The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results.
Any endices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested in due directly. Any references to performance of securities are thought to be materially accurate and actual performance may differ. As always, please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. Please seek advice from a licensed professional.
And talk back to another edition of the interview series. We couldn't have a couple guests here. They're better for the topics that we're going to tackle today, but also to get things going again in a great way to start off the New Year, like a little late. We're in March, but we're getting there.
Anyway, I wanted to have a discussion today. A lot of stuff out there about the X's and O's, the numbers, economic data, GDP data, inflation data. But I really think that now considering the incredible sea changes that are occurring on a global financial system, governments, tariffs, trade wars, wars and rumors of wars, all these things. I think looking at things through a philosophical lens is just as important.
And so applying that philosophical lens to culture, politics, finance and investing, and then also geopolitical issues. And three main arenas there that I want to tackle in this conversation, but again, less about the specifics more about wrapping our heads around how the earth is changing underneath our feet and changing pretty rapidly. So to help me in that venture, I asked Dimitri Kefinas of Hidden Forces to join us today. So Dimitri, thanks for joining again.
You've been on with us multiple times. Great to have you back. I was in direct coming on. Thank you.
And then our favorite central banker on Twitter, he's actually the head of a fin twist central banking. That's Mr. Rudy Havenstein. I got to tell you Rudy, I'm shocked that you're still kicking, man.
What are you about, 104 years old now? I get up there, but I don't feel it. I feel 27. I always say.
Well, I heard this talk about guys being 160 years old, still getting social security checks. I'm not going to lie to you. My mind immediately went to. I know I made a joke about it, but no, I'm not getting any social security checks.
I'm not quite that old yet. Not quite that old. Okay. So let's we'll throw it to Rudy first here.
The first arena that I wanted to tackle or try to understand. I obviously have my own political sensibilities, and I will tell you that in this environment, I think this is as hard or harder than any environment I've ever tried to navigate in terms of trying to focus on reality and block out noise. And I think one of the situations we were talking about off air before we started recording that I think, and you can take this any direction you want to. But I think as a perfect example is what's going on with deportations of quote unquote illegal immigrants right now.
Meaning if you look at it from a constitutional lens, right, the executive branch's job is to enforce existing laws. There's talk about due process being extended. Anyway, it looks like one of those classic situations to me and I'll be, I have no problem revealing my bias. My bias is in support of deportations.
I think if you're violating the law, regardless of, you know, if you're in England or Scotland, you're probably going to get to port due. And yet at the same time I hear the concerns about whether we're doing it legally and things like that. But one of the things that seems kind of crazy to me is that any pushback on this, like you seem to have a big contingent of the country that's sitting there saying, you know, we will not have here to any of you. You know, we will not have here any immigration laws, right?
You've got these just what feel like this massive my this chasm between the two sides. Where where and this isn't about finding what our positions are on these topics, but how are you approaching this? How do you see these things? And how are you navigating these times, Rudy?
Where again, I think if you're not just blindly stumbling through the room in an ideological fashion and you're a thoughtful person, I think there are a lot of questions asked, right? I think there are a lot of ins and outs and I don't think you're getting those questions answered or even for the most part addressed via the mainstream media. So how are you contextualizing this? How are you navigating this crazy period of time?
Well, I have enough things that outraged me, mostly central bank related that I honestly don't spend a lot of time on the deportations. In fact, I was never in terms of around the first time. I was never one of the big, you know, clearly the way that you need to have a secure borders and the way that Biden and Kamala did it was ridiculous. But I mean, I am not an immigrant basher and that's not where I come from.
I think we're very lucky in this country to have had some great immigrants and I'm a couple of, I'm a first generation, I'm one, I'm a first generation one side immigrant. So I mean, first generation of Americans on my dad's side. So I love America and I think a lot of people want to come here. And we're not, and as I like to point out, we're not getting, if you're coming up through the dairy and gapping, you're marching thousands of miles dealing with coyotes and all sorts of SOBs, you know, and you're not a weak person, you're not a timid person.
So we're not getting the, we're getting generally hard, you know, hard people are hardworking people. Anyway, how do I view it through a lens? You know, I'm not, I view it through the, I mean, Russell Napier has a great quote one time from years ago that says the United States, when they were talking about Trump actually is probably eight year old or whatever your quote because it was about Trump's first term. And he said, the United States has a wonderful constitution.
He said, it's been stopping bad people from doing bad things for a long time. And so when I see the courts getting involved with some of Trump's blanket decisions, I think that's a good thing. Do I agree necessarily with everything Trump says does or everything that the courts do? No, but I'm, I still have faith in the constitutional system.
In spite of all our craziness, and I think it's saved us many times over the years, you know, is it perfect? Absolutely not. So, I mean, I do, I think, you know, if you're talking about say the Venezuelan gangs, I mean, clearly that's the most egregious, you're just, I mean, most people would just say, yeah, throw them out. But I have seen cases where, you know, someone was falsely accused of being one of these Venezuelan gang members in Frol.
You know, he's going to end up in El Salvador for the rest of his life in a miserable hellhole. So, you know, same thing. We've also started, you know, I'm very pro-free speech and I support free speech, even speech that I really loathe. And I think that some of the deportations are targeted at people who have agreed, people in green cars, people in this country legally, who have used, who have said things that some people really hate.
And I think unless you have the ability to say something other people hate, you don't have free speech. So, that's my take on this. I'm not getting all worked up day to day. I know there's probably horrible things going on.
