Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
June 27, 2022
2:45 Bear Market Update: Gold Holds Up Well
6:25 Copper, Silver, or Uranium?
12:38 Crypto Update
14:20 Roe vs Wade Overturned
Is the bear market over? Or is the past upweek in stocks a bear market trap? We give our take. We also respond to a reader question regarding what is the better commodity to be invested in right now: copper, silver, or uranium? Plus: a quick check-in on the crypto markets. But the real bulk of this issue is our response to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade by the Supreme Court.
Gerardo Del Real: A historic day in the U.S. We're going to dive right into Roe versus Wade, that decision being overturned by men in robes, largely, that promised and then decided to renege on the promise that law set was precedent. We're going to get into that and the implications for the U.S. We're also going to get into why other countries and people from them may want to sit this one out as far as the opinion game goes.
We're going to talk gold. We're going to talk cryptos. We're going to talk volatility.
We got a slight bounce in the market. Is the bear market over? Is it a trap? We'll get with Mr. Nick Hodge about that. We're going to talk gun control legislation. But let's be absolutely clear folks, if you're not into the Roe versus Wade discussion, you probably want to sit this one out because it's going to lean heavy on that. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This is therapy session number 175, otherwise known as Bizarro World. Mr. Hodge, interesting times. Fourth Turnings. Hot summer’s abound. How are you, sir?
Nick Hodge: I'm doing really good. Hopefully you'll hear my libertarian take on both the guns and the abortion debate. Well not debate, the case, the ruling. So happy to get into that. Continuing to build cash. To answer your question, the bear market is not over. In fact, it is just getting going and you're in a classic bear market trap right now. So caution is still warranted and cash is still king. I'm sure we'll get to that later on.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's actually start with that because I think that, again, I think a good bulk of this episode is going to be dominated by the conversation about Roe versus Wade and why it's not a conversation or a debate on law and policy about whether or not abortions are fun or appropriate or morally okay. There's so many more implications to the overturning of Roe versus Wade. That's going to take quite a bit of digging into. A shame on both houses, right?
This is not just the fault of Supreme Court justices that tend to lean conservative or Republicans. This is also the fault, though maybe not equally, but definitely consequentially on the Democrats, which have aided and abetted this for the past decade and a half. We'll talk about why that is. Gold has held up well. The dollar's retreated a bit. How are you feeling about each of those?
Bear Market Update: Gold Holds Up Well
Nick Hodge: Gold's held up really well. It's held up as the 10-year bond yield went well over 3%. It's held up as rates pulled back. So we're learning that gold is doing relatively well in both a rising rate and a declining rate environment. Dollar's back to its highs after the brief pullback we discussed in the last episode, perhaps the last two. So gold remains looking good with even a strong dollar. So confident to have my money in gold, was telling you I was buying GLD, continue to hold that position. And gold stocks we were saying are not gold. So it's important to touch on that because you've had sort of a divergence is the appropriate word.
Gerardo Del Real: Bifurcation.
Nick Hodge: A bifurcation. There you go. Of gold stocks from gold, right? So if gold is holding up nicely at $1820, $1830, wherever it is, you've had a breakdown in the GDX and the GDXJ. So GDXJ had supported around $36 and you broke down below that this week to levels not seen since the world was first learning about COVID. So gold stocks are in a precarious place, along with the broader markets.
We've long said that you gold stocks don't get a pass just because you want them to go up and just because they're related to a metal that's holding up doesn't mean that the gold stocks themselves are going to hold up when people are grasping for liquidity and when volatility is as high as it is. So caution warranted across the board.
I was writing this week that I’m being very highly, extremely, add another adjective in there, selective when deciding what to deploy my capital into. Have only really been bidding on a few things and have certainly been pressing the sell button more than the buy button as I want to one, have cash, because cash is king as I said at the beginning. The dollar is strong. I had bills to pay like everyone else. So fortunate to be able to sell stocks whereas a lot of people are going on credit cards. We've seen rising credit card debt and that's going to come back to bite people, especially as interest rates rise. So it's a bear market. Gold is your safety. Dollars are your safety. And continue to be cautious out there I think is the answer.
