Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Sept. 5, 2022
Nick recaps the sentiment at The Silver Symposium and the talk he gave there. We discuss if gold is currently a good contrarian investment. A thorough update on Patriot Battery Metals and the lithium market. And speaking of lithium, where are all the metals going to come from not only for the electric vehicle targets that global governments are implementing, but to solve the current energy crisis the world finds itself in? This energy crunch is self-inflicted. The Trump classified document saga continues to provide drama and comedy. Children are now contracting monkeypox. Sarah Palin loses her congressional race to Alaskan native Mary Peltola. And we give an update on the slowing housing market and what that means for the economy. This is episode 184 of Bizarro World.
0:48 The Silver Symposium Recap
5:22 Is Gold a Good Contrarian Bet Right Now?
10:28 Patriot Battery Metals & Lithium Stock Update
21:21 Where Is the Metal for All These Electric Cars Going to Come From?
27:57 Trump Classified Document Saga Continues
31:51 Gun Policy Debate Post-Uvalde
37:43 Children Contracting Monkeypox
40:44 Sarah Palin Loses Alaskan Race for Congress
43:36 Housing Market and Interest Rate Update
Gerardo Del Real: Gold is back below $1,700. Will it last? We'll ask Mr. Hodge. Silver is around the $17 level. The dollar is flirting with 110 as we told you it would be. Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) keeps hitting new 52 week highs every week. We're going to talk lithium, we're going to talk bear markets, we're going to talk the housing market. We're going to talk about Greg Abbott — Mr. Hell on Wheels. A lot as always to get to. I am Gerardo Del Real, along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This is therapy session number 184, otherwise known as Bizarro World. Nick, you're back from The Silver Symposium. How are you, sir?
Nick Hodge: I was going to say the news cycle doesn't slow down when you stop looking for two or three days, does it? How are you?
0:48 The Silver Symposium Recap
Gerardo Del Real: It does not. I'm great. I found it highly ironic that silver is down to $17 while you're at the silver symposium, giving a speech on... Would you care to share?
Nick Hodge: I think I told you in previous weeks, my title was "To The Moon? Let's start with $30" and they might have to start with $15 before they start with $30. So I guess we can start with a recap of the show, if that's okay. It was fairly well attended by the crowd that you might expect, the silver crowd. The fed is evil... Ever since Nixon took us off the standard, the dollar is doomed... The central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are coming... And we should all build a bunker and keep stacking silver. That crowd.
And some of the speakers catered to that crowd, which is all well and good. And some of the speakers have catered to that crowd for years, if not decades on end. And they're starting to realize that the can can get kicked much further than anyone realized. And some of the speakers were telling them that the silver price was not in fact going to the moon, but it was closer to the planet that we all live on here and plant our feet on, which is earth. So I just gave a talk about how to be a contrarian's contrarian. And that contrarian doesn't mean doing the opposite of what everyone's doing. It means doing the right thing based on what the crowd is doing.
And I talked about how some of these Reddit sagas that we've seen came at the wrong time and sucked a lot of people in. If you think back to early 2021 when Wall Street Silver was first coming on the scene and telling you that silver was going to the moon. I had some timestamped articles that I wrote for premium members about how we were selling companies like Mag Silver (NYSE: MAG) to that crowd, right? And that's when Mag silver on the NYSE was at like $24 or $25. And if you look at a chart since then, you'll see that Mag Silver's are like $12 now, has taken a 50% haircut since the Wall Street Silver crowd came on the scene. And so I was asking them, I was saying, "It begs the question, which way is the moon?" Right?
Because I was reading articles. I pulled some articles up and I found this one about... It was a Reuters article about this guy here in Washington, in fact, who was a kitchen worker and he had $200 of free income every week. And he was putting $100 of that towards silver. He was like, "With half of my free cash flow, I'm buying silver." And his name was Kerry. So I had a chart up, "How has Carrie done since he was buying silver with half his paycheck at $25 an ounce?" He's taken a 30% haircut, right? Is that the best thing for someone who has $200 of free income every week to be putting your money into? Probably not.
And so anyway, that's what my talk was about. How to deal with the punches as they roll in. Why charts matter. Why only the last price matters, not what you think the price should be. And how to read the tea leaves on when and how to get positioned. And then I went into quality speculations, right? Companies that aren't dependent on their stock doing better when silver's at $50. How to invest in companies that can execute and deliver results while silver's not going the right direction. And it was perfect because I had the trend lines up there. And it was right where it was the day that I was giving the talk. I was saying if silver breaks down through $18.40, $18.50, it's not going to be good. And low and behold, here we are.
