back in, I think it was, 2005. I bought my first residential/commercial building. Didn't have much money, all I needed was a pulse and banks were willing to give me a loan, and I knew that wasn't sustainable. I knew that wasn't sustainable, so I took as many of those as I could get, flipped some places, sold some places, kept some places, sold them eventually. Anyhow, it's were I started learning to take advantage of trends, and cycles, and interest rates, and the greed of banks and the system, and central bankers, and use it to my advantage.
I say all that to say that there is a tiny little town of about 18,000 people that's about 10 minutes from where I live, Nick. It's a town called Taylor, Texas in Williamson County. Taylor, Texas it appears, and it's not final, but it's worth looking into at this point. It appears they're close... the whispers say that they're close to securing a $17 billion chip plant from Samsung. The project is expected to be the most advanced facility to date for Samsung. It would create 1800 high paying jobs in a town of about 18,000 people. The economic stimulus that it will bring to a tiny little place, like Taylor, make it prime, prime, prime opportunity to see some real appreciation.
Now, Taylor, for those of you that aren't familiar, most of you probably, is one of the few central Texas towns that has not outperformed,year-on-year appreciation when it comes to housing prices. It hasn't boomed because it's a lot of country land. It's a lot of flat land. And it just hasn't had the infrastructure that an Austin, or a Georgetown, or a Round Rock, which are the other neighboring central Texas cities and towns to Taylor, have benefited from. Take a look at Taylor, Texas for those of you that are well off, developers out there, people that own trusts, real estate trusts. That might be a good five to 10 year horizon type trade, if you can buy some land, or develop some subdivisions, or build some houses. Because, I think, there's going to be plenty of demand, especially if this Samsung deal goes through.
Nick Hodge: Love it.
Did They Find the Zodiac Killer?
Gerardo Del Real: All right, what else do we got going on out there? Did you see that they, maybe, found the Zodiac killer?
Nick Hodge: No. I thought, didn't we just find a serial killer last year? Somebody's wife wrote a book, Patton Oswalt's wife. Was that a different killer? Am I getting my serial killers mixed up?
Gerardo Del Real: I think that was a different killer.
Nick Hodge: Another killer, okay. Tell me about the Zodiac killer.
Gerardo Del Real: Killers are everywhere. The Zodiac killer is famous for a series of, apparently, random murders. The guy became notorious because he wrote cryptic notes to the cops and the media, and basically teased the hell out of them. The short story, to not make it too long, is that they never found this guy. I guess, apparently, they recently cracked the code on one of his letters, and the gentleman that they are saying was the Zodiac killer is a guy by the name of Gary Poste. He died in 2018. They say they've cracked the code. The code consisted of acronyms that involved every letter of his name. And so, if you've seen the Zodiac killer movies, if you've seen or read some of the books, some of the stuff that he did was horrific, horrific, horrific. But, interesting story, the guy died in 2018. There was a friend of his that put a post in 2017, or 2016, on Facebook saying, "Hanging out with old man Gary/Zodiac?"
Nick Hodge: Interesting.
FBI Raids NYPD's Union, President Resigns
Gerardo Del Real: Interesting. I'll post a link to the story. He's got an eerie resemblance to some of the sketches from eyewitnesses that had seen the guy way back the '60s and '70s. But I thought that was interesting. Another thing that I thought was interesting, it made me laugh a little bit, was the FBI raiding the New York Police Sergeant's Union, and immediately afterwards, the union president resigned. And so, it's always law and order. This is a guy that talked a lot on Twitter during the Black Lives Matters protest. Always has something to say, that's usually snarky at people. He called a local politician, a US Rep Ritchie Torres, a first class whore, because he's gay. There was a young lady that was murdered in Central Park. He hypothesized openly that she was killed because she was there to buy marijuana. It turned out afterwards that she was just out for a walk in the park, and three dumb ass kids stabbed her during an attempted robbery.
This isn't the guy that's been the most sensitive to victims or people, in general. And seeing him get raided by the FBI, I don't ever root for that to happen, but if he's done something wrong, he'll have a chance to defend himself. And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what it is that the FBI decided Mr. Mullins has done.
Nick Hodge: Well, who knows? I'm not going to speculate, but it's no secret that police officers break the law all the time, various laws. Don't have to get into it here, but there's the Twitter threads-
Gerardo Del Real: We can.