I know there's good things going on. We're probably getting rid of some real SOB. So, but I trust that the system is still functional and will come to maybe not the perfect answer, but a constitutional answer. Yeah.
Do you mean for you throw that one over to you. Obviously, the same things I was asking Rudy about, but specifically in the immigration thing because I think it's such a perfect example of, I think there are serious questions in there, yet at the same time, anytime I seem to hear it analyzed by other side, I don't really see a serious take, right, where I hear a lot of hyperbole. And it's just in this environment, somebody that's really trying to sort out what is going on, what is legal. Because I think there's some substantial questions about even what is legal in this process.
So, how are you filtering these things? Well, first of all, personally, I never hire anyone if they speak English. No, that's not true. That's a heuristic I use, actually, but not to get too bogged out of my own personal opinions on this one.
But actually, I will say that just that where we live, for example, typically, especially if you have a thick, long island accent, you're almost unemployable as a contractor, a general contractor, someone, yes, because you're going to charge me a fortune for crappy work. You're going to be unresponsive. You're going to put some kind of maintenance fee on the contract, and then you're just going to see me as somebody to charge. That's just, I mean, so that's one way of saying that I really do admire immigrants, and I've actually had really great experience with immigrants.
I imagine that there's a difference in the quality of the immigrant from South America that I deal with here out in the suburbs of New York than someone living in California. So that's just, I don't have very strong opinions on this one, just giving you my personal experience. I think that, generally speaking, it seems to me in the United States that we have not approached, we have not really put forward an immigration policy that the majority of the country feels good about. It's just been this kind of football between the left and the right, and for a long time the left kind of ignored the rights concerns, and we got to a point now where there's been this huge backlash.
Obviously, I think I'm a child of immigrants, you know, I think highly of immigrants, I think that immigrants are very hardworking people that are responsible for driving this country forward over generations because most people here were born after the Civil War. I mean, most people here are from generations of people that immigrated after the Civil War, so we are country of immigrants. But as far as the deportations are concerned, and I generally support the idea of, I don't support just opening the doors and having people come in, right? And supporting illegal immigration, I think it's just crazy.
So I agree with people in the American right that are taking the vision of, like, why do we have laws if we don't have people obeying them? There should be some kind of thoughtfulness to this approach, but there hasn't been. As far as the recent deportation, I don't know where it stands quite frankly, because I kind of got into a point not just with this, but with Twitter recently, I said that it was taking a break, maybe a forever break from Twitter. So I haven't been as on top of the news cycle recently, and it's done wonders for my mood, I have to say, in my general disposition.
I was a story that was followed before I made the decision to sort of check off and get off Twitter, which was this guy, Mahmoud. I don't remember his last name. The Columbia Masters or PhD student who led or was a leader of the Palestinian protests, anti-Israeli protests against Israel's bombing of Gaza and all that stuff. And my sort of immediate take with that was like, well, this is scary because the executive branch basically made a decision that they don't like what this guy's to say.
So they intervene in the process to try to get him deported, even though he's got a green card, even though he's got a kid on the way in a month and is way married to American citizen. I don't know what the legal arguments that the Trump administration has made subsequently. I see that there's also some back and forth between him and the courts. Rudy might be following this story more than me.
Generally speaking, I have a problem. I get nervous when I see executive overreach, but this is a multi-decade trend, where we've seen, actually it's more than a multi-decade trend. I mean, the executive has been centralizing, it seems, on a consistent basis since, I don't know, FDR, and certainly Reagan centralized the executive to fight the Civil War. So, you know, this is where, not to jump too far ahead, but I was telling you guys, I just interviewed, I just published an episode with George Friedman, I interviewed him last week.
And, you know, he gave me a lot of food for thought in that conversation because I've been so concerned about every single little thing that in this case, in Trump, that Trump does, that I perceive to be sort of quasi-authoritarian or whatever. And his push back to that was, well, you know, like, it's actually not necessarily indicative of a broader trend, it's just a necessary quality that he has to have at this time because he is the person who is meant to tear down the institutions so that we can rebuild something new. I've been so concerned by the fact that all we do is seem to tear things down, but maybe he's right, maybe that's just the way it is. And, you know, looking at FDR as an analog isn't really necessarily because I set the Friedman, you know, FDR was not just the person that tore down things, he also built up.
And anyway, George's point was that in this case, that's not Trump's role and that someone will come after that. So that was, I kind of, you know, what beyond your question about immigration, but that's my answer. I don't know if there's something else you want me to address. Well, no, it brings up, I want to attack it from a slightly different angle and ask you, how do we, and the reason I ask this question is I am usually somebody that doesn't respond to vitriol or to chaos or noise, usually.
I will say that getting Trump back in office has already reminded me of the constant in and outcry and, you know, gnashing of teeth that certainly was a hallmark of his first four years and trying to, trying to filter out what is just people freaking out over Trump and what is actually worth freaking out over. Right. And I feel like you're, I feel like getting too prone to freakouts and to knee jerk kind of you run the risk of that kind of the boy that cried wolf syndrome right where everybody is just so hilarious all the time. Nobody's really focusing on reality.
So wanted to want to ask you that specifically and then also looking at an interesting question that I thought about kind of a little bit of what Freeman was saying and just to be clear. I'm not advocating this at all. I'm asking these questions. If you believe, and I think that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is the case when you look at what was done to Trump during his presidency and after his presidency, that certain parts of this country or our judicial system have become weaponized right the term warfare.