Gerardo Del Real: I like mentioning Patriot Battery Metals because they have news almost every week. I just think it's a good proxy for how this market, even to companies that are delivering spectacular results, really aren't being rewarded like they were just a month ago, right? Patriot Battery Metals put out a hole that was the best drillhole to date. Be clear, they've had some spectacular hits at the Corvette Property. The market reacted for about two hours and then did a U-turn and just kind of sold off a bit and didn't close the week lower, but it didn't close the week materially higher.
So I think that speaks to how little safety there is in all of the other sectors, right? Whether we're talking the NASDAQ, the S&P, the Dow, the TSX, which is in a brutal bear market overall. Even if you're a solid stock picker and you have a great play like Patriot Battery Metals, which I still think closes the year potentially at $15, $20 and closes the summer at between $5 to $10, doesn't matter right now. With that said, it's got a ton of catalyst ahead. Still my largest position in terms of dollar value.
Look, the bulk of my shares are locked up until December. So I go to sleep just waiting for a Merry, Merry Christmas and pretty confident that Santa will deliver this year, especially given my low cost base, right? Let's pivot back.
Copper, Silver, or Uranium?
Let's talk copper and silver. I had an interesting question. Let's throw uranium in the mix too. I had an interesting question from a Mr. Dines’ subscriber who asked about positioning and he asked whether I preferred, or you preferred, we preferred silver to uranium stocks.
My reply was we don't give individual financial advice, but my personal take is that in the near term, though I love copper, copper and silver are going to trade as industrial metals. If we have falling demand and we have lockdowns still happening selectively around the world and we still have logistical issues that are affecting supply chains, naturally that leads to lower demand and less need for these metals in the near term. Be absolutely clear, everybody. I am uber bullish on copper for the mid and the long term. This is a near term retracement, but one that anybody that pays attention to the market should have seen coming, especially if you do this for a living and especially if you give advice for a living.
The same for silver, right? We know I call silver gold's bipolar cousin. But look, silver is volatile to the upside and to the downside. On days higher, you're going to get 2, 3, 4% moves that are exaggerated compared to the price of gold and the percentage moves there, but on the downside, the exact same thing's going to happen. I think that silver has traded as what it is right now, an industrial metal.
So my answer to that gentleman, and I've already responded to this question, but for those of you wondering, out of silver, uranium and copper, which one of those three metals I prefer, I would absolutely, absolutely speculate more on uranium and the related equities, especially the quality names with the asterisk there that it is a more volatile sector because it is a smaller sector, right?
Small amounts of selling can make a very disproportionate move to the downside. But small amounts of buying can make disproportionate moves to the upside. I see more buying coming in the uranium space than I do selling here in the near term, the midterm and the long term, if we wanted to define that between now and three to five years.
Nick Hodge: We've been saying that uranium stocks were oversold and that there were some real discounts or bargains out there. The market seemed to take advantage of that here at the end of this week, heading into the end of June, I should date it because this is going to come out a couple days after we record it. Going back to the prior week, call it the third week of June, it seemed like people were selling everything that wasn't nailed to the floor, right? Then in the past couple of days, we've had a couple of up days in the broader markets that have begotten some risk on sentiment, let's call it, that's allowed the juniors to be a bit buoyant.
But on the whole, you've had a breakdown in the commodities index, right? So they call it Dr. Copper, for a reason. It sort of prognosticates or diagnoses what's going on with the economy. If we're saying a slowdown is coming, then of course, copper was facing a slowdown. It's been a while since I wrote that article, but it's now materializing. What happened is that the CRB commodities index was still going straight up, but that was largely driven by oil, right?
You had oil at $120 back in March, and even oil has lost $20 or $30 bucks down closer to $100 than $130 at this point. As that oil deflated it a little bit, you had a pullback in the commodities index and that's led to some softness in the commodity space, even big ones like Teck and Rio, for example, have fallen off a cliff just for the past week. I don't think that lasts forever. Like you say, the medium to long term, if we're doing this transition to electrification, which of course we are, then we're going to need the coppers and the lithiums.