Nick Hodge: And things you can go see, where every week they post stories from police precincts around the country where police were arrested for whatever, domestic battery, child abuse, sexual abuse, coercion, whatever. There's cops breaking the law all the time. If the FBI is involved, this is obviously not a petty crime. And so, you know me, Gerardo, I obviously want to see what those boys in blue were up to. These are also the boys in blue in New York, weren't they putting the thin blue line on skulls on their cars and stuff during the Black Lives Matter protests?
Tennessee Police Arrest 11 Little Kids for Non-Existant Crime
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, a couple of them have been outed as white supremacist members, and still on the force. Yeah. For those of you thinking that I'm only picking on NYPD because I used to live there, and because they tend to be a bit more vocal than the other departments in the country, because it's the largest police force... Tennessee officers were caught arresting four young black girls. Did you read this case?
Nick Hodge: No.
Gerardo Del Real: Three police officers went to an elementary school in Tennessee. You're going to love this, Nick. You have little kids in school. I have kids in school. They're not this young. They went and they arrested four black girls. One girl fell to her knees, another one threw up, the cops handcuffed the youngest, an eight year-old with pigtails. I can't make this up. Do you know what the supposed crime was?
Nick Hodge: Illicit bubble gum distribution?
Gerardo Del Real: It's worse than that. They watched a couple of boys get into a fight and did not stop them.
Nick Hodge: What?
Gerardo Del Real: It gets better. The cops ended up arresting 11 kids, in total, and they used a charge called "criminal responsibility". Now, I'm doing air quotes. And so, this happened in Rutherford County, which allegedly has been illegally jailing kids for years. You know how I feel about private prisons, and pimping kids, and profiting off kids, fucking disgusting. I hate it. This has happened under the watch of a judge named, Donna Scott Davenport. Now, she is a treat. She is the only elected juvenile court judge the county has ever had, so she gets to oversee the courts. She gets to oversee the juvenile jail. And she has directed police on what she calls her process for arresting children. It gets better, Nick.
It took her nine years and five attempts to pass the Bar Exam.
Nick Hodge: Jesus.
Gerardo Del Real: Three years after she got her law license, she was on the bench as a judge. Judge, jury and executioner. She believes it's God's mission. That she's doing God's mission. That she's here on a mission and she says that children must have consequences. And she says to parents that they must drug test their kids, and they say the best ones are at your reputable drug stores, don't go to Dollar Tree. Now, check this out. Here's some numbers for you. We're numbers people, right? Under Davenport the county has locked up 48% of children whose cases were referred to juvenile court. Do you know what the statewide average is?
Nick Hodge: No.
Gerardo Del Real: 5%. So, if you just happen to have the misfortune of going in front of this judge, the odds of you going to jail, as a juvenile, increase astronomically, astronomically. It's sick. I hope the feds investigate this. I don't know how people sleep at night knowing they are doing this to little human beings. Look, kids misbehave. Kids commit crimes. Kids should be held accountable. You can't charge every kid who watches a fight in school with something that's going to take them to juvenile court, when the judge is handling that facility, overseeing it, sending these kids at a 48% rate. That's absolutely insane.
Nick Hodge: Not to mention that this "crime" is not even a crime.
Gerardo Del Real: That's the other thing. The problem is it's not a crime. The commissioner, who used to work in a post office, came up with the charge of "criminal responsibility" for conduct of another. They were literally charged with a crime that doesn't exist.
Nick Hodge: Right.
Gerardo Del Real: And because a lot of these kids don't have the money to get an attorney, to go file a lawsuit to actually go through that, these kids are then getting pimped out, and they're getting traumatized at eight, nine, 10 years-old, and that is not acceptable. This in America? The US?
Nick Hodge: It's insane. The boys that were fighting, I'm just reading now, were five and six years-old.
Gerardo Del Real: You've got to be fucking kidding me, man.
Nick Hodge: That's who the fight was between, a five and a six year old.
Gerardo Del Real: Correct.
Nick Hodge: That's crazy.
Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't believe this story. I couldn't believe this story. Absolutely nuts. Anyhow.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I've seen some bad ones. My mom worked for the Department of Juvenile Justice in Maryland, and I would hear stories over the years, randomly. It seems to get worse over time, when they're handcuffing a nine year old for whatever, just going completely, absolutely ballistic and have to be restrained. You don't like hearing about that, let alone some little girls who did what every other human would do and watch a fight. And so, all that's wrong with police and justice system, right there. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it encapsulated in that story. I'm 100% with you, Gerardo. If I had to pretend to be that cop, I don't understand, or those cops, what is your raison d'être? What is in your mind? What kind of human are you that, first of all, you want to police your fellow man like that, but even further is a little girl for doing absolutely nothing?