Right. So you've got branches of government operating outside the lines. If you believe that warfare, you know, I think it's pretty hard to argue that that that that wasn't taking place. But maybe there are people out there that don't believe that it was right.
But if you acknowledge that that is taking place, then you simultaneously acknowledge that parts of our government are acting well outside the bounds of law. If you're going to bring them back inside the bounds of law, is it possible to do so through the legal process? Right. Like, meaning, how do you rein in a branch of government that is operating outside the law?
Yeah, no, you can't. Well, Sam Ferris had a great interview, the whole interview I was commenting on, I don't know, whenever it was a year ago, whatever he has a line. He says, he talks about, you know, the problems at the CIA, for example, and some of which are later what you're talking about. He said, you know, can this be fixed?
He goes, yeah, he goes, you go in on the first second of the first day and you fire the entire, I think you said, seventh floor, because he apparently knows where the executives are fired. And he says that the CIA, which has thousands of wonderful people work in there, and I believe the same about the FBI too. But the leadership is clearly shown itself to the FBI. It's not to progress much past the Hoover days, in my opinion.
And it looks like that's what Trump's been doing. He's been revoking security, security clearance. He's been firing mass firing people. And, you know, is he doing is everyone being fired?
Someone who should be fired? Probably not. But, you know, they brought on themselves. I mean, I used the term coup for what they were doing back in 2016, because I could see it already then.
You know, I stopped. You talked about how you try and kind of just don't get sucked into the, you know, the cable news, not, the reverse is our nonsense is I stopped watching all basically all cable news in 2016 and after the election, because it just got to insane. And it was there was no introspection. And it was Russia, Russia, Russia.
And I didn't believe that people that I knew voted for who voted for Trump then were being influenced by Putin. I think they were being influenced by domestic issues. Absolutely. And also the candidate Trump was very different than the president Trump, and he said a lot of things that he didn't stick to.
This time, that's a little difference. But anyway, that's how I that's how I advice to anybody, by the way, just stop watching all cable news. And I am aware of current events, you know, tangentially through, you know, Twitter and through reading, you know, I've news reader and all that. I've done for years.
And I'm aware of things. But I can't tell you how many times I have someone come up to me who's like either a full time MSNBC or Fox viewer and they'll be like veins pulsing out of their neck and they'll say, can you believe this? Did you watch this hearing? Did you see this?
And I just smile and go, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I'm perfectly happy because it's all just a clown show. And just one more thing I said, I posted a video from Steve Bannon the other day where he's talking to, oh, God, Ezra Klein. And he says, and he's telling us, or maybe an old clip, and he's saying, this is what Trump does.
Let me tell you how he operates. We're going to hit you with three, four, five things every new cycle. And he goes in the media because they're idiots. They're going to go chasing off on whatever thing that sets them off and then we're going to get the other thing done.
I mean, they tell you what they do. I have, I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard the art of the deal lately, like people suddenly decided to read his book. You know, the guy is not a nice guy to do business with for my limited knowledge. So anyway, it's I just try and just stay above the fray and smile and laugh and try not to get to work.
Although I do sometimes. So one of the reasons, and you brought up Russian Ukraine and I think that's a natural, a perfect earlier, yeah. Well, because there's another one and I will admit it. I have absolutely, it makes me probably one of maybe five people on Fintuit.
It's not an expert between Ukraine and Russia. How about I'm a total expert. Yeah. Well, so I will admit to you guys, I feel very much similar about the Russia Ukraine situation.
I don't feel like I've got a home there because I find it to be very complicated. I find it to be very perplexing. I see reasons for both sides for doing what they're doing. I'm not exonerating Russia for invake.
I just, it to me, it's, it feels like a very, very complicated situation that people are just, you know, ridiculously over simplify or simplifying, you know, for the sake of dunking on somebody politically or being on the right team. But if we really care about what's right, if we really care, I can't, I can't sit here and tell you that I'm 100% certain of what I think the most morally just or deserved outcome to this whole thing is. So, we're going to be throat over to you. And again, going back to that finding ourselves in this insane environment, it's just so hard to sort out the nonsense and get down to the facts.
So how do you, how do you analyze the situation or what are your thoughts on the Russian Ukraine situation, but again, not so much about sticking you to the wall and getting your opinion more on how you're processing the information? How do you, how do you, you know, separate the nonsense from reality? I mean, as far as Russia, Ukraine, I don't pay attention anymore to what's going on in Ukraine, like what the latest situation is or like who's attacking or who's retaliating. I have a sort of, I keep track, I'm sort of attuned to what's going on with the peace talks.
But beyond that, I have to be honest, just generally speaking, I think I've come to a realization, which is that I know, I don't know that I'm, I no longer feel invested in the nuance of what this administration is doing anymore in terms of policy or, and I don't necessarily, and I feel like I've kind of gotten some clarity that's reduced my levels of anxiety about some of those policy choices, because I've come to a place of accepting that we have to go through a difficult time. And I no longer feel like it's worth my energy to try and publicly comment on what I feel like should happen or shouldn't happen. You know, I was actually recently speaking with somebody, Kevin Muir, Muir, Muir, Muir, yeah, I had him on the podcast, and he's Canadian, of course, and this, somehow this came up about Trump and what people understand and don't understand. And I feel like what foreigners don't understand, maybe that I feel like I didn't really appreciate as well for a long time, was that it's not even worth it thinking about, like America's not going through this period now where we're, because I feel like a lot of time I've discussed this as like America's going through a process we're figuring out a new foreign policy that works for the country and we can't be in a polar polar power anymore.