Gerardo Del Real: I was thinking about you. I saw a picture on Twitter of you on the panel. I believe Shawn was there. Shawn KhunKhun from Dolly Varden (TSX-V: DV)(OTC: DOLLF). I believe Jason Weber was there from Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ)(OTC: TARSF). Great guys, great companies, doing great work. Have all the faith in the world that they're going to develop projects of merit and continue to grow them. And I have all the confidence in those teams and in their companies that they'll do much better in a better market because they do quality work during the downtime. But that gets to my next point. You talked about being a contrarian. And being a contrarian doesn't mean not making money, just for not making money's sake, right? Being a contrarian is maximizing profits by using weakness to add or bolster positions that you feel confident in.
5:22 Is Gold a Good Contrarian Bet Right Now?
So I say that to say gold broke below $1,700. It's sitting there at $1,695 as we speak. Is gold a good contrarian speculation in your opinion right now? I know we share similar sentiments on silver. I think we both believe it trades as an industrial metal for the time being. And unless it breaks through certain technical highs, it's going to be that way for at least another quarter or so. But what are your feelings on gold?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. Gold is not silver, and silver is not gold. I think gold is going to do what it did in July. It's going to go to that $1,680 point and it's going to bounce right back off. How high is it going to go? I'm not sure, but I think it's a much better place to have capital than silver, for sure. And it's also a much better place to have capital than the broad market indices, certainly than the Nasdaq and some of the tech stocks.
I mean, just to bring it into this week's news, you've got Snap (NASDAQ: SNAP) out there laying off tons of people. That stock's down over 70% for the year. And it went up a little bit when it said it was going to lay off all those people because that's the convoluted market we're in. You say, "Oh, we have terrible news where we're shutting down, whatever, stores in the case of Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY) or we're laying off people to restructure." And the shares go up because people have hope that that plan is going to work.
But at the end of the day, gold has been, for the year, a much better place to have capital than the broad market indices. It's held its value more than most of the stock market has. And given all the inflation that's here, and given that we're going to be in a relative amount of pain as it comes to the investment world and the economic world for the next couple of quarters with slowing down GDP and rising prices, et cetera, I think gold is a good place to have your money.
And then speaking about being contrarian, yeah, buying down here when it's said below $1,700 an ounce, is a fantastic place to be. And going back to what I said about quality speculations, there's people who are doing good work, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: There's companies that are drilling, there's companies who are adding to their resources, there's companies who are coming up on milestones or catalysts that can show the investment world what they have.
And there's one, we're not going to mention the name here because we're having a big event about it in the next week, in fact, on September 8th at 3:00 PM. But that company is in the middle of a 5,000 meter drill campaign. That company is going to have drill results out here soon. Not only was I on site just a couple of months ago, and that's what I made the documentary about, which we're calling America's Biggest Gold Mine, but I had a chance to speak to their mining engineer who was at The Silver Symposium. And I'm not an insider and I don't get insider information, of course, but I can read body language and I can read wrinkles on people's forehead and eyes when they smile. And when I asked how the drilling is going and how are those deep targets looking? How does it look following up on the deep zone where you had good results last year? I mean, he chuckles and he says, "We'll see soon enough."
And I have my spidey sense going off that the drill results are going to be okay. And so we'll get into some of that in the video, why that could be a game changer for this company and why it could become one of the biggest gold discoveries in the country, frankly. I mean, like I say, they've already got several million ounces of gold resource. And that's going to add up real quickly if you get the nine, 10, 12 gram per tonne results that we've seen recently.
So all that to say, you guys should be watching the event that we're having on September 8th. There's already several hundred people signed up to watch it. And I think it's going to be a pretty big event, and one that could potentially make you some money as we head into the latter part of 2022 and into 2023. So as this company delivers results, and as gold does what I think gold is going to do.
Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. I'm biased. I'm very familiar with management. I love the asset. I think we've both been there several times. I'm looking forward to the documentary. I've obviously peeked at it behind the scenes. It looks absolutely spectacular. And I couldn't agree with you more that this company is one that has value today if it never discovers another ounce of gold. Two, I think there are going to discover a lot more ounces of gold. Three, I think gold is headed higher as well. I think we may have a couple of weeks of bouncing off that $1,680 trend line that's been firm support for a long time. And then look, I think we're going to be off to the races. We have Mr. Powell who will be doing more blinking and giving more double talk here at the end of this month. And after that, I expect October, November, and December to be absolutely fantastic.
