Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Dec. 12, 2021
Rare earths are havings a bit of moment. So is gold M&A.
The commodity bull cycle is still on despite the current weakness. We'll have a video out on December 22nd on how we're trading this commodity supercycle.
Cryptos took a hit over the past week. Did we buy, sell, or hold?
Jussie Smollett and the Brothers Cuomo conveniently steal the spotlight from the Ghislain Maxwell trial.
Bob Dole and the common good.
Cannabis stocks headed into 2022.
Table of Contents
Gerardo Del Real: Guilty. That's what the jury said about that great French actor, as Mr. Dave Chappelle would say. Of course I'm talking about Jussie Smollett. Gold? Still boring. The dollar? Getting boing. Cryptos? Little bit of a hit. We're gonna talk cryptos. Our crypto expert thinks if we can break through a certain barrier that we'll be off to the races. We'll get into that. Inflation is the highest in a generation even if you don't count mundane things like food. Because nobody eats, right? We'll talk Bob Dole. We'll talk M&A in the gold space. Congratulations to Great Bear Resources (TSX-V: GBR)(OTC: GTBAF). We'll talk about the Finland prime minister who got caught clubbing with COVID restrictions on... Our leader can barely stay awake. A lot to get to. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host Mr. Nick Hodge. This is episode 147 of Bizarro World. Nick, how are you?
Nick Hodge: I'm doing okay, Gerardo. I got the positive test for the Rona after getting double-jabbed. So I might have the Omicron, as it were, because that's the one that's breaking through as we now know, but powering through, getting stuff done, getting ready for the holidays, and well, otherwise looking forward to the new year. How are you doing, Gerardo?
Gerardo Del Real: I'm well. I'm sorry to hear that the Rona caught up to you. You fought a valiant fight. You hold out a lot longer than most of us did. Obviously, wishing you a speedy recovery and appreciate you taking the time to jump on and have a conversation for a bit today. I'm well. Excited for the end of the year and really excited about 2022.
Commodity Supercycle, Inflation, Gold
I think we're going into a situation where, when you look at the inflation numbers, right, and we look at the demand side of commodities like lithium, like copper, like uranium, and then you scale that out a bit, you take a look at the supply side and you see places like Peru, which is starting to see, big mines being shut down, copper mines being shut down.
I look around and I see General Motors (NYSE: GM) is going to invest, something like $3 billion in a U.S.-based electric vehicle battery plant. I drive to the airport when I pick up my 18-year-old from school and I see the Gigafactory, and all of these things just make my contrarian heart smile, because as we talked about last week and the week before, and frankly all the past 12, 18 months, I think we're positioned beautifully for it. Long-winded answer, but that's a long way of saying it. I'm well, and I'm really excited for 2022.
Nick Hodge: You mentioned being positioned, you mentioned the rare earths deal. Yeah. MP Materials (NYSE: MP) has been one that we've been in for a while. You're positioned in some smaller, rare earths and lithium plays obviously. And so, those are the things that are needed. That trend's not go in anywhere anytime soon, although it can feel like it's turning or consolidating or whatever words you want to choose there. We're well within a bullish cycle, and there's lots of layers to that, including tax loss season, including directional changes in the dollar, et cetera. And we'll talk about markets I'm sure. But all that to say, you can consolidate even for months in the commodity space and still be in an overall larger super cycle, which we know lasts for, I don't know, 12 to 20 some years on the upside. Like the last time they started going up was from the mid-nineties, and that didn't until 2008 and lots of fits and starts along the way. No, I'm with you, excited about what's to come, and I'm sure we'll talk more about it.
Gerardo Del Real: If only we had the foresight and we're nimble enough to have a promotion ready to fire off about this commodity Supercycle and how people can get rich with it.
Nick Hodge: You know, and across multiple commodities and by following what we're doing with our own dollars, and yeah, maybe it'll come out like the week before Christmas, maybe December 22nd. I don't know.
Gerardo Del Real: Ho, ho, ho. Let's talk inflation. 6.8% increase on a year-over-year basis. This is the fastest pace of accelerated inflation since 1982. Mind you, as I mentioned up top, this excludes energy and food because who the hell needs energy and food, right Nick? I mean, why would we want to include that in the core price index. Everything is going up. Clothing, haircuts, TVs. Let me get into some of these numbers. This is year on year, by the way, folks.