In the short term, I continue to see more, I'm going to shift to sentiment and not necessarily numbers now, more positive sentiment among nuclear in the media, right? Where CNBC is running articles about people who support nuclear that live next to reactors. Bloomberg's running articles about how Bill Gates continues to invest in small modular reactors. Now, even Rolls Royce in the UK is going to be building a small modular reactor and talking about how this is one of our clean energy solutions.
Gerardo Del Real: Ted Cruz, not to interrupt you, I'm sorry, but Ted Cruz was highlighting nuclear powered sex toys.
Nick Hodge: Ooh. That sounds a bit, well, nevermind.
Gerardo Del Real: It's a Buzz Lightyear joke. I'll leave it alone.
Nick Hodge: I didn't see it. I heard it was good though. We'll have to get the kids there eventually.
Gerardo Del Real: I haven't seen it. We'll talk about Buzz Lightyear and the controversy there and Ted Cruz's losing his mind because two women pecked on the lips during the movie and oh my God.
Nick Hodge: Oh no. There's a backstory there. Now we're really just going to get into Bizarro World where I'm talking all over the place. So my wife was telling me that I think when one of the previous Toy Stories was getting made, some of the files got lost or something like that and they thought they had lost some critical parts of the movie. There was this one production assistant female who was working from home and had a copy of the movie on her home computer and so was able to save the production of one of the previous Toy Stories, and as sort of a nod, nod, wink, wink, she got to be the director or producer of this new movie. So that's how Lightyear came to be, the current movie that's out. So just interesting backstory there. Sorry, we got off track.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. didn't mean to interrupt you. My brain is spazzy, especially this week with a lot going on. But it's funny to me.
Nick Hodge: I think the last point I was going to make is that there's still selling to be had, so you can pick your spots when you're looking to buy things, right? I have bids in for Revival Gold, and I've been a penny away from buying it in the open market, but I continue to think that that'll get hit. As a broader point, people felt a lot richer last year, right? They either got stimulus checks or their accounts were at all time highs. Now you're seeing a de-leveraging, let's call it, where tech stocks are going to still have a rough go of it. People are still going to have to sell stocks. So I think we're not in the end of this selling yet. We're just in a bear market bounce.
Crypto Update
Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into crypto before we talk Roe versus Wade and what that means for the U.S. and women's rights and you know what it's going to mean potentially for same sex rights here in this country, among other things. Crypto, crypto bounce, crypto bear trap, crypto looking healthy again? I know you wanted to have a whole Bitcoin.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, no, it's the same. It's so correlated to the S&P that it's a bear market bounce, just like the stocks are doing. I told you I was buying down around $20,000 and I think we're up around $21,500 right now. But the chart broke. I mean, it broke down below support, which was at around $20,600. We saw it go down to $18,000-ish. You could see it fall to $14 to $16,000. To me, that would be the true bottom. It would wash out some of these people, the Pomps of the world, the pumpianos who continue to tweet. They're almost sounding like Schiff in gold now like Bitcoin is the true hedge. What the fuck are you talking about? Bitcoin is the true inflation hedge. It's down 60% asshole. It's only an inflation hedge if you sold at the top.
Gerardo Del Real: But it's because it's sensing the the deflation that's coming, Nick. That's why. It's psychic.
Nick Hodge: It’s dollars. The dollar has been the inflation hedge.
Gerardo Del Real: Bitcoin is psychic, Nick. It's sensing the deflation that's coming. That's why. It didn't see the inflation, but it senses the deflation. That's why it's selling off. It's actually talking to you.
Nick Hodge: Did it sense your money getting trapped in all these exchanges that are going bye-bye?
Gerardo Del Real: I mean, the saying was to the moon. I don't think they meant like money heaven.
Nick Hodge: Right, right.
Gerardo Del Real: So you still like Bitcoin in the long term, but the short term, it's still dodge it, avoid it. Not the time to be nibbling.
Nick Hodge: I would buy more if it went back to 18 or below, but it's a bear market trap for now.
Roe vs Wade Overturned
Gerardo Del Real: All right. Let's get right into it. Roe versus Wade was overturned in the U.S. It's June the 24th. The streets are filled with supporters of the decision and protesters protesting the decision. I want to be absolutely clear to everyone that's listening and watching and reading. I personally am not someone who is inclined to have someone or ask a woman or be it my wife, be it a partner, but whoever, at any point in my life to have an abortion. That's a personal belief, right?