Anyway, that's why I know, in my heart of hearts, that these boys in blue that we've got policing us in this United States would load us on the train just like in Germany. It's fundamentally flawed.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. This immunity that police officers have from lawsuits, it cannot continue. It cannot continue. There has to be some accountability. Again, I'm not going after all cops. I'm not going after all kids. I'm not going after all adults. I'm not going after all anything. I don't generalize like that. I want everyone to be accountable by the same standard. You shouldn't get, literally, a free get out of jail card because you're a cop. And you should be held at a higher standard because you're a cop. And so, again, yeah, I'll leave it at that.
Nick Hodge: Any rational person says, "I'm not arresting these kids." I mean, if you're a rational person.
Gerardo Del Real: Or just a fucking human being with a heart.
Nick Hodge: Right, right.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Especially, when you know that 48% of them are going to end up in juvenile jail for something as silly as watching a five and a six year old fight. Absolutely, insane.
Nick Hodge: That's why I say the state is not your friend. And just like I don't want the police knocking on my door, I don't want my Social Security check. The same thing. I don't know if that makes sense, or if it relates, but I don't want the government to "help me."
Gerardo Del Real: Correct. Leave me alone. Let me by a law abiding citizen, and that's my part of the deal. And then your part of the deal is you leave me the fuck alone. How about we do that? And then don't worry about what I'm doing in my bedroom. Don't worry about what I'm eating. Don't worry about what I'm watching. Don't worry about my emails. Just leave me alone. It doesn't seem like too much to ask, as a private citizen, that pays his or her taxes, and is law abiding.
Nick Hodge: That's all we want.
Gerardo Del Real: Seems simple, right?
Nick Hodge: Yeah.
Alex Jones Found Liable Over Sandy Hook Hoax Claims
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Anyhow, speaking of Austin... Alex Jones, who's based in Austin. Austin always gets the rap as this liberal city and progressive city, and it is in some senses, but it's also a city that is very big on the first amendment, and obviously the second one, as well. But he was found guilty, or not guilty, I should say, liable is a better word. He was found liable to have to pay families in lawsuits over the Sandy Hook shooting. For those of you that aren't familiar, Alex Jones, based here in Austin, for years said that children that were killed in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, that it was a hoax. He said it didn't happen. He said those were child actors. It was another attempt by the left to false flag and chip away at the second amendment. He did this in such a nasty, mean spirited way that a couple of the parents continued on and had the financial wherewithal to sue him.
And so, this comes after Remington offered a $33 million settlement to the Sandy Hook families, which we talked about before. I don't completely agree with that one. But on this one, if you are going to harass grieving parents who lost kids in a mass shooting and say that it's a pretext for government action to limit guns rights, and that it's a giant hoax, and then there were dumb ass people that were harassing these parents saying they were in on it. The same way that I'm seeing some of the anti-vaxxers now and again. Whether you're vaccinated or not, completely your choice. I believe you should have that choice. But when I see parents running up to parents that have their seven or eight year old kid that chooses to wear a mask, and yell in their faces. Boy, I hope you don't ever do that to me and my 13 year-old, who wants to wear a mask, even though he's vaccinated.
We were at a dinner yesterday. None of us were wearing our mask. We're all vaccinated. We're comfortable with not wearing a mask. He's like, "Well, I haven't had COVID. I want to wear my mask." I'm like, "You can take it off. You're safe. We're outside having dinner and it's not a big deal." He's like, "I'd rather wear it when I'm not eating, or I'm not drinking something." I'm like, "Cool, totally your choice." And all I could think about, Nick, is one of these little assholes better not come up on me asking about why my little 13 year-old is wearing a mask, because he's going to have another issue. It's not going to be the mask that's going to be the problem anymore.
And so, it's a slippery slope on Remington paying 33 million to families of a horrific tragedy. But in this case with Alex Jones, you know what, you act like an asshole, you use these people in a public forum to get ratings, to enrich yourself. I don't completely disagree with him being liable to having to pay these people. And I think it looks like this is going to bankrupt him. It doesn't look good. Thoughts?