Gas up 58.1%. Nick made money from gas plays. Used vehicles, 31.4%. Hotels, 25.5%. Side pieces are getting more pricey to have. Meat, poultry, fish, 13.1%. Furniture and bedding for those hotels, 11.8%. New vehicles for the side pieces, 11.1%. Domestic services, 10.2%. I could go on. I don't see rate increases. I don't see anything other than rich people getting richer. You and I had a conversation off air that will keep off air, but we've been fortunate again that we were positioned well for it, but it's getting to the point where I'm even looking at some of the valuations and going, "All right, are they really justified and why?"
But then when I do a deep-dive, look, the supply-demand fundamentals actually justify a lot of these increases given the amount of dollars and every currency that's swashing around looking for a home, right?
Nick Hodge: Yeah, the 6.8% number is probably low for reasons you mentioned. Things aren't included. It's a lagging number. And we talked about it last week, how prices were going to remain high on the consumer side for a lot of time to come, specifically to real estate. Yeah, it's very interesting, right?
You look at those prices and like you say, you think about tulips or something like that, but then you think about a millennial generation that's got 30 million more people in it than the boomer generation did. And you look at the housing stocks or the housing inventory, and you realize that there's literally out enough houses for this generation to raise families in. And so, market fundamentals say that, price of housing has to rise to accommodate for that. And so whether you own, land or rentals or second homes or real estate investment trusts or home building stocks, there's lots of ways to get into that, but it's a very real trend, and like you say, it's justified in many respects,
Gerardo Del Real: Let's get into the markets. Gold flirting again with $1,800. That seems to be, you know the-
Nick Hodge: That's like the thing.
Gerardo Del Real: That's it, right? Every time it gets lower than $1,760, it shoots right back up. Every time it gets higher than $1,830, $1,835, it shoots right back down. A healthy floor. Tax-loss selling season is in full effect. I would encourage everyone out there. You're not already positioned in some of these better names, take advantage some of these fire sales because there's a lot of them. Silver, $22 seems to be the new floor there. Copper, $4.28, $4.29, $4.30. That seems to be the floor there. You know, I could go on. Crude oil, $72, and then we got the dollar index where 96 seems to be the new floor there. So I know you always watch the ten-year. I know you watch the volatility index along with everything else, obviously. Thoughts on these, what appears to me and again, why I'm so excited about 2022, what appears to be the bottom in a lot of these commodities. And again, when you take into account the supply-demand fundamentals that, that we have to look forward to, I get giddy. I get giddy.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I think you're still in an overall bull cycle for commodities, but probably in a bit of a soft period because of the stronger dollar. You mentioned tax-loss selling there, and it go was both ways. Right? I think that there's probably some companies worth peeling out of. I'm sure we'll give out some awards here in the next couple of weeks. I saw you tweeting about it and...
Gerardo Del Real: Y'all better talk nice to me, people.
Nick Hodge: And conversely works the other way, right? A time to pick away at companies you want to get into that may have been beaten up if you have a capital to do so. And look, I think that quality assets will always rise to the top. You wanted to talk about, I think, consolidation or M&A in the gold space. And there was a big deal this week at Kinross (NYSE: KGC)(TSX: K) coming in for Great Bear, and some people thinking that Barrick (NYSE: GOLD)(TSX: ABX) might come into it as well. We'll see what happens there. But significant premium to a stock that had already run we discussed a couple of weeks ago.
Gerardo Del Real: You were buying some, right?
Nick Hodge: Well, I was looking to buy some, and I said that I thought I had missed it. And I guess, technically, at the time, I was right. It had made its move, but I had no way of knowing that there was going to be a 40% premium coming in over top of that. No, I wasn't in it, but obviously congrats to them. And just underscores that there's still M&A to be had in the gold space with the price at $1,800, we say that's kind of boring. We look at the chart and it's sort of been relatively here and there for 10 months or the past year, but that's still a historically elevated the gold price, and behind the scenes, obviously majors looking and doing diligence on assets that they want to buy.