10:28 Patriot Battery Metals & Lithium Stock Update
Let's get into me sounding like a broken record, Patriot Battery Medals. You talked about the biggest gold mine in the US possibly, right? I've been saying for a long time that I think the Corvette District will end up hosting the biggest lithium resource in the world. That's just little me, right? I'm a simple guy. I have simple premises. I act on it, I write checks, I buy shares. And if it works, I make money. And if it doesn't, I don't, right? Pretty simple. But it's not just me saying that anymore, Patriot Battery Metals just announced the best drill hole of its history at the Corvette District. It drilled 159.7 meters of 1.65% lithium. There were other results within that that are just absolutely mind-blowing, right?
And the statement by new, non-executive chairman, Ken Brinsden that stuck out to me was this. He said, "Corvette is one of the world's great lithium raw materials discoveries with full credit to the team." It's one thing for Gerardo to speculate who's biased, who has a few shares, who has a vested interest in seeing shares go higher, who helped friends, family, and subscribers get into it pretty early. And we lucked out. Nobody plans on drilling out the biggest lithium discovery in the world. There's a lot of luck involved there, but I tell you what? They got a tiger by tail. And for someone of Ken's background, a gentleman that took a project through all the stages of exploration and development, and then getting it built and turning Pilbara into an $8 billion company. For someone like that to get on the record publicly, take options at C$7, and C$9.20 cents, and then say that this is one of the world's great raw materials discovery, that's a pretty high bar for a program that's only some 40 holes in.
So spoiler alert, I've adjusted my upwards price target odd Patriot Battery Metals. Last week we chatted. We talked about how Mark thought I was crazy and smoking something when I had said that C$15 and C$20 was possible. Look, I think C$15 bucks is happening by year end. Maybe C$20, but C$15 is definitely in the cards. I think by the end of 2023, we'll be on our way to C$50 a share, Nick, as in a C$5 billion valuation. Let's put metrics to it. We talked about metrics last week. And we're not just throwing share prices to be hyperbolic. Let's talk about why that is. When I interviewed Blair Way immediately after this news came out, I asked him about potential offtakes, and partnering with maybe an automaker, and the calls that he was receiving.
And his answer to me was a pretty clear indicator of where I think Patriot is headed. I don't think Patriot wants to sell itself anytime soon. If you listen or read the interview, for those of you out there that are interested, Blair goes on to mention that they are intent on proving the two, 300 million tonne resource that everyone I think already believes is there, right? But it was the second part to that answer that really struck me. He mentioned giving this the attention it deserves, this being the Corvette District, away from the drill bit. And he indicated that there's going to be a lot of focus and energy after they show the world how big this thing can be and how much upside exploration exists. They look pretty hell bent to me like maybe wanting to build this thing on their own. And when we look at companies that have, and there's not a lot of them, an asset with 200, 300 million tonnes with these kind of grades, and 50 kilometers of trend, with cheap power nearby, infrastructure, a country that's a top notch jurisdiction for mining. There's nobody around this property to go in and complain about geese, or deer, or a flower that is rare. All of the fatal flaws that I typically look for, they just don't exist thus far. And so if they are serious about not selling too soon and are hell bent on actually financing this thing, let's just throw out a scenario out there, the company gets to C$25 a share and decides to issue 20 million shares and raise C$500 million to build a plant, that's just 20 million more shares. The dilution there is minimal. So if you mean to tell me that Patriot with all of its warrants and options and a fully funded plant... And again, I'm just throwing numbers now, right? C$500 million at C$25. If you mean to tell me that Patriot can have somewhere around 140 million shares with C$500 million in funding to go build this thing and have runway to do that, yeah, C$50 a share is not unreasonable. Go do the coms, go look at Lithium Americas (NYSE: LAC)(TSX: LAC) and what they have and compare the assets.
Look at Ken's past asset, the $8 billion company, Pilbara, right? That's a much smaller resource there. And granted, they've built it, it's producing, it's a different business, but Patriot is building that type of business. And I thought Blair's comment was telling. I thought his comment in the news release was very telling about Ken's skillset and the reason they brought him on, and his background. And look, Blair's background is similar, right? It's similar, just not lithium specific. And so you have very methodical, pragmatic, technical people that know how to take this thing to production. And like I told Blair in the interview, they stumbled onto it. I think is going to be the world's biggest lithium deposit, and can potentially have this built out in a few years to hit the sweet spot of the lithium cycle that I think is going to run for at least another decade. I just can't think of a better scenario. So my new price target is C$50 everybody.