That is something that if I had gotten someone pregnant at 15, 16, 17, 18, I did at 19, so, and beautiful son, he's 24 now and that was amazing. But I personally don't believe in abortion as it relates to ‘I made a consensual decision and now there is a baby and I believe that the woman should have an abortion.’ I think that is absolutely 100% a woman's choice. Should a man be consulted if he's involved, if he's responsible, if he's accountable? Absolutely. I believe that too. But be also clear, I don't believe anyone else has any fucking right to tell any woman what they get to do with their bodies.
I sure in hell don't believe that people with robes on sitting on a bench get to decide that if a woman is held at gunpoint and raped, that she is going to be forced, not educated, not helped, not supported, forced to have that baby. The ruling overturning Roe versus Wade puts us in a situation here in America where if said woman was held at gunpoint, that gun actually has more fucking legal protection than the woman does as it relates to a decision about whether or not she wants to carry that pregnancy to term.
The overturning of this decision does not make any exceptions, any exceptions. Clarence Thomas, you get special fuck yous this week because the trap door, what you're now going to hear about a lot, especially if you're outside the country folks, is the concurring opinion that one of the justices, Clarence Thomas, wrote where he wrote that the Supreme Court now should reconsider the same ruling-
Nick Hodge: The gay marriage.
Gerardo Del Real: That now protect not just the gay marriage, yes, gay marriage, same sex relationships and same sex marriage, but also contraception, but also contraception. Pay attention to what they're doing, folks. The same justices that swore under oath to their own party that Roe versus Wade was precedent and that they felt it was well-established law when they were being questioned about their beliefs as it related to the law. Mind you, I am no lawyer. I'm just telling you what they said. These are their words on the record. They said that was set. They said the precedent was set. That is not something they were going to seek to overturn. That largely was a basis of why they got support from a lot of the more centrist leaning Republicans. They just straight up lied.
We've talked on this podcast before in prior episodes about watching what they do and not what they say and how what people do to and with you and for you speaks volumes and speaks the truth to how they look at you, whether they respect you. Whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, you were lied to. If you're a libertarian, you were lied to. Anybody that supported the justices that overturned this was absolutely lied to.
I have nothing but the utmost contempt for Clarence Thomas who picks a moment in history, which this is, and many of you don't realize it now, but talk with us by the end of the summer and you watch how it's going to play out. It's going to be chaos. On a day that's so historic and consequential for women and then what looks like also same sex marriages and same sex relationships, this guy has the nerve to write a concurring opinion about what comes next, which is just a straight up dog whistle to everybody.
For all the Republicans and all of the people that are on Twitter and on TV and just praising how you just protected all life, you are so full of shit. You are such hypocrites. You have done no such thing. It's the equivalent of voting for prohibition in the twenties, knowing damn well that all you did was centralize the people that were and weren't going to drink, because if you're rich in this country, I don't care if you're black, white, blonde, brunette, red head, crazy or not, you still will be able to get an abortion by flying to any one of the states that will still welcome you and provide those services for you, along with the other reproductive services that places like Planned Parenthood, which do a phenomenal job of providing other services outside of abortions that those places provide.
So if you're mobile, if you're financially mobile, if you're wealthy, if you're rich, if you have two pennies to rub together, this doesn't affect you. This isn't a law for you. So I can understand if you're a man or a woman and you have money, why you go, "All right, I have more control now. I got money. So it doesn't affect me, but I also get to dictate what women do if I live in a state where I want that much control over a woman's body." It's a despicable decision to me. I think it's clear. They couldn't be any more clear the justices that voted for this. In Clarence Thomas' case, he's signaling what's coming next and be careful out there, folks. It's going to be a tough summer.
Let me be also clear and I'll speak for myself. Nick and I co-own two companies. We take great pride in making sure that we respect everybody. We're inclusive. We're compassionate. We're accountable. That's a corporate philosophy for us. We have always gone out of our way to make everybody from all viewpoints, all walks of life, whether you agree with abortion or not, whether you agree with immigration or not, whether you agree with trans rights or not, whatever your viewpoint is, we respect that as long as you respect people that have a different viewpoint.