So we're sort of developing new relationships to our different regional partners or blocks or countries, so we're going to take a thick step back from Europe, let them fund more of their defense. We're looking to do a deal, maybe with the Saudis and the Israelis, to offload security and maybe kind of reset the Middle East, et cetera. But I feel like more fundamentally what's happening in America, which is what I think is really the key to focus on is that we're still in the midst of a battle between the 40-year governing consensus, the people that held power and it's a governing consensus, right? There was a base of support and that built into a pyramid of power and elite infrastructure that governed the country.
I would say since the second Reagan term, maybe the beginning of Ronald Reagan, that was a consensus, that was a sort of neoliberal consensus and it was a technocratic consensus. There was a real sense of like who are the experts, let's follow them. And I think that we're now in a, we, that they're still an ongoing battle, but I feel like it's, it's pretty decisively going to be the Trump-Maga base that kind of wins this. And we're not yet at a place where we know exactly what that consensus, how that consensus will rule.
We have some glimpse of it. We see tariffs, we see a focus on fiscal spending, we'll see if that endures. We see a very different approach to foreign policy, which is more transactional. So what exactly is it going to look like?
I don't know entirely, but I feel like it's really important to recognize the fact that what this is really about is it's about power. The base of the Trump movement is the disaffected voters who feel like they lost out in globalization. That's, that forms the base. You've got these elites, some of which come from Silicon Valley, why they're particularly interested in obtaining powers, you know, you can kind of try to, it's not really relevant, but you can guess at what each other individual objectives are.
But they're still trying to focus, they're still trying to develop a governing consensus. But that group is fighting with the consensus that we all knew, and there's a whole new media ecosystem associated with and everything else. And I feel like that's the really big story because out of that, once, once that consensus congeals and we haven't gotten it yet, yes, Trump's gone, the old consensus is no longer going to rule, but what exactly the new consensus looks like is I think the really important question to be asking, at least for me. And that's where I've started to refocus my attention.
And I've, and maybe I'll, you know, I'll, I'll spend more time again on the geopolitical stuff on like each individual story. But I feel like that's, I don't know, that's sort of like, and not a really unanswered your question is it, but it's kind of. Well, it is, and it isn't, I mean, in the sense that one of the reasons I'm asking it is because, you know, they're perplexing topics, at least for me, you know, I mean, we're all navigating things that the world is never navigate. Let me say this just to kind of more directly answer.
As far as you crane in Russia and the United States, I do think that there's going to be a resolution of conflict. I think that that's very clear. It's not something that the American people want. The Russians obviously want it to be over.
It's been horrible for them. They've lost so many people. People say about, you know, war is never good. I remember Bush tried to sell the country on war being a stimulus back with the head of the invasion of Iraq.
It's ridiculous. So obviously Putin wants this war over. And the Europeans just need to figure out how they're going to, you know, make it sustainable by being the largest provider of funds for the security of securing the NATO alliance with the United States and also helping maybe rebuild Ukraine. So I think the details need to be worked out, but I pretty much see that happening.
That deal getting done at some point during the Trump administration. The next question I would ask is what is going to be the nature of the US-Russia relationship? Is it possible for the US to build a bridge with Russia and under Donald Trump, is there some way to begin to peel Russia away or build bridges between the US and Russia so that they aren't as fully connected to China and then focus on the US-China competition? Then you know, yeah, so I don't want to keep talking.
That's sort of what I think when you ask me about Ukraine. I'm more focused on what is it going to look like for the US-Russia and Europe? So Rudy, yeah, Rudy, the same thing over to you. And then also I haven't listened to the, again, before we started recording Rudy and Demetri were both talking about an interview they've listened to recently.
I haven't had the chance to listen to it. I'm forgetting the name of the gentleman that was with. Joy Friedman. Yeah, okay, that's right.
Yeah, but you haven't released that. Have you released that? No, it came out Monday. Yeah, came out Monday.
That's how I really heard it. Oh, great. But I've got some listening to do. As a genius community member, I can't be missing these things.
No, you can't. So Rudy, throw it over to you though. And I asked this question because I am still struggling with how I think that I should view this situation. And so how do you view it?
How do you sort out the noise? This is why I view it. Yeah. And I've been doing this has been 10 years ago on Twitter.
I have the posts. And then we had the familiar same sort of thing we heard recently. Best economy ever. Okay, best, you know, Obama was the greatest guy in the world.
That's why Hillary was a shoe win. She had 95% chance to win. I was posting things like an economy that's really been recovering for seven years doesn't have Trump and Sanders winning States primaries. Okay.
And I said, and this might have been early 2016, 2015, I said, you know, the reason I think Sanders and Trump are doing well is because they present an economic narrative that the voters identify with, unlike the, you know, your typical status quo candidates, unlike Hillary at Burro Bomb at the time. So Obama wasn't a candidate. I mean, he talked, uh, uh, uh, uh, futures edge guys about talking about earlier Bob, Bob and Jim had a podcast with Luke Grumman. You guys all know Luke Grumman.
He gave it very succinctly. In fact, I took a couple minutes of it and just, and just made a clip of it. You know, he said since 1971 when the currency really changed for good, he said the winners have been global capital, China, Washington, D.C., the two big to fill banks of Wall Street, you know, summarizing him here. And then the losers are the middle class and the working class is the bottom 80%.