Nick Hodge: It's incredible. I mean, it ripped through C$7 on the back of the halt for that hole you put out earlier. And just to go, I guess, on the macro side of things is we've said repeatedly about this IEA report that says we need 50 lithium mines. It's in Quebec, which is a very mining friendly jurisdiction, which has been known to take stakes and companies itself and has a plan called the Plan Nord to allow these new of mining assets to come online. And there was an article in Bloomberg in back in July. And the headline was "Canada Could Become the Next Metals Powerhouse." And it was talking about some of the things that you just said. Its geographic location next to North America, which is going to need a lot of these metals inputs if it wants to build the battery factories that it says it wants to build. We've talked about new announcements all the time. Last week, we were talking about Mercedes and Volkswagen. This week it was Honda who said they're going to partner with a battery manufacturer and build a plant in the US, Ohio I think it was like.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: ...where are their inputs going to come from? And then you mentioned the hydropower, which is hugely important if we're going to build these things in a green way. So it's got a lot of things going for it.
Gerardo Del Real: A lot. Let me read Blair's quote. And again, I only keep bringing this up every week because I still think there's significant money to be made in the stock, right? The minute that I think it's over bought or the potential's not there, I'll quit talking about it. But it feels irresponsible of me to have people listen to our podcast that maybe didn't believe at C$2.00 the potential, or at C$1.00, or at C$0.50, or at C$3.00, or at C$5.00, but maybe they're sitting there and it's C$7.00 now, and they're going, "Missed that one." Well, if I'm halfway right, and it only goes to C$25, it's C$7.00 right now folks. And this is happening quickly, right? There's three rigs there. The third rig will be moved in September to go figure out how big this other monster lookalike of clusters that they've just discovered. They're going to find out what's there as far as grade goes.
So it feels irresponsible of me to not mention it to people because I think look, that's going to be your freebie tip until it gets to that C$25, C$30 dollar level. But here's Blair's quote in the interview. Blair says, "We want to be able to demonstrate not only the scale, but the capability to take this through the course of getting it into a mine and an operating facility. We have to drill. We have to demonstrate the scale and we want to take this forward right to the point of being able to develop and build a production facility to produce a spodumene concentrate."
That's going to come at a pretty penny, a pretty premium, and I don't believe Ken or Blair take anything close to today's level on a buyout if one is offered at the C$20 or C$25 level, not with the potential, not with the expertise, not with the team that the company's put together, not with the location, and not with the scale. Because look, I keep saying 200 or 300 million tonnes. It could be more. It could be more, right? I'm basing that off this two kilometer trend. I'm not even counting what the new rig is going to uncover once it moves later this month on the new set of clusters there.
So a lot to like. I think there's a lot of upside. I think it's a double between now and year end, possibly a triple. And then the downside is the markets collapse, and there's a pullback, and you have a prolonged bear market, a la the late 1920s, the great depression, and all assets, including Patriot Battery Metals, could pull back. That's your downside. And look, if that's the scenario, everything else is going out the window as well. So everybody's got different risk timelines, revenue streams, but yeah, that's my prediction. We'll see if Mark thinks I've spoken something else now with my C$50 call, but yeah, fingers crossed. Obviously I'm biased, so it's good to see. It's such an amazing discovery and I'm happy for Blair. And I'm happy for us, Nick, because I think next year we're going to have the copper version of this story, which I also consider a battery metal. And I think it'll be fun to do this one and then go do a copper version of it next year.
Nick Hodge: That's the joke somebody... Well, not somebody, her name was Nicole Brewster. She runs a company called Renforth Resources (CSE: RFR)(OTC: RFHRF) and she was on the panel that I was on and she says, she was joking, "We used to call them base metals. Now they're all battery metals."
Gerardo Del Real: It's amazing, right? It's amazing.
21:21 Where Is the Metal for All These Electric Cars Going to Come From?
We have to talk about the dollar. There's riots in the street around the world. People are pissed off. Inflation is through the roof. Electricity prices in the UK are predicted to skyrocket 80% in the month of September alone. There's businesses in Europe that are having to decide between pay and the mortgage, keeping their businesses open or paying the light bill. And then there's an issue of supply, whether there's going to be enough. So look folks, for everyone out there who's anti-mining and is anti-development and tries to block every project that can help solve this energy crunch, you're going to have to start looking in the mirror and take some accountability for some of these shortages. And I'm talking specifically about politicians, right?
None of this is a surprise. The scenario that Germany's put itself in, that the European Union's put itself in... everybody saw that it was coming. Nobody saw the war against Ukraine, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia coming, right? That certainly wasn't in the cards, but we knew it would take just one incident of that scale or nature for these regions to be completely dependent. So I am as much for responsible mining and I think the industry has to do a better job of that. And I'm all for the checks and the balances. But we better get realistic about getting some of these projects across the finish line or this isn't going to be a five or 10-year problem. It's going to be much larger in scale.