All opinions and beliefs are welcome, but imposing your belief on someone else is a different story. No one's forcing me to have an abortion. No one's forcing me into a same sex marriage. No one's forcing me into contraception. It's nice to have those choices. We're in America, and women now in I think 32 states are not going to have a lot of those choices. It's a sad day in this country.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I didn't organize my thoughts. We'll see if anything I say makes sense. As a libertarian, I'm pro-choice pretty much everything, right? Including the Second Amendment, which I think is where I want to start actually, because there was gun news this week as well out of the Supreme Court and also gun legislation passed out of Congress. So it was a big legislative and judicial news week.
They overturned the concealed carry, the way concealed carry permits were issued in New York, which affects several other states, including Maryland, which I used to live in, saying that it was unconstitutional, frankly, to make someone meet a criteria, to give you further reasoning that was subjectively evaluated by the state to get your concealed carry permit. You know what, I agree with that.
Gerardo Del Real: Same.
Nick Hodge: I think that was the right decision. But the reasons that I agree with it, and some of the reasons that other people backed it, including Justin Amash, which I've mentioned on this podcast before, is that it discriminated against minorities and the less fortunate, the less well-off people in New York, right? Because if you were black or Latino, you were less likely to get your concealed carry permit when you applied for it in that state. So those marginalized individuals in this case were protected by upholding that right.
Which flies at the face of protecting the rights of individuals who are marginalized here with the Roe versus Wade decision, right? So if you're a conservative, I don't know how you rectify that logically in your mind, specifically if you're pro Second Amendment and you want the government to stay out of it and just let you exercise your rights, then it's beyond me why you want the government to regulate somebody else's right or somebody else's ability to choose what's best for them.
I guess that's the first thing is that you've got to weigh the two against each other, right? I mean, they're wanting to have their cake and eat it too and that's not right.
The other thing I'd say is I'd point to infant mortality rates, right? We talk about how we don't protect these kids once they come out of the womb, right? The people who want Roe versus Wade to be overturned are all interested in protecting the life of the fetus until it's actually a real life out of the womb, right?
I'd point to Idaho, which I live next to, because they're going to be one of the first states, they're talking about this weekend they're going to ban abortions, right, after this ruling. But Idaho has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country, right? So you think they would want to look in the mirror or not throw stones because they live in a glass house. Where, okay, we want to ban abortion immediately after this rule is overturned. But we also have the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Why don't we do a better job at lowering that, protecting the infants that come out of the womb, instead of trying to tell people what to do with their own bodies.
So the last point I'd make is that, and I've discussed this on the podcast before, so sometimes I feel like a broken record, but my wife used to work in the women's healthcare industry and the stories that you hear, yeah, there's cheating wives and there's people who feel they're too young or they don't have enough money to take care of a kid, but there's also gang rape and incest and all sorts of things that you can't even imagine, right? You used the example of being raped at gunpoint. I mean, the stories that you would hear are unconscionable.
In many cases, it's not like these women are doing it because they think it'll help their life trajectory or they don't feel like taking care of a baby or they feel like they're not in a position to have a baby. It's they're carrying the child of their attacker or they're carrying the child of one of their close relatives who raped them, right? So to have a blanket edict here, to not have any exemptions, I mean, it's just really trampling on caring for people when they're at their most vulnerable and in many cases when they've been victims of crimes. So, yeah, I guess those are my thoughts on it.
I guess lastly, you talked about our views as a corporation. We'll continue to be inclusive and to offer support to anyone who needs it in the face of the culture wars and the persecution that's going on from the government, and other corporations are doing so as well. And being rewarded in the market, I should say. Dick's Sporting Goods CEO said that they would pay $4,000 for a woman and a supportive party to reimburse travel expenses to go to a state where they could receive care and the stock was up more than the S&P was up. I mean, the market responded to that decision. Levi's was on the list. Gap was on the list. That was just in the couple of hours that I spent poking around on Twitter today.
That's the last thing, I guess I'll say, is that part of the Fourth Turning, which you mentioned at the top of the hour, is how we respond to these things and what corporations do and what individuals do. On the corporate level, you're seeing some of that already. On the individual level and sort of the fringe level, very curious to see what happens because we know the abortion debate is one that can easily go to violence on both sides. So hot summer continues, unfortunately.