And I think that's, you know, that's why people put Trump in in 2015 or 2016. And that's why they brought him back again, because particularly under Biden, Harris, I think that much worse people. And I'm noticing during our conversation here, but it's all the time and it's on the news and everything. There is so much discussion of foreign policy.
And most people in America, foreign policy is irrelevant to them. They got to survive the, they got to feed their kids. They got to pay their rent. They got to avoid crime.
And they don't see that situation improving and it ticks them off and it ticked them off in 2015, 2016 and it's still ticking them off today. And Trump had better do something about that or there's going to be another, you know, the Republicans better make sure he does something about that or they're going to be Democrats back in power in four years or two years. And, um, so that's the thing. I think it's quite clear.
People, you know, are not interested in the Iraq or in the Iraq. It's all the same thing. But when my, in the Ukraine situation, it's a, it's a non-issue to 95% of Americans. Yet if you turn on American TV, you would think that was the number one issue among swing stakeholders and it's not.
And as an aside, these, as Demetri mentioned, these tech billionaires that have glommed onto the Trump administration, I do not think that they are working in the interest necessarily of the Trump space. So I've warned them, I love Whitney Webb and she talks about what these guys are up to behind the scenes. And I don't think it's like one of my tweets. I don't think your liberty is, is their utmost concern.
So be aware of these guys. I don't know what their game is. In some cases, like, you know, these guys like Nick or Chamath or the, you know, those, they're clearly trying to line their own pockets. I mean, you know, I even said today, I think, I mean, Trump, I mean, listen, I'm very happy come all the lost, but for Trump to be tweeting about his, his freaking meme coin, that's, that's absurd.
It's insulting. It's, it's ridiculous. He needs to stick to his knitting and try and help the people that got him elected. And so if he doesn't do that, then God help us.
We're in for, it's more the same probably. I agree. I was interviewed on other podcast the day that the news came out about the Melania coin and the Trump coin and it was a very, it's a, it's a very right leaning podcast. And I said, look, I go, guys, I am not saying this to denigrade Trump at all.
I'm just saying if he wants to accomplish all the things that you guys want him to, and if he's going to do the things that you hired him to do, this is not a step in the right direction and it is not a good look. Right. Like, if you're going to tackle the stuff that he's claiming to tackle, I equated it to the untouchables going after Capone, right? You've got to have white gloves on and you've got to be above the fray.
If you're really going to go and try to root out corruption, you've got to do it, you know what I mean from a, from a position where you're beyond reproach and it's so way to go about doing that. And I think that's, I think it ticks people off too from the, maybe the more of less of an economic and more of a, what do you call social conservative point of view is this whole Epstein farce. I mean, they're the ones that brought it up. We're going to have the Epstein files out and really, you know, they've had these Epstein files in Trump's administration and, and there is, as I've sent, you know, texts, which are of course never read to Pam Bondi and Cash and Trump and everyone else, you know, unless you guys are going to prosecute these Epstein sponsors and accomplices and, and, and, and blackmail people, it's all a joke.
This joke, it doesn't matter. We already know what the Epstein list is. You know what I mean? But I think a lot of people I really ticked off at that because they built jerked around and then he does this dog and pony show with the, with the right wing influencers and their binders.
And this is all stuff that, believe me, I posted about her, Nick Bryant posted about her, Whitney Whit post about 10 years ago. So, you know, it's, it's, so that was another thing they did that I think really lost a lot of credibility that in the meme coin crap and then all the stuff were like people going, wait a minute, why are you, why are you so concentrating on Israel, Trump? Why are you so concentrating on Ukraine? I mean, I guess I understand, you know, as a president's leader of the free world, supposedly he's a peacemaker, but I think his time has been viewed as inordinately spent on foreign policy that's irrelevant to most Americans.
Well, the other thing, I don't want to get, I don't want to go down the Epstein rabbit hole, but no, that would be a whole different podcast. Yeah, that'd be a whole different one. But just, I want to get your guys to take on this because I'm watching the Epstein stuff and what they released, right, which was, or they haven't yet, right? No, they just, yeah, did they release the Epstein?
Yeah, they did, right? It's just all exactly. Publicly available stuff that's been out for 20 years. Right.
Right. I'm watching that. And I'm, my read through on that is that, okay, that probably does verify or solidify the idea that Epstein was a US or, excuse me, an Israeli intelligence asset of some kind, because the only, the only reason why Trump wouldn't release, I mean, I'm obviously, I'm getting anecdotal here and I'm going out on the ledge. But, but, but I'm sitting there going, I don't see any impetus to not release that unless it blows up allies overseas.
Yeah. Yeah. Listen, let's schedule a podcast just on that and we can go into detail because I'm very afraid of this entire rabbit hole. Yeah.
Yeah. That we're. Okay. So, so one more note then for both of you, I'm really, I'll have you finish it up because we're going through there.
But the comments, you guys were referencing something George Friedman said, and I've heard this allegation said many or I've heard this assertion made several times. And again, I will admit ignorance on it. I'm not familiar with the argument about the idea that Ukraine in some way either provoked or some people argue started this war. I've heard that.
I'm unfamiliar with that. What was the argument that he was making the re. I didn't say, I don't think he, we're not saying that I'm not saying that Ukraine provoked the war, but I think the West did, to be honest with you. I think that it's not to defend Putin's invasion to try to understand it.