Gerardo Del Real: Look, $1.4 billion and a 40% premium sure isn't boring, especially if a company like Barrick might come back in because maybe they feel like they got scooped and then counter, and there's a lot of details that we can get into that. I'll save for another discussion.
Look, it's great for Great Bear. Congratulations to the Discovery Group led by John Robins, who has had a hell of a run going back to the bear market. He's been executing and that entire team. I really like Kinross' presence in Northern Ontario. There's a lot of quality plays. And I think this is going to bode really well for future consolidation and a premium being put on companies that are successful, outlining significant resources that have scale. And I think it's going to be across multiple commodity types. I don't think it's just specific to gold. So no look, all positive things on that front.
Still Buying Crypto Dips?
Let's pivot really quick. I want to talk cryptos. Chris Curl, who's our in-house expert who is due any day to launch his service, had an article earlier this week that... You can find all of Chris and Nick and my free editorials on Daily Profit Cycle, but he had an article where he thought if Bitcoin could get back to that $53,000 level, then we might be headed off to the races. What are your thoughts? You still hodling, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. So it's been an interesting week for crypto. We should probably recap just a little bit because things are happening quickly and we record on Friday. So last Friday, we recorded, my throat was just starting to get a little bit scratchy, and I was trading like a madman that day, if you remember. We recorded, I was like buying Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN). I was buying the... and had recommended the Bitcoin futures ETF (NYSE: BITO) because cryptos were starting to pull back hard. What happened overnight after I had a couple of old fashions, was that Bitcoin crashed hard. I think to, to $43,000 or something was the number. And I woke up, and I started rubbing my eyes and it was sort of right in the midst of that. And I was like, "Well, what is going on here? I wonder how big of a mistake I made yesterday?"
But what I did was I bought some Ethereum on Saturday morning, new money into the market, and I sold some of the bounce on those trades I had made on Friday in the equities. So out of Coinbase, for example, because well, they continued to be relatively soft. So I think what you're seeing now is sideways action in the crypto prices and crypto stocks trying to find their footing much like gold is actually at the moment. And yes, if we could recapture that level, I think that you see higher prices and people continue to make the case for higher prices in the new year. So, for now, I think probably, sort of a range bound, again, pointing back to gold, like gold for the moment at $1,800, crypto is obviously a bit more volatile. It has a larger price. So call it $43,000 to $53,000 at the moment. But yeah, that's what happened in the past week. And the answer to your question, am I hodling? Yeah. Bought some more Ethereum in the meantime.
Classic Uranium Stocks: 50% Pullback
Gerardo Del Real: I like it. Uranium stocks also seem to be finding the new floor, right? There was obviously a really big ramp up here in the past six months or so, six to 12 months. And then we've had a couple of many pullbacks. I said last week that I was really liking the most recent one and close to dipping my toe personally in a lot of these names. I think maybe there's still a little tiny bit left, but at these levels, I'd be comfortable allocating new capital to quality names. I think, obviously, there's going to be a lull with the holidays and tax-loss selling working its way through. But I think, again, I think Q1 of 2022 is going to be an absolute barn burner in the uranium space.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I mean the uranium equity prices are back to sort of where they were in June and they went a little bit lower after that. And then they went on the run that started to get a larger audience of people interested in the space. I don't know if you've seen that chart, Gerardo. I see it a lot on Twitter about the stages of a mania market. And it's like the smart money, the early adopters, and then the institutions, and then there's media hype and it as all these things on it. We're still in the first sort of... the end of the first third of that chart. Right? You said you'd be comfortable allocating here. Yeah, I think that's right. I was writing about, I guess it was Skyharbour (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) the other day, which had run to 80 cents and pulled back to 40 cents. Right. So there's your like 50% retracement and so you're right.
Gerardo Del Real: Classic uranium.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, exactly. Right? So you're like right about there exactly what you said.