Gerardo Del Real: And has historically, let's be absolutely clear. I mentioned prohibition and I mentioned how there's analogs already. You're not going to end abortion, folks. All you're going to do is make it less safe and you're really marginalizing people that don't have the affluence to be able to seek out safe care and alternatives. So if you know that and you still celebrate this and you also do nothing in the way of providing a coherent healthcare system in this country or a criminal justice system that works... Another ruling that Supreme Court made that wasn't really talked about or publicized much was they basically ruled that cops can lie to you and coerce a confession from you.
They ruled that a police who don't advise people of their Miranda rights, which in this country is the right to remain silent, the rights to an attorney, and that everything you say can and will be used against you, that if you don't know these things, a cop can basically lie to you and coerce a confession out of you and can't be sued because of the immunity that police officers have in this country. So again, I'm just seeing an America that more and more caters, frankly, to people like us, Nick: men, have a couple of coins we can put together, we can fly wherever we need to get whatever we need, right? It's not really affecting us. We're heterosexual. I'm not on any form of contraception, but man are you really doing a job on women, ya’ll. I know what's next. It's going to be the same sex marriages. It's going to be same sex relationships. Going after women's contraception in this country on a federal basis. We've talked about employers doing it and how if you're a private employer, you have a right to support or not support whatever you want. It's your business, if you don't like the corporate policy, leave. That's very different from a federal mandate that attacks contraception. I know it may seem farfetched right now, but that's what Clarence Thomas wants.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I'm going to jump all over the place again. So back to the Miranda rights, you see this continued enshrining of police, right? Putting them up on a pedestal and making it so that there's less accountability when they do things wrong, which flies in the face of some of the things that we see play out in front of us. We can point back to like Uvalde, for example, and the gentleman who made the call not to go in, thankfully, was put on administrative leave. I personally think that it should have been more than administrative leave, but you're seeing the need, in real life examples, to hold police accountable, right?
Yet, in the ivory tower of the Supreme Court, they continue to make it so that police have maybe not more power, but less accountability, right? Just to split hairs there, if the police do force a confession out of you, if they don't read you your Miranda rights or whatever, that won’t be admissible in court is something that people are misconstruing. If you give a confession under duress, it's not going to be admissible in court, but you can't then go back on the police officer to say, "You didn't read me my Miranda rights or whatever."
So I know that might be not condolence to many, but at least you could know that a forced confession should not be admissible in court per this ruling. Then you said we got to take both sides to task and that's something that we've failed to do so far as Democrats-
Gerardo Del Real: I'm about to.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, Democrats had control for a long time, right? A couple of things. One, if it's that big of an issue to you. I see Maxine Waters out on the street, I see AOC out in the street, where were you guys 10, 12 years ago trying to codify the opposite of this into when you did have the majority, right? Why did you allow Mitch turtle McConnell to steamroll you in the Supreme Court depositions or confirmation hearings, right? Just a lack of strength to me from the Democrats too.
Gerardo Del Real: I'll give AOC a pass because she's been consistent in advocating for that to happen and she hasn't been around as long as Pelosi and Schumer. She's actually butted heads with them publicly over this issue. But the Schumers and the Pelosis and those of you all that just support the left, Barack Obama had a very eloquent statement as he often does, hey motherfucker, you were the guy that campaigned on this in 2007, where you promised along with immigration, that this was going to be one of your primary goals in the first hundred days of taking office, to prevent this exact same thing.
So this isn't something that wasn't on the radar of the leaders on the left, everybody. This is my point about both sides lying to you and not really caring. They're going to continue with their Secret Service protection. They're going to continue to have scotches and whiskeys and talk philosophy and political theory behind the scenes. They're going to continue to fly and get whatever the hell they want whenever the hell they want it, but what they're doing to and for the citizenry, it's not equal and it should be accountable.
I got to deal with stupid ass Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeting just now that “AOC just launched an insurrection. Any violence and rioting is a direct result of Democrat marching orders.” This because AOC encouraged everyone to go protest peacefully in front of the Supreme Court, which is a motherfucking American right that's in the constitution, bitch. Read it, try it, have a fucking thought. Both sides should be taken a task. It's why I lean libertarian on almost every issue.