And unfortunately it's going to lead to deaths. It's already starting to lead to protests and people in the street. And look, when people get desperate, people get desperate. It's a tricky situation. I really feel for everyone that's vulnerable to the stupidity of these politicians that have put their citizenry in such a precarious position, but we better start having real conversations about mining and how we can do it better and more efficiently and yes, more responsibly. But just sitting on our ass and complaining about it sure than the hell and keeping the lights on.
Nick Hodge: There's so much to say about it. And we talk about it every week. I'll start with the Trumpster because I know we'll probably get to him later. But he told Germany a couple of years ago that they were dangerously dependent on Russia for their energy supplies and the German delegation, I don't know if it was never a G7 meeting or a UN meeting, they laughed.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Who's laughing now as they face one of the coldest winters in a long time? Metaphorically I'm speaking, not temperature wise. Yeah. I've seen the stories about long time business owners who are having to lock in prices that are five, 10 times higher than their previous electricity bills and the decisions that they have to face. And we've talked about, you mentioned last week, the leader of Belgium, for example. I mean these countries have a choice. They chose to shut down their nuclear reactors. Germany has now reversed course. I saw you put Diablo Canyon on there, which I've been mentioning for weeks, and we've been talking about. And they have now officially voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon here in California.
Gerardo Del Real: Even California gets it.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. But what's funny and I'm not sure you saw this week is last week they banned the sales gas cars after... I forget, the year was 2030 or 2035.
Gerardo Del Real: 2035. And this year they're telling people not to charge their electric vehicles. Is that where you're going?
Nick Hodge: That's exactly where I'm going.
Gerardo Del Real: Can't fucking make this stuff up folks.
Nick Hodge: And then this week they literally say, "Please don't charge your electric cars, the grid can't handle it given the temperatures that we're seeing." So it's like, what is it, man? You can't have cake and eat it too. You can't tell people that they have to buy electric cars and then not have a grid sufficient enough to be able to charge them. Right? And so from Patriot Battery Metals, which is going to be providing lithium for these cars all the way to the uranium names that both you and I recommend the different ones, producers and developers, explorers. I mean Robert Friedland calls it "The revenge of the miners." You can't build out this stuff. You can't have the future that you're writing the policy for without the inputs to make it a reality. I've said this for years, I talked about solar roads, right? The extension of that is you can't just wave a wand or a pen on a paper and say, "Oh, electric cars by 2035, tax credits for 2040." That's fine. But fucking where are you going to get the metals to build it from?
And that's what you were just saying, right? You have to have a good look at the mirror and say, "You can't be signing these bills and these targets and these policies into law, and then out of the other side of your mouth stalling projects and not giving them the permits to move forward." Right? And some of the environmentalist organizations and these NGOs are guilty as well hell, man. I was talking to, well, the same gentleman I mentioned earlier about the mining engineer because he came from a company that is going through permitting now that you and I were involved in Midas Gold, which is now Perpetua (NASDAQ: PPTA)(TSX: PPTA). And they've been permitting since I think 2016. And they've got some critical elements there in the form of antimony. And they're actually going to make the site better. Right? So this is just an example, right? Like a microcosm, right? It's a super fun site basically. I mean there's a stream there that hasn't had the water flow through it in decades to let the salmon migrate up it. And they're going to open it back up to allow the salmon to come up. And the guy was saying, "Yeah, but those are details that you know, Nick. And those are details that I know. But the NGO doesn't care about those details."
Why? Because the NGO can fundraise off this. "Look, we're fighting this big mining project in Idaho, write us a check." And they put out their quarterly newsletter about all the good work they're doing to permit mining and keep the wilderness pristine. But they leave out the details that the mine itself would improve the environment, right? And they continue to fundraise off it. And as long as they can continue to fundraise on it, even if they get the positive record of decision, which is expected this quarter, they're just going to sue immediately, right? To keep it going. And so that's one of the big problems. Yeah. Like I say, and like you said, good luck buying an electric car and charging it while they're still shutting down the mines that you need to make the infrastructure, the copper and lithium, the nickel, et cetera.
27:57 Trump Classified Document Saga Continues
Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Well said. Let's talk about the Trumpster. Patriot's going to C$50. Gold's going to bounce off $1,680. Silver is going to keep trading like an industrial metal. This is your recap, thus far, everybody. Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. So as everyone knows, his home was raided by the FBI several weeks ago. And it was speculated at the time that he was stashing top secret classified documents inappropriately, which is a crime, by the way. It's also a crime to not return said items after the government asked for them, which they did, formally, in written notice. And his lawyers formally replied that everything had been turned over.