Gerardo Del Real: I felt so bad. There was this guy on Twitter that said, this was like three days ago. He tweeted, "Sold of all my uranium stocks. Never again." Right? And I was like fuck, here's the bottom and this poor guy's probably... he bought at the top, got emotional, sold at the bottom, probably hasn't seen a uranium cycle in the past. I wanted to reach out. And then I said, "No, I need to mind my business." Right. I think more people on Twitter need to mind their business, but yeah. So I minded my business, but I felt bad because, I knew... that's classic again, classic uranium, classic capitulation. It's par for the cource for that space because of how opaque and how small a space it is. I can't stress enough. It's going to be two steps forward, one step back in the uranium space for the next 12 to 18 months is my belief.
And I do believe there's a mania phase coming, and I'll take out my crystal ball and make some predictions and at the risk of being wrong, which, that's what we do anyhow, is take that risk every time we bet with our money. I think we're going to see the uranium price overshoot to the $200 level. And before it does a 50% retracement to a more sustainable $100 level, but, again, we're at $45, $46 right now. There's a lot of money to be made, people.
Nick Hodge: That guy's like Gartman. He's like a inverse indicator. Right? And you got to know how to spot those, right? Because there's some people who are classic at that. And so if you could put a few of those together, have a list, you can sort of gauge that contrarian-contrarian sentiment.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. I'm going to leave Mr. Gartman and Mr. Harry Dent alone. But yeah, they're on the list, just put it that way. And hey, speaking of list, everybody that's out there listening, so Nick and I mentioned, and I tweeted earlier, that the Bizarro World Awards are coming up. I think it's the third annual Bizarro World Awards. Just so everybody's absolutely clear, Bizarro World is our therapy session, and a few years ago, we decided that the world was getting crazier and that it would be the best named podcast ever. These categories, we make them up. So when I joked earlier about, you guys better talk nice to me in the next couple of weeks, we can make up any category.
So what I would love is for listeners of the podcast, the Pauls, the Marks, everybody that tends to listen in their spare time, and thank you for listening. I don't really why you listen, but anybody that's listening that wants to suggest a category, by all means, hit me up on LinkedIn, and send me something on Twitter, shoot me an email if you have my contact information. We are more than receptive to new and creative categories. Again, hence my warning, everyone, you probably want to be nice to me these next couple of weeks that you might end up with a completely made up category about the snarkiest email of 2021, what it was and who it was from. Right? So, yeah. Food for thought. Anything on that, Nick?
Nick Hodge: No, I look forward to that episode when we get to it, and we'll have to make sure to get a list going here in the next couple of weeks.
Jussie Smollett's Self Hate
Gerardo Del Real: I like it. I like it. Juicy Sommelier, the great Frenchman. He's not French, and his name ain't Juicy everyone, but it's one of my favorite skit/jokes that Dave Chappelle had. And again, Mr. Chappelle was early on it. He caught a lot of flack. He was absolutely right. For those who are not aware of Jussie Smollett's background, he was a very, very prominent actor in a show called Empire. This was a nationally syndicated show on the Fox network. And it did very well. Number one show for a lot of years, and he was the star of it. As ratings started to dip a little bit, and as he found himself in a contract negotiation, he allegedly was in Chicago in the winter. I grew up in Chicago. I know what the winters are like. Decided he needed subway at two, three in the morning.
And, allegedly, well, not allegedly, this is what he said. He said that two attackers put a rope around his neck. And he said they poured bleach on him. And these guys were wearing MAGA hats, right? So I'm going, "Wait the fuck a minute. I know Chicago." I told my wife this. We talked about on this podcast. You can go back a year or two and check it out. I said, "Nobody is going to be out at two, three in the morning to go Subway first off in Chicago in the winter. Second, this is a wealthy, rich guy with assistance and everything. He doesn't have to go anywhere. If he was trying to get something, it sure in the hell wasn't Subway." Right? And so long story short, Chicago police, which, I have my issues with, just the history of the Chicago police department.
Again, I have a cousin that's a cop on the South Side. I have a cousin that's a public defender as well in Chicago, so, by no means, painting with a broad brush, but you can do your history on Chicago police, and they haven't been the most straight-shooting, pun intended, of professionals in the past hundred years. So when I saw that 26 Chicago cops spent 3,000 hours of time and spent over $100,000 on a crime that never occurred because Juicy Sommelier was now found guilty on five counts of telling police officers he was a hate crime victim, telling officers he was a battery victim, telling a detective he was a hate crime victim, telling a detective he was a battery victim. Different detectives, different charges. The way it works. And telling another detective that he was a battery victim.