And as Friedman talked about in his recent podcast with Dimitri, Russia's been invaded, you know, from that landmass a number of times, the US can't relate, you know, and I recommend everyone just listen to Dimitri's chat with George. Most of this stuff is in the first half, so it's free for anybody. And I think let it just speak for itself. And that would be my take.
I'm certainly no expert on Ukraine and Russian history, but I'm aware that there is a history and I'm aware that Americans often never put, most Americans never put themselves in the shoes of other countries. And I think that, you know, the invasion, the things that led to the invasion didn't start on the day of the invasion. There's a lot of history there and it goes back to, you know, one word two in many cases. So, but George gave, you know, he's more knowledgeable obviously on this than I am, and I think he gave a good discussion about it with Dimitri.
I think that this speaks to what Ries earlier about how Americans are tired of these wars and their time. I think let's go even higher level. They're tired of listening to people sit on an armchair and talk down to them about what should be done when they have failed so miserably in all these different domains, whether it's, you know, war planning and nation building or whether it's COVID and the COVID response. I mean, I think that's really, if you want to sort of like look for the forces, you know, like get down as deep down in the vector.
I think one of those is just like, not just a loss of truly a loss of faith in expertise and in the technocracy, but not like, oh, I've lost faith. Go, I've lost faith. Go F yourself. We're done.
No more. You know, like we're moving on. That's done. You know, and I think it's important to recognize that.
That doesn't get, that's not repairable. Something new has to be born out of that, a new governing consensus where the majority of the country feels good about the new path forward and they can get behind it. And I don't know what that looks like from a governing style, but I think that's, yeah, that's what I would say. I think also, and this is actually, I lost my train of thought.
It was something to do with what I wanted to bring up with sort of how does one think about their portfolio and investing in this new paradigm? Oh, hold on. Yeah. We're going to get to that.
Can you, can you really quickly though, and again, we don't want to go down just for my own edification, the edification of the listeners. Can you give a brief summation of the argument regarding Ukraine having a role in the start of this or whatever assertion treatment was made? Did you want to take that? I think, you know, Freeman really didn't get into that.
He kind of explained why Russia viewed European control of Ukraine much more as a big deal than a typical American would do. No, he was just, he was just empathizing with the Russian security picture. The argument that the sort of woke right makes, and I use the woke right because it's sort of like, it's the kind of the equivalent of the woke left except they view like America and Americans in the American foreign policy elite as like the white male sort of, you know, dominance hierarchy and everyone is a victim of American empire and including Putin, he's a victim, et cetera. But like, I feel like that sort of woke everything is America's fault, woke right consensus just sees the Russian invasion as Ukraine, as Russia being forced to do it because America was trying to envelop Russia and overturn and displace coup d'etat, whatever you want to call it, Putin.
And the specific thing that they point to is the enlargement of NATO. The argument I made to Jeffrey Sachs, who's a proponent of this view on my podcast was essentially, okay, let's examine that because certainly, and I used to be one of these folks, you know, I had to really notice this, I had John Mearsheimer and Stephen Cohen, Stephen Cohen, who was my professor of Soviet history in college on the podcast in 2018 and 2019. So this is long before the mass, the full scale invasion of Ukraine, I had them on and we really, we're both, you know, we're all critical of NATO enlargement and I used to be very critical of it until the invasion. It's interesting that subsequently I kind of reexamined my priors and I was like, actually, you could actually make a solid argument that NATO enlargement was the only thing standing in between these countries, security and not being invaded because why, again, to draw a kind of factual, if it was NATO's enlargement of Ukraine enlargement of NATO enlargement that led to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and our hostility in generally speaking towards Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and actually pressing our advantage, then why didn't the opposite occur with China where we were increasingly accommodated, we gave the most favorite trading status, we brought them into the World Trade Organization, we approached the relationship with open arms super-trustingly, letting them set up joint ventures, transferring technology over, moving our supply chains over, we were building weapons systems and parts of our weapons systems in China, you know, we went the entirely opposite direction and the same thing happened, I'm not saying they invaded Taiwan, but the same thing happened in the sense that relationships in the US and China have deteriorated and I just think that this goes back to something I was saying earlier about how there are larger forces at play here, maybe it was just inevitable, Russia's a huge country, it's a former empire, you know, same thing with China, a multi-thousand year civilization, maybe it was just inevitable and this is just what happens, you know, that there was no way that the US and Russia were ever going to be long-term buddies because they're just too big and they have too many divergent interests and maybe the right thing was NATO enlargement because it's protected the rest of Europe and if NATO hadn't enlarged, the rest of these countries in the Eastern Bloc would be without an umbrella and Russia would roll right into them and it would be too late for the United States to set up some kind of deterrent because now they certainly can't say we're going to let Poland and NATO because it's too late.
So maybe it actually was the right move to a marginal NATO, that's sort of my kind of factual that I gave Jeffrey Saxon, he didn't like it very much but... Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it either but I tend to take a more empathetic view towards why Russia viewed Ukraine as a Western influence and Ukraine as a very serious... You're totally right, Rudy, but if you really think about it, really, if you think about it, what if we embrace Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and they built a very kind of... Do you remember what happened in the 1990s or the great article?
I just was looking up, the Harvard Boys do Russia. We sent Jeffrey Saxon, Larry Summers, we sent all these smart guys over there to tell them how to run a capitalist economy and of course the oligarchs robbed the nation blind. We didn't... We're not responsible for that, the oligarchs raping the Russian.
Okay, well, have you read these old articles about what we were doing there? You know how we helped... I had Bill Browder in Hermitage Capital on the show. Yeah, Bill Browder, yeah.