I agree with you about the decision with New York and how just egregious that concealed carry standard was. It was absolutely discriminatory for anybody who wanted to lawfully carry a concealed weapon in the state of New York. I am all for people being for or against abortion or women's reproductive rights or same sex marriage or... You know what Clarence Thomas left out, you know one of those little issues in the case law that he cited to want to go after same sex marriage and same sex benefits and reproductive contraception and reproductive rights? He failed to include that interracial marriage was also a part of those street cases that he cited.
You know why? Because he's married to a white woman. Why don't you put that whole thing on there if you really feel the law is the fucking law? It's hypocrisy at its finest. That's my rant. I'm going to leave it there. This one, it gets me hot under the collar, not because I'm a historian or a lawyer or qualified even from a legal perspective to speak on it. But as a human being who is accountable, as a human being who likes fairness and compassion and who likes to lead from that, boy, this one gets me going, Nick.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting times, right? Before we move on, just one last thing is have some nuance, right? I know that's a rare thing in these tribal culture war Fourth Turning days, but I can be in favor of the Supreme Court ruling for the Second Amendment in New York with the concealed carry. And I can also be in favor of the gun safety package that Congress just passed, right? I think that was a step in the right direction, the enhanced background checks, the enhanced mental health stuff, access to mental health records from your juvenile days when you go to buy a gun. You can have both and you can change your mind, right? So I would just encourage everybody to, you said have a thought, but also have a nuanced thought.
Gerardo Del Real: A lot of thoughts, a lot of thoughts. I wanted to talk about the investigation in the Uvalde massacre of those babies. That was pretty much aided and abetted by the local police department. I want to save that because I believe that deserves its own space and its own time and its own attention. But I will say this, it's curious to me that all these law and order law enforcement officers now want to testify privately and in secret and are doing everything they can to prevent the release of body cam footage.
These are the same people that execute no knock warrants and kick doors down in the middle of the night and do all the things that come with that. They couldn't, allegedly, open a lock without a janitor's key. They waited an hour for that while babies called. There's more to this story than what is being told publicly. It's gone eerily quiet the last few days. It'll be interesting the next time we have this conversation, Nick, what if anything else is disclosed. But I think this is going to be, if it was at all possible, an even bigger tragedy than it already has been. So I'll leave that alone. I thought-
Nick Hodge: That's why I was so riled up about it in the days after the shooting, man. I don't think I tweeted anything for two or three days except for about the police and why they waited so long and this and that. Yeah, no, it flies in the face of all the money we've given them, all the equipment we've given them. They could have clearly overpowered this guy. They had bigger and more weapons and certainly they can open a fucking door.
Gerardo Del Real: I think I said Obama made it a campaign promise in 2017, it was 2007. If I said 2007, I meant 2007, but it was 2007 when he campaigned and promised that Roe versus Wade would be protected. By the way, talking about having a nuanced thought, I actually don't believe that the Democrats should vote to end the filibuster. Because again, I think that's just more government interference, which is what I think both Nick and I are against. We don't want the government telling us who to sleep with, how to sleep with them, the positions I can take, the guns I can have, the guns I can't have, where I can have them.
We just want some common sense hands off governing. I had the good fortune of spending four days in Costa Rica recently. I just got back. One, the people were amazing. Two, the culture is beautiful. The place is magical, right? I was in a place called Tamarindo. Look it up. It's amazing. But it was interesting because I was having a conversation with the gentleman that picked us up and dropped us off at the airport. And he was talking about the respect for dissenting opinion, how people make it a point to be very civil. Now, one of the things that makes Costa Rica so special and I think more kind is how he put it is that they don't have an active military.
Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't have an active military in the U.S. for obvious reasons. What I am saying is he spoke about how it was so important to not intrude into people's personal lives and how corrupted militaries around the world had become and how although there's still a lot of corruption in Costa Rica, the military was one less institution that they had to deal with as it related to corruption, and obviously a very, very powerful one. The one that I think is most aiding and abetting in a country that's near and dear to my heart where my parents come from and where I was made which is Mexico, right?