Nick Hodge: I mean, what are you going to do?
Market Week Ahead: Uranium, Earnings, Risk Back On
Gerardo Del Real: What are you going to do? Interesting. What are you watching in the markets this week, Nick? You're hoddling? You're waiting for gold to do something. It's boring.
Nick Hodge: It's uranium time.
Gerardo Del Real: You bet me, yep. Yes, sir.
Nick Hodge: They've consolidated nicely. The uranium spot price has come back down below $40. I'll let you talk about it, but we'll have much more out to the public sphere next week on uranium.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. No, look, every now and then the market gifts us the perfect window. Sometimes, for those of you not familiar, Nick Hodge and I co-own Digest Publishing. Independent publishing company that provides research and insight on commodities, biotech, crypto, you name it. Nick covers all sectors. I cover the resource space. That's where I'm comfortable allocating and risking capital and growing capital. And so, a part of what we do, in order to get subscribers, is we provide the research and the insights, and we do promotions on trends that we think could be extremely profitable. And in order to get access to the specific names and the research, you have to subscribe to one of the newsletters. And so, sometimes when we work on these things, something will just take off, or the fundamentals change. And then the actual premise that the speculation is based on just isn't as true, and you've got to scrap what takes months of work sometimes.
And in this case, the complete opposite has happened. I was hoping that we would have a pull back in the space, not just in the spot price, but in the equities. That's happened beautifully. I wanted that because, as subscribers come in, it provides a much better entry point. And so, my worry with this, Nick, was that we were going to continue with these high escalating prices week after week without much of a break or much relief. And that subscribers wouldn't have as an attractive entry point, the newer ones. We were positioned way ahead of this, and that's worked out extremely well for the both of us, and our subscribers. But on this one, I am just thankful that we got the pull back. I think it's going to be an extremely profitable 12 to 18 months. People much smarter than I think it'll run for 24 months. Almost everyone I speak with that has seen this cycle before believe we're in the very early stages of what's going to be an absolute mania in the uranium space.
I am so excited to share the new promotion, and the new idea with those of you that subscribe here soon.
Nick Hodge: People are starting to figure it out. We were talking about the energy inflation earlier, and how the narrative is making its way around. I was out to dinner last night with a local real estate guy and our wives, and we somehow started talking about this... commodities, inflation, stuff like that, and stocks. We didn't know each other well, so we got into a little bit about what I did. His wife has been, as many have over the past year, enjoyed dabbling in the public equity markets. Guess what she has a portfolio of?
Gerardo Del Real: Uranium. I fucking love it.
Nick Hodge: I was like, "You've got to be fucking kidding me. I bet you I know every single stock you own."
Gerardo Del Real: That is hilarious. How was that conversation?
Nick Hodge: She was talking about... I mean, she's plugged in. She was talking about investing in real things that the world is going to need. That's pretty simple, right? I mean, it's a commodity that the world needs. You can layer on top of that, as I would, the electrification of everything, all the drivers, the money printing, et cetera, et cetera. How I think we're getting back to, just as a culture, wanting to invest in tangible things that provide benefits for society, instead of things that push around data and have people as their product. And so, anyway, she didn't explicitly say all that, but she said, "I think we need it for the world, and I'm looking at investing in things that the world needs." That's how she framed it.
Gerardo Del Real: I love it. I absolutely love it. I think it's great. You know what else I love? I love the new Dave Chappelle special. I know you're not a TV guy, Nick. It's on Netflix.
Nick Hodge: I'm going to watch it. I told my wife this morning, we got to watch it, only because he got canceled this week, so you got to see, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Did you see his response to being canceled?
Nick Hodge: No. But first, before you tell us, again Bizarro World comes around, because we featured DaBaby on Bizarro World many, many months ago.
Gerardo Del Real: We did. We did. I couldn't believe he opened with it. For those of you that have been listening to the podcast, everyone knows Dave Chappelle is one of my favorite comedians. I saw him three times during COVID, which took some commitment, because they poked my brain each one of those three times because he was insistent on that. It was really neat to see the material develop. I saw him, I think, three times over a two and a half month span. And so, every time I'm just so impressed by the timing and the storytelling, and the amount of new material that he would introduce at each show for it being such a concentrated space of two and a half months. And so, some of the jokes, obviously, made it to the Netflix special, and then some of them, obviously, did not. But, look, if you are easily offended or have thin skin, you shouldn't click on Dave Chappelle. I think he's spoken about that in the past. His response to being "canceled" is hilarious.