I like Friedman. I know, but I'm saying you can't blame the US policymakers for what happened. Are you familiar with... It's just another example of blowback.
We had massive influence in the 90s in Russia. We sent hard think tanks over there. People forget history. It's another example of blowback.
Larry Summers was over there for crying out loud. He's been a disaster. He was a disaster in America. Yeah, but the US policymakers and wonks and think tanks aren't responsible for the rise of the oligarchs in Russia, the pillaging of Russia's state assets.
That's not our fault. Okay. You can't blame Americans for that. I'm saying...
I'm saying that we went over there and we messed things up, I think, in the 90s. We could have been more constructive, but what I'm really trying to say to Rudy is that if Russia became rich, it would seek to become more powerful. Okay. Well, I think if Friedman says they don't have any designs on Europe as a whole.
So I think he said... Yeah, I don't know that they have territorial designs on Europe. I mean, does the US have territorial designs on Canada despite what Trump says? Well, I mean, just look at the situation.
What are the number of US military bases surrounding Russia compared to... Well, I guess the Russians are some of the Russians. I think we should be allies with Russia, frankly. But what I'm trying to say though, and here's what I'm trying to say, and we will be at some point.
Good. Yeah, but they're shifting alliances. Okay. My point simply, Rudy, is that I feel like I've got to a point at this age after again having been opposed to NATO enlargement, right?
Having taken the George Kennan view, having adopted the George Kennan view that it was a mistake. I've sort of come to the... I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not saying I'm right.
George Kennan was an experienced diplomat and he was concerned about it at the time. But also he didn't have all the information of what happened in the subsequent years. Anyway, I'm just kind of come to the view of like, you know, maybe it just... It isn't possible to live peacefully among nations and that every time a nation becomes powerful, every time a nation becomes rich, it will seek to become powerful and challenge the existing power structure because the world is anarchic and there's no reason for the Russians to sit by and grow their economy and not invest in their military.
You know, can I just say something like that? As you mentioned, as a major point, I was a great respect for Democrats' opinions. And as he says, as he grows older, he becomes more what I used to call like a hawk. And I'm the opposite.
As I grow older, I was growing up, I was a Cold War anti-Soviet anti-communist hawk and I still am against my commas. But as I pointed out, I didn't tweet years ago, I think that in my lifetime, or certainly the century, the US Neocons and their foreign policy have done far more damage to the world and to the United States. Absolutely. I'm not a hawk though and I'm not a Neocon.
No, but you were... No, I'm not calling you that. I'm just saying you were talking like you were coming more to the... More of a realist.
I've become more of a realist in my approach. And I consider myself a realist and so does Freeman. So anyway, we have to step different definitions of... Yeah, and listen, maybe you're right, let's just cap it off.
Maybe when I get older, I will flip again. I think of John Lennon's song, Imagine. I think about how... Maybe as we get older, I just realize, even though...
Yeah, anyway, I'm just gonna be more done. I'm just trying to reflect on it honestly. And you might be right and I'll maybe end up back there. One of the reasons I brought this Russia Ukraine thing up, it's funny that this conversation has gone down this path because I was recently revisiting a phenomenal documentary.
I came in the name of it, but it was looking at the Russian famine of 2021 and 2022. They had the severe famines over there, massive droughts, devastating famine. And it was really interesting. The country that came to the rescue was the US.
At that point, at one point, we spent... This is 1921 money, but just one shipment was $4.5 million worth of corn. We were shipping massive amounts of food over there. And really, with totally altruistic purposes, there was no strings attached.
And I sat there and watched that and I was familiar with the story, but I sat there and watched it. And I couldn't help but to wonder. It seemed to me that the approach that we addressed the 1921-22 famine with was the polar opposite approach that we addressed the collapse of the Soviet Union with. And I wasn't sure of that, but one of the things I sat there and thought was, from my perspective, looking back through history, reading Red Notice, more informed about this than the average guy, but not knowing it inside now.
It felt to me like... I mean, all the guards did the most of the looting, but it didn't feel to me like we tried to help in any way, that we tried to help get them off the mat. And it was one of those things where I sat and thought, how do we respond to them in the early 90s? In a similar fashion as we did in 21-22, would the map look the way it does today?
Would the relationship be the same between us? You guys have any thoughts on that? No, you're probably right. And I'll just say something quick and then let Rudy go.
You're probably right. But I think this is again where I fall back on this new philosophy that I think I've adopted, which I'm around sort of almost like inevitabilities, which is, you know, there are just too many people that could incrementally profit by pushing for just a little bit more grift, just a little bit more opportunities for US corporations. And when you think about how complex policy making is and the fact that the US isn't just like a monarchy, where there was a president in 1991, Bush, H.W. Bush, you could just say, this is what's in the best interest of the US long term.
I'm going to devise a plan that's the best. You end up getting a lot of, you know, a lot of complex forces of people and corporations that are looking to advantage themselves. And everyone's trying to get a little bit of this, a little bit of that. And that's what I think ultimately led to the policy that we got.
And in that sense, it was inevitable, I think, some flavor of that, because of the way the US democracy works. I think from your comments, the second thing I thought of is that Russia is one of the few major powers under the United States has never been really at war with. We did invade them in 1918 during the revolution to try and intercede. But that was half half-assed probably and didn't stick.