I was born here. You guys know the story. Came over when my mom was five months pregnant, but I thought that was interesting and I think we're going to see a whole heck of a lot more military this summer in the streets. I don't think it's a coincidence that all of the walls and the fences were put up prior to this decision. Everybody knew what was coming and what's coming after this is going to be tough you all.
Nick Hodge: Yep. I saw the shields and the shin guards and knee pads. I saw them marching out for sure. Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: Speaking of accountability, I heard a joke. You want to hear my joke?
Nick Hodge: Sure.
Gerardo Del Real: What does a Republican say when he accidentally bumps into Trump?
Nick Hodge: What's he say?
Gerardo Del Real: Pardon me.
Nick Hodge: Oh, that's funny.
Gerardo Del Real: Speaking of hypocrisy and accountability, folks, and speaking of switching back when you gave it to the Democrats, all of them, from Biden to Pelosi, to Barack, all the eloquent statements aside, I don't care. You all facilitated this decision as much as anyone else. Republicans just actually had the backbone to go after what they wanted to go after for a very long time. They didn't hide it. But two things are interesting. Mr. Trump actually disagrees with this. He has said in the past privately that he didn't believe that Roe versus Wade should be overturned, right?
People forget he's had three or four baby mamas. People forget that I'm sure he is paid for a couple of abortions here and there. I'm sure there's some great NDAs and some stories to be had out there. But it's interesting to me how many Republicans went to Trump in the days after January the 6th, begging for a pardon. Matt Gates included, you little fuck. But yeah, it was amazing to me that immediately after that happened, all these people felt guilty about something, Nick.
Then I start reading about the tours, the special tours that were given on January the 5th by members of Congress, where these people had access to rooms and photograph access to places that nobody had ever inquired about in the past, or toured anyone around. Very interesting times, very interesting times. You can vote for whoever you want you all. I don't believe most of them. We are in the midst of a Fourth Turning where all of this is going to get torn down. It may take a while. It'll likely take five, six, seven, eight years to play out.
My one silver lining, if I have one, is that I believe in this generation. I believe in the youth's ambition and willingness to sacrifice for change. I do believe that the mid 2030s will look very different than the mid 2020s. The mid 2020s are not going to be the safest place to be an American in America, folks, especially if you don't have money and the means to defend yourself. I'll leave that there.
Nick Hodge: Next couple of years are going to be interesting. I drove six hours through Idaho and Montana this week on the way back from a site visit. There's lots of handmade Trump 2024 signs on that route. He's talked about pardoning some of those January 6th people, maybe not necessarily politicians, but those citizens who were already charged and who could still be charged. In a very real way, he's still got a stranglehold on the Republican party.
Here in the midterms, he had great success backing candidates that went on to win. Then just anecdotally I saw the story this week about some guy was touring Congress with his kid, and then he was pointing out to his kid the Republicans who weren't Trump backers, right? Saying like, "Look at these guys. These are the people who don't support Trump." Right? So I don't see anybody doing that for anybody else that's running for office.
Gerardo Del Real: Interesting times. Anything else you want to get off your chest, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Just precarious in the market still. So we're about to get to the end of June which means half the year is over, which means Q2 is over, which means we'll start getting Q2 numbers both as it relates to GDP and as it relates to earnings. Those comps aren't going to be favorable, especially for tech companies. I think you get a further de-leveraging, people selling stocks, earnings coming in that aren't favorable to Mr. Market rewarding them to the upside. I just lost my last train there, but just continue to be cautious, protect your cash and know that we still got a bit of a tough row to hoe as it were when it comes to the broad market indices.
Gerardo Del Real: I want to read a quote from Mr. John F. Kennedy a year before he got his head blown off in Dallas. He said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Let me read that to you again, folks. “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” I am Gerardo Del Real. This was therapy session and boy that I need it this week, number 175. We call it Bizarro World. It is indeed that, getting more bizarro by the week. We'll talk Jupiter next week. We'll talk the gun rights legislation that was passed and we'll applaud both sides for getting something done. But that's all I have. Mr. Nick Hodge, it's been a pleasure as always. This was number 175. Send us off, Mr. Hodge.
Nick Hodge: Pura vida, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: Pura vida.