Then he is raided. Then they find the documents. He says, "No, I think they planted documents." And then he forgets that people can see him and the things that he types and he gets upset when the FBI puts a picture out of the documents spread out on the floor, labeled top secret and classified. Right? So he goes on his version of Twitter, right? His social media account, and he says, "That's not how I left them." Essentially. He says, "I had them in a box."
And he admits to the fucking con that he's being investigated for. He says, "They're doing this for show. I didn't keep them that way, I had them in the box." Melania Trump gets on the record and says, "I would have never allowed that in my room." And I mean, you just can't make this up. So now as attorneys are squirming and trying to figure out how to counter the fact that the former president's own social media account is out there telling the world that, "Yes, he had them. Yes, he knew. And by the way, he wasn't just leaving them on the floor. They were in a box in a safe." You can't make this stuff up with this guy. I mean, I know he is got nine lives legally, clearly. I don't know, this one might do it, man. This one...
Nick Hodge: I could be wrong, isn't that called Truth Social, that other platform.
Gerardo Del Real: Yes. You can't make this up. I mean, this is like... Again, look Donald Trump's a lot of things. He is not a boring man. And again, just comedy gold, legal gold. It's comedy gold. I can't help it. I know it's a serious issue. We don't know the nature of these documents yet. We don't know why he had them. We don't know what he was going to do with them. We don't know if he was subject to being extorted by other governments. We don't know any of this stuff. What I do know is he's got a gift for implicating himself into things in a very public way. And this one, even by his standard just seems like the most fucking dumb thing I've ever heard a human being publicly say to the FBI. That's my rant. That's it. I'm going to keep laughing at it. But yeah, even I was surprised by that one.
Nick Hodge: I'm going to find the tweets.
Gerardo Del Real: I'll get my water.
Nick Hodge: I mean, you won't be able to see them because this is a podcast, but I'll post a link. But there was somebody, I don't know if they were comedian or not, but you know how some of the documents, they were all different colors. Some had yellow band around them, some were orange. There were some black and white documents. They had Hollywood actresses dressed like the Trump documents. So they had the actress in the yellow and white dress, the one with orange and white dress. And they matched the color of the documents. It was so funny. I have to post a link.
And then of all people, Dan Rather's out here tweeting, "The real crime was the carpets they chose to install Mar-a-Lago." It's like you say, comedy gold.
31:51 Gun Policy Debate Post-Uvalde
Gerardo Del Real: You just can't make this stuff up. I'll tell you one thing that's not funny. Oh, hell on wheels here in Texas, Mr. Greg Abbott, who has a knack for just being an asshole, right? So the parents of... Let me say this, the very patient parents of the Uvalde town, where 19 babies are massacred while cops waited with bulletproof vest and assault weapons and the SWAT gear and all the other stuff. We've covered that before, I don't want to get into it again because it'll anger me.
But these parents got together and they're asking for sensible legislation. They don't want their guns taken away. Many of them believe in the second amendment. Many of them are pro-law enforcement, they simply went and had a rally asking that the legal age to purchase an assault rifle be changed to 21. Which as somebody that's very pro-second amendment doesn't seem like the craziest starting point to have a conversation about responsible gun ownership and some of the checks and balances that we may be able to implement, not to stop all shootings, but maybe to stop another one of these, maybe to stop one where 10 babies are killed. I don't know, maybe to stop one where 10 politicians are gunned down by somebody that just turned 18 and now is able to go and buy an AR-15 on a payment plan, finance the bullets and go shoot shit up because he's feeling bad about himself, right?
It didn't seem crazy to me for these parents who have gone through such trauma and lost to ask for this type of legislation to be at least presented and debated. Greg Abbott comes out and says, "I think it's unconstitutional to raise the age to 21." Who the fuck are you talking to? Unconstitutional on what basis? Our constitution's been amended I don't know how many times. I don't know if you read the original text, Greg, it wasn't the most flattering of documents in many instances.
Nick Hodge: You want my take?
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Constitutional rights are to own a firearm. It doesn't really say about what age. And so if 18 is an arbitrary number, I mean, why not 13? Why not seven? Why not 21? Right? The age can be up for debate, it is one of the things that could be fine tuned or tweaked when you have a rational debate about this, right?
Gerardo Del Real: That's it. That's it. I mean, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like the craziest request from a community that wants to have a dialogue about how to prevent another one of these so that nobody has to go through this atrocity. And so I thought it was tone deaf. I thought Abbott coming out and making such callous remarks to these parents, this soon, in direct response to the gathering, I don't know.