When I saw the amount of manpower that they invested to find out what happened to old Juicy, I sensed from the beginning, along with a couple of other people, this was bullshit, right? And I think they knew it was bullshit. And I think that's why they spent that type of money and man-hours in figuring out exactly what it is that happened. And so I hope Juicy gets the book thrown at him, and I don't say that lightly. Other than sex offenders, child molesters, and informants that are allowed to commit crimes, I don't usually wish prison on anybody, but in case, look, I actually think the judge said it well. He said accusing someone of a fake hate crime of orchestrating this, it denigrates real hate crimes and it takes man-hours and resources from the investigations that otherwise would be occurring.
And so, look. I don't care if he's white, if he's black, if he's a cop, if he's a nurse, if you lie about a hate crime to try to get your negotiation status in a little bit more leverage position, which is what I think this was, is what it sounds like he was trying to make himself a victim. He tried to play the race card, he tried to play the gay card. He told police officers that they screamed the F-word to him, and that they called him the N-word. I don't if Mr. Smollett has mental health issues. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I hope he gets help. I'm glad he was found guilty.
It turned out now, what we're finding out is, that his attackers weren't attackers at all. One of the gentlemen, that was allegedly in on the hoax... Not allegedly, he was in on the hoax, he said that he purchased drugs and made out with Jussie at a gay bathhouse. It sounds like a relationship that was on the rocks, coupled with contract negotiations that weren't going maybe the way he wanted them to go. And those are no reasons to create a fake hate crime, everybody. I wish him the best, but I also wish him accountability like I wish for everyone else. I'll put the link up to the story. It's a crazy story. I could spend an hour on this thing, but yeah. Interesting. Any thoughts on old Juicy?
Nick Hodge: Well, he shouldn't beat himself up about it.
Gerardo Del Real: I like the double entendre. It doesn't sound like he had to beat himself up.
Gerardo Del Real: Switching gears. My Finland friends will appreciate this. I didn't realize your prime minister was so beautiful.
Nick Hodge: I did not either.
Gerardo Del Real: That is one pretty woman, and I'm sure she's intelligent, clearly accomplished. She's the prime minister. I am not taking away from... I'm sure the many other qualities she has, but I laughed all weekend long, all week long when I heard that she was being criticized for spending a night clubbing, following exposure to COVID-19. So she said she was vaccinated. She and her husband were out and about. They went for dinner. They spent some time clubbing it up, and she didn't have her second phone to know that the guidance that was going out for the average citizenry, right, was to avoid contact with other people. Right?
That was what the prime minister's office kind of put out and broadcast to everybody. So of course, when they caught her at the club at three, four in the morning, you can imagine the backlash that she caught. She said she should have used better consideration on Saturday night. She said, "I'm really sorry." I say, like I said, on Twitter, "Our leader can barely keep awake." Right? So if this is the worst of Mrs. Marin, hey, you're going to be all right, girl. Don't worry about it. Not that big a deal. You're 36. You'll learn. You'll be okay.
Nick Hodge: It sounded like she was double-vaxxed, adhering to the policy she knew that was at hand previously and missed a call from her, I don't know the equivalent of, I don't know, Department of State or something like that to warned her that she shouldn't go out. But anyway, it turned into a gotcha moment, which whatever, I'm not much for gotcha moments, but there were some funny tweets, just like the don't beat yourself up. Because obviously, I think, not a lot of people, including myself, knew that she was like one of the youngest prime ministers. And like you say, beautiful. So I'll tell you the funniest one I saw and then we could move on, and it was that she caused a rise in a lot of lap-lands.
Gerardo Del Real: You know what hasn't inflated?
Nick Hodge: What's that?
Gerardo Del Real: The cost of a lap dance. I was having this conversation with my wife the other day. I said, "Babe." I said, "Can you believe a lap dance is still only $20?" I go get steak. I go get milk. I go get all the other things that I really enjoy. And I couldn't believe that a lap dance is still $20.