He said if this is what being canceled is about, I absolutely love it. He said fuck Twitter, fuck NBC News, ABC News, all these stupid ass networks. I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to you. Twitter isn't real. This is real life. He said I don't know what else to tell you, except that I'm a bad motherfucker.
Nick Hodge: One of the more astute quips I saw about it was that he's got the antidote to cancel culture, which is fuck you money. And so, he can say what he wants, because how are you going to cancel somebody that has fuck you money and could put out his own production, if he wanted? And so, anyway, I thought that was funny. And then, I haven't watched the special, obviously, but makes total sense. I mean, the points that he was making, at least the one that I saw, was that DaBaby's career didn't get canceled for murdering somebody in a Walmart. But if you offend somebody for whatever, LGBTQ beliefs, or not framing it correctly, or whatever, that's worse than killing a human being. And so, on its face, the statement is 100% correct.
Gerardo Del Real: It's absolutely brilliant. I think he's the best storyteller I've seen since Richard Pryor. There's a couple of other ones I'm really fond of that are close. Ricky Gervais is amazing, as well. But, anyhow, if you have someone around you that's sensitive, don't put it on around them. But if you have a sense of humor, and you have a little thick skin, then I encourage you to check it out. It is absolutely hilarious.
Nick Hodge: It's on my list for this weekend.
Gerardo Del Real: I love it. I'm watching uranium this week, obviously. Big promotion to get out. Excited for the opportunity to bring that to the public space. What else do we have going on, Nick? Anything else that...
Nick Hodge: We have a lot going on, but if you want market insight, specifically, would be risk back on, but in the small caps is what I was writing. I have sold some smaller cap positions a couple of months ago, because thought we were in for a tougher environment for those things. Sticking to my call here that I think stocks continue to go up, and that includes the smaller cap sector that has, frankly, been sideways for a couple of months. That would be something to take a look at I think.
Gerardo Del Real: Go to where the puck is going, not to where the puck is at. That's how you make money.
Nick Hodge: Got to do it.
Gerardo Del Real: Awesome, awesome. I'll be, of course, watching the uranium space. I like the way copper has held up, despite China selling into the market. If you believe in the energy trade, and the electrification of everything, I think there's some pretty compelling cooper opportunities out there.
Nick Hodge: They're out of bullets. They're out of copper bullets. They can't do that.
Gerardo Del Real: They're out. They can't.
Nick Hodge: Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: It's a beautiful thing. Did you want to take about the Pandora's Box, Nick? What's the Pandora's Box that you had in mind?
Nick Hodge: I thought that was you that put it on there. I must have done that the day the news came out. That's funny. That's why you didn't know what I was talking about with South Dakota in the beginning. The Pandora's Box, we'll talk about it more next week, because I want to get some specifics. But there was a release of papers this week that showed where global elites and leaders... prime ministers and things stashed their wealth, and how they spend money. All that stuff that you know goes on, but this was a group of journalists tying it all together with the biggest release of papers to that effect ever. And so, anyway, we'll talk about it more in the coming weeks.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's do it, absolutely.
Nick Hodge: Two things, one, to get back to South Dakota. First, you know all this stuff goes on, and now this is just further proof, just like all these conspiracy theories over the past 10 years have turned out to be true, from Epstein, to the rigging of LIBOR, on down the list. It's what's feeding the public and, ultimately, what's going to lead to the changing of institutions, because they have zero credibility left. Anyway, we'll talk about it more next week.
But the other thing was that, I think it was a couple of hundred trusts that were identified in the papers. I don't want to say the number because I'll get it wrong, but it was under 300. And 70-some of those trusts were in South Dakota, which is very interesting to me. Anyway, I'll do a little digging and we'll talk more about it.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. We'll get into details later, not as nasty as trafficking kids and them getting caught, and then being found guilty, and then bailing yourself out with multi-million dollar bonds, and then killing yourself, but nasty nonetheless. Mr. Hodge, it has been an absolute pleasure. I am Gerardo Del Real, along with Mr. Nick Hodge, this was episode 138 of Bizarro World. Say something to the nice people, Nick.
Nick Hodge: See you. Be nice to everybody.
This transcript is unedited. Please excuse grammatical errors and run-on sentences.
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