Nick Hodge: I mean, especially parents of young children are certainly not down with that or in tune with that. It's definitely tone deaf. I mean, whether or not you've experienced that tragic event or not. I mean, just from a personal anecdote, we took our kids to school this week. Our first grader went to school today. And after we dropped her off, we had the parent teacher conference for the preschoolers, right? Because they go in next week. So it's like, you know, what to expect for their first day. We dropped off all their supplies. We got their little cubby, all that sort of stuff. And you get the paperwork, man. Like here's the permission slips, do they have any allergies? Here's the school shooting plan, right? You get a piece of paper. Here's the lockdown procedures. It's like... That sucks, man. It's part of life that you got to have these lockdown procedure introductions with your pre-three and pre-four school teachers, right?
It's crazy. And so that's not a world that I want to live in. That's not a place that I want to be or a world that I want to be raising kids in. And yet it is the world then we find ourselves in. And so if we can do something to change it, and we've talked about this in the wake of these shootings time and again, unfortunately, then of course we should be doing something when a pattern has emerged as to the age of these people that commit these crimes and how they go about getting their weapons. Which is legal by the way. And so if you can do something about it, changing the legality of how they acquire these weapons to make it illegal for them to do so, then is a shooting still going to happen? Maybe. Maybe less than frequently, but they're not going to be because they legally purchased a gun, right? Like you said.
Gerardo Del Real: But don't let a 13-year-old girl get raped and impregnated and wanting to terminate the pregnancy immediately because can't have that, right?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. It's crazy.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's go back to Trump because I want to smile, I got the tweet. I got the actual quote here from the Trumpster, he says, "There seems to be confusion as to the picture..." And he puts it in parenthesis and air quotes. "... as to the picture where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see. As if that's what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong, they took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet. Making it look like a big find for them. They dropped them, not me. Very deceiving. And remember we could have no representative, including lawyers, present during the raid. They were told to wait outside."
Nick Hodge: So it's more of a crime. So he had the documents, but he stored them in an organized manner. He's more worried about how he stored them than that he actually had them, right?
37:43 Children Contracting Monkeypox
Gerardo Del Real: Just insane. Just insane. Crazy times. Crazy world we live in. We've got monkeypox. There's 30 kids now that have tested positive for monkeypox in the US, Nick. I mean, I think we're so desensitized because of COVID and the toll that took on so many people. Should we be taking monkeypox a little more seriously? I mean, I've been laughing at the shit since they announced it, but we just had someone here in Texas die this past week. And now when I start to hear someone died. And then I hear, well, there's 30 kids now that have tested positive. Well then I quit joking about it because-
Nick Hodge: How did the the kids contract it? Because it seems you got to have the close contact. It's not airborne.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, that's my next question, right? And that's where I was going with this... should we be having deeper conversation about how they contracted it, just how contagious it is? Why do the kids have it? Everything that we've heard up until now from the news has made it seem like you have to be gay to contract it because it has spread more in the gay community at least early on. Sounds eerily similar to what they said about aids when aids first started. Right? And so again, when I see that kids are now contracting it, when I see that they're blaming a specific community and not everybody's doing it, but some in the media are. And now kids are contracting it, and people are dying, well, maybe we should start treat it a little bit more serious.
I mean, again, even myself, yeah, when I hear that CVS (NYSE: CVS) has a monkeypox vaccine available, I don't even think twice to think about going to get it. I'm not doing it. But maybe I should think about it. Maybe I should figure out what's in a monkeypox vaccine. Maybe I should figure out what the side effects are. I haven't seen very many people talk about any of that. I don't think anybody that I speak with on a daily basis has even considered getting a monkeypox vaccine. I can'y tell you what's in it. I can't tell you how long it's been around. I don't know. Just the thought.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, we have it. There were some existing vaccines that I think they were using that were also effective against the monkeypox for another type of infection that escapes me what it was off the top of my head. But yeah, no. I mean, everything that you read, not just about it being for the homosexuals, but it's close contact, skin-to-skin contact, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: It's not like you walk by somebody and you got the monkeypox. So I haven't seen the kids that have contracted it. I'll have to read about it. Like I say, I haven't been glued to the news for the past couple of days, but is it something I'm going to be worried extensively about? Probably not.
Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. Agreed. Every week I say we're going to talk about cop corruption and then so much happens during the week to add to it that I want to put it off for another week and I don't want to get off on another crooked police law enforcement rant.