Nick Hodge: You would think that that would go up. Disposable cash business and, labor shortage. Yeah. And then certainly with wages starting to go up, hopefully it goes up for those girls.
Gerardo Del Real: I root for them. I root for them.
Nick Hodge: There you go.
Maxwell & Epstein Conveniently Overshadowed
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Let's see. Who else is being naughty out there? Christmas is right around the corner. Chris Cuomo found a way to get himself fired. We talked about last week, the fact that he was advising and consulting for his brother on how to navigate his sexual harassment charges, while also being a very influential network host. I don't want to call him a journalist, but yeah. Obviously he's somebody that has influence, had a primetime slot at nine o'clock on CNN. We talked last week about the eroding trust in institutions and how they've earned that lack of trust. And that goes from the media to politicians on both sides, to our justice department, to our law enforcement departments. It's something that's happened slowly, and then all of a sudden, as a person of much smarter than I likes to say.
And so CNN didn't want to deal with the conflict, and the way they reacted was by firing him. The way Chris is reacting is by saying that he's going to seek an $18 million lawsuit for the remaining salary remaining on his contract here over the next couple of years. Alan Dershowitz, who, if anybody has watched any of the Epstein documentaries, should just shut the fuck up, quickly came out and said, he thinks Chris Cuomo will win his $18 million contract fight with CNN. So I bring this up, and I brought the Juicy Smulliet case up, because it's really in to me how much coverage these two situations have gotten and how little Ghislaine Maxwell... That's her name? Ghislaine? Did we establish that yet?
Nick Hodge: I say Ghislaine, but yeah, Ghislaine Maxwell. Sure.
Gerardo Del Real: Ghislaine, Epstein's co-pimp, right? Ghislaine Maxwell. How little coverage that case has gotten. And is it a coincidence? I could put my tinfoil hat on and pontificate about the number of powerful people on all sides that I believe are really vested in not promoting this and not wanting people to ask deeper questions. I've yet to see anybody else arrested for what was a child sex trafficking ring, an international one that went on for decades. And it's beyond me, how that is still the case to this day.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. You can tell a lot about the society you live in or who the true masters are by figuring out who you're not allowed to criticize. And there's a lot of people on the list and a lot of people tied to this thing that you're seemingly not allowed to criticize. And so the trial is still going on. It's still at the bottom of all the big newspaper pages that should have a real interest in covering this more feverishly than they are. There was a banning of a Twitter account that was following the trial. And some people say that it was a banned for other reasons, but nonetheless, is good additional fodder to say how this story is trying to be buried. And it seems like they're doing a good job burying it, you know?
To your point from a couple of weeks ago, are more bombshells or bigger names going to come out of this? It increasingly seems like that's not going to be the case. And you wonder why that is, right? Why doesn't the prosecution and the government have an interest in letting that come out? And everyone sort of knows why. And I guess those are my thoughts on it. It continues to get less coverage than it obviously deserves. The testimony continues to be mostly against Ms. Maxwell. She might get found guilty and that's probably part of the larger plan, right? Let this die on the vine with her.
Bob Dole & The Common Good
Gerardo Del Real: Interesting. Let's switch gears a little bit. Bob Dole passed away on Sunday. I know that you wanted to talk about Mr. Dole. I believe he was 98 at the time of his death. You wanted to talk about Mr. Dole. Free lunches and modern ranchers. And so with that, Mr. Hodge, the floor is yours.
Nick Hodge: Oh, okay. So I should have prepared more, but yeah. This story kind of got glossed over because he died on a... I guess it was Friday or Saturday, and it was last week, and they tried to save the story until the next week. And of course, everybody consumed it on social media, and then it didn't get as much attention as it deserved. I believe he's laying in state right now or was earlier today. So yeah. Bob Dole, right. Obviously an old gentleman, had been in and around U.S. politics for a long time. War hero before that, right? Severely injured. Didn't have use of one of his arms. Some of the stuff I didn't know until I read the lengthy obituary for him. Couldn't shake hands as a politician with his hand. Couldn't hold babies, for example. And you might not think that's important, but certainly is important when it comes to the optics and stuff.
And so he did well managing that. Lived a hard life, obviously. Some generational themes in there. Him being from the greatest generation, going off to war, getting injured in Europe, not being able to attend political dinners, for example, because he couldn't hold a forked knife. Anyway, I guess when I was reading through his thing, it was about how he was a good political negotiator and his style of politics as a representation of Midwestern upbringing and values as a good old boy from Kansas. And then it went on to list some of his bigger achievements, and one of those was getting free lunches for kids in rural communities, right, which at the time, when he got that done, was championed by those communities. And this is a theme I've brought up before, right?
How something that is inherently good has now been politicized. And so, now that would be viewed as like a handout or something that might not be something a conservative or Republican would be in favor of when lunches to kids are something that is a good idea. Right. And I guess I wanted to talk about ranchers because those would be part of his cohort. And certainly, modern ranchers are conservative politically. And I start to think about some of the economic situations that they find themselves in, particularly beef ranchers and how they are and have been getting squeezed out because of the oligopoly in meat by Tyson and Cargill, et cetera. I think that there's a lot of misplacing of blame, right?
And, a lot of false saviors, right. And so, when I listen into to these ranchers and their views and who they vote for politically, sometimes it seems to me like they're a little bit misaligned where their troubles come from. And they should look at who these big meat buyers and things support politically and why those strings get pulled.
There's a lot to unpack there and I might have not articulated that well, but as I was reading the thing about Bob Dole, you could see a lot of how the country has changed and how the partisanship has gotten in the way and obfuscated the real nature of what goes on in certain things. So I don't know rest in peace, Bob Dole, I guess. And it further represents, I guess, the last point on that is the turning of a generation, right? I mean, he's like sort of that greatest generation that would be four generations ago. And there's a lot of that going on, so symbolic as well.
Gerardo Del Real: I joked about Joe Biden being able to barely stay awake earlier. He actually was very eloquent at his eulogy. He said, and I quote, "I found Bob to be a man of principle, pragmatism and enormous integrity. He came into the arena with certain guiding principles to begin with: devotion to country, to fair play, to decency, to dignity, to honor, and to literally attempting to find the common good." I thought it was extremely well said. I thought it was just on point and we absolutely need more of that from everyone on all sides, regardless of class, color, politics, gender, how you identify. Those should be things that we can all agree to.
President Biden also shared a story that I found to be pretty fucking hilarious. He recounted a time where Dole broke with his party to keep funding for Amtrak, right? Which Biden used to commute to Washington from Delaware as a Senator at the time. And Joe Biden asked him, he said, "Why would you do that?" And Bob Dole said, "It's the best way to get Joe Biden the hell out of here at night." I thought it was a great story. I thought Mr. Biden was well spoken, and yeah, rest in peace to Bob Dole. I completely agree with your sentiment, Nick. And that was very, very, very well said.
Nick Hodge: Well, thanks.
Tax Loss & Cannabis Stocks
Gerardo Del Real: What are we watching in the market next week? Peak of tax-loss selling season? We got another week and a half or two, and then we're pretty much done with it, right, until the new year.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. It's definitely getting peak of tax-loss season out there. It might have already peaked. I see a little bit of dry volume out there. Maybe that's people getting settled into the holiday season, but yeah. Whipping the portfolio into shape for the end of the year, cutting loose the names that need to be cut loose and buying more of the names that need to be bought more of. I should mention cannabis, I guess, which has had a really rough go of it and has sold off hard here until the end of the year. Doesn't look like the SAFE Banking Act is going to get included in the national defense bill.
And so that caused selling, further pain. But the sector is ripe fundamentally for good sales and more states to become legal in 2022. And that legislation likely gets passed in the first half of 2022, and so you, of course, have to make your own portfolio decisions as far as tax-loss and buying. But there's some real values out there in the cannabis space as we get into the end of the year here. And I guess that's what I would mention if you're asking me what I'm looking at in the next week.
Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Thank you for your time today, Nick. I know you're battling through the Rona. I appreciate it. Take that, fucking omicron. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my co-host Mr. Nick Hodge. This was episode 147 of Bizarro World. Say something to the people, nick.
Nick Hodge: See ya.
This transcript is unedited. Please excuse grammatical errors and run-on sentences.