40:44 Sarah Palin Loses Alaskan Race for Congress
Let's go back to the Trumpster and his little buddy, Sarah Palin. She just lost. She lost a race in Alaska, in a district that's been Republican for five decades. And so congratulations to miss Mary Peltola who won by three percentage points. She was not supposed to win this election. She was not favored to win. Her own party didn't think that she could garner enough support in a district that's been Republican for five decades. Didn't believe that she could pull it off given Sarah Palin's personality and public profile and entertainment background, right? Which resonates well with voters, whether you believe it's healthy or not for our democracy, being a celebrity resonates well with voters for whatever reason.
And so congrats to Mary Peltola. She will be the first Alaskan native to serve as a lawmaker in Congress for the state, which is mind blowing to me, right? My wife of course is a quarter native, but she grew up in the culture, right? She grew up with her mom and her grandma. And so it's fascinating to me that Alaska has never had... And I guess I was ignorant to this. Has never had an Alaskan native serve as a lawmaker in Congress for the state. And so congrats to her, whether you like her politics or not, it's groundbreaking and it's good to have good representation for all communities. And let's hope it's qualified representation, which is all we want from our elected leaders regardless of their background, right? But yeah, kudos to her and good for her for making some history out there.
Nick Hodge: I wonder if she can see Russia from her house. That's a blast from the past.
Gerardo Del Real: So good. I dislike both parties equally, but I must admit the right does keep me laughing a little bit more than the left does. The left just does dumb shit all the time, but the Republicans do it in style and they're brash about it. They are brash about their stupidity sometimes. Right? So.
Nick Hodge: They can infuriate you as well. We'll mention Miss Pelosi just to dish it out on both sides.
Gerardo Del Real: Oh, God.
Nick Hodge: Her and her husband conveniently dumped their Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock recently. Everybody was saying they're buying the stock because of this CHIPS Act, but then there was some rules passed recently that were going to basically negatively affect the chip makers and behold, Mr. Paul had sold his Nvidia stock before the rules came out.
Gerardo Del Real: He should start a newsletter.
Nick Hodge: He's a great investor.
Gerardo Del Real: A great investor.
Nick Hodge: What timing.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. See, but I don't laugh at that. That just pisses me off.
43:36 Housing Market and Interest Rate Update
What else do you have on your mind, Nick? I wanted to talk housing. I think we should save that. The 30 year just hits 6.25%. There's a squeeze all around. Housing is cooling in Austin. And by cooling, I mean they're predicting that prices will only appreciate 15% year on year, between this year and next. That's what cooling looks like in Austin. So slowdown isn't a reversal here, as we said a couple of weeks ago. But yeah, I thought it was noticeable that the dollar is at levels that we haven't seen in decades and the 30-year mortgage is above 6% for the first time in a very, very long time.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. We don't have to go deep into housing, but I think we should just mention that that's the beginning of a recession, right? A slow down. You're fortunate to be in Austin where things are growing, but we've seen in the past couple of weeks, mortgage companies already going under because they're no longer making money on the houses that they issue loans on or can't make money anymore. And people can't afford the houses with the rates the way they are. And that's the early stages of a recession. I've seen some macro charts recently about the cascading effect of a recession and how it starts with housing and goes to industrial orders and then to earnings, profits, and then ultimately coalesces with mass layoffs. Right?
And that's the direction we're heading. We've got housing slowing down now. I firmly expect and earnings recession to come. And then while there have been some layoffs so far and some people that are slowing hiring, the jobs market, relatively, has still been okay. But I think you're going to see that that's going to change here over the next six to 12 months. And that's why I think we've still got a tough row to hoe as where for the economy and for stocks, which we should mention by the way. What happened to the June rally? Where all the people that call the bottom? We've had a couple of more down days in the S&P. I've been peeling out a little bit of my leveraged NASDAQ short, which I was admittedly worried about as we endured that rally, but I held on to nonetheless. And it's looking ever more like it was a bear market rally, right?
Gerardo Del Real: It's looking evermore like you were right. That's all I got for this week, Nick. I could go on forever. These therapy sessions could be hours long if we wanted them to, but I think that's a good ending point. Watching for everyone to be back in the office, post Labor Day. I hope everyone has a great, or had a great Labor Day by the time that you see or read this. I am looking forward to getting out to Beaver Creek for the Precious Metal Summit with you and seeing a lot of you out there. We'll be there from September the 13th through the 15th, at least on my end of it. I'll be leaving on the 15th. So looking forward to that. Looking forward to a strong end of the year, especially if Patriot goes to C$20.That's it.
Nick Hodge: That'd be nice. Have a good week everybody.
Gerardo Del Real: That's all I got. Yes, sir. I'm Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was therapy session, otherwise known as Bizarro World number 184. Take care out there everyone.
Nick Hodge: See ya.