We didn't recognize them until 33, I think. And they were very bad. I mean, you know, Stalin, I mean, killed hundreds of millions of people. But, oh, the other thing, another thing I thought of is it might not happen with Lenin, but it happened with the Ho Chi Minh and Castro, both tried to, at least in their own way, reach out to the United States.
And we rejected them. I mean, they, I think Ho Chi Minh would write letters. And I think Castro did too. And so, I think that the president of America, and I think that we just chose the other side.
And then when they won, they decided we'll go with the benefactors. But I mean, yeah, I mean, I think we should always, you know, oh, recharge. I mean, I just posed this the other day again, read George Washington's farewell address. He talks a lot about foreign policy in there.
And it's very, I mean, I agree with all of it. And this is a guy that knew about Europe probably better than we do. And knew about existential conflicts. I mean, it's a guy who would have been executed, he'd been caught.
And so I recommend everybody read George Washington's farewell address and also what you could watch it if you want Eisenhower's farewell address. Well, without standing examples of what Americans really need to be worried about. And it's not necessarily, you know, Z or Putin. Okay.
So, yeah, pivoting a little bit to the market side of things. Because while all this is going on, now, look, six months from now, we could look back on this and discover that I was wrong, the lens I was looking at it through isn't correct. But the way that we're looking at the world now and markets now is that we think that there's been big sea changes. Obviously, we have the beginning of the, to what degree we'll find out, the deconstruction of globalization to some degree.
The global marketplace is certainly getting, especially on a geopolitical front, certainly getting more competitive, less cooperative, more competitive. And now you're watching what looks like to be a very significant fiscal stimulus is going to be launched in Germany, China doing much of the same thing. Meanwhile, the United States cutting costs or excuse me, cutting spending or attempting to, you know, no, we're not buying a bonds. We're not engaging in any direct stimulus at this time, which is a far break from recent history, right?
I mean, we've been pretty much the constant stimulators for pretty much ever since we've come out of the financial crisis. And then you look at valuations, you've never had them tipped more heavily in the US's favor and less so in the rest of the world. And it seems like this moment that feels pretty obvious at this point that US markets have gotten extraordinarily stretched, have been extraordinarily stretched, but especially on a relative basis to the rest of the world, it feels like that moment where money needs start going abroad. The next 10 years are going to be decidedly different than the last.
And yet at the same time, I think that any of us that have been navigating these markets for the last 15 years are, you know, sensitive and somewhat nervous to declare that it's over because it's been declared over so many times. And yet this is like, I refer to it as the vampire market, right? Or the vampire crypto markets, you know, they crash, but then they come back and create a new high. So, a, do you guys see that same thing?
Do you see that happening? So from an investment point of view, do you see that happening? And then B, what do you think that what does that look like going forward? Do you think we're going to have, is this the beginning of markets returning to a more competitive state or will fund flows dominate?
And maybe maybe the US just have to have to under what I am referring to as though I'm looking at the last three to four weeks. And I think I put out a tweet where I was saying it wasn't a crash, it was a withdrawal, right? I just felt like chunk of money got pulled out in the United States. Is it, do you think we're still on the same horse that, okay, we went through that now crazy evaluations ahead or I will start with Demetri or do you think tides have shifted?
Do you think that the music has changed and it's time to, you know, excuse a different dance? Yeah, I think the times have changed but at the very least, there are the, we're closer to whatever that is, right? We're closer to that turning point. The indicator lights are flashing even brighter.
And as you know, because you've also been very helpful to me, Zach, and I want to emphasize that to your listeners how much you've been helping me navigate this process both on a regular basis as a sounding board but also with some specific questions that I've had as I've been sort of vetting managers and trying to decide how much of my portfolio I want to allocate towards strategies that benefit from the kind of transition that we're describing here. Every smart person I speak with, whether it's again listeners know about some of these conversations because I've had them also in public with people like Russell Napier, Mark Kalelesko, Charles Hennon, and George Legg, all the smart folks I talk to say the same thing, which is like they've never seen companies as cheap. They're struggling to find cheap companies in the US but boy are they finding them in the UK, in the Eurozone and in Japan. And I think we saw the beginning of that rotation out of US equities over value to US equities in the last month.
I'm very much a fan of Russell Napier's framework. I think it makes an enormous amount of sense, his framework of national capitalism. And of course, what do you sell when you need to raise money? You sell the stuff that's done well.
You sell the stuff that's up and it's liquid. And that's these US large caps of these companies that are overrepresented within the index. I also think something else that I don't hear talk about enough, I feel like there's going to be a panic at some point over the next several years when retirees who finally got comfortable, not retirees, sorry, people who have been saving for retirement, people that are working and investing in their formal case, who finally got comfortable with drawdowns. They finally got comfortable with the idea that there's meaner version, don't worry, just keep investing, don't pull your money out, right?
Are seeing this market going sideways or down? And they don't really have a framework to understand what's happening and they begin to panic. Because we've institutionalized investment flows and investment accounts, we've made people view them synonymously with their savings account. They're not supposed to go down.
This is how you're finding a retirement. I think there's going to be a panic in this country if we start to see a perpetual sag in the market and people just don't have a framework for that. And I think that that's, I do my sense is that that's a very likely outcome. Right.
Oh, I agree with what you just said about the panic for sure. Well, right now we're six and a half percent below all time highs in the SPX. The entire, I think the worst case, I don't even know if we're down 10% on the index. It was absurd.
It was a joke. I mean, and I make jokes about all the time. I post, you know, 30-year charts on, and people get mad at me, mostly if they're linear instead of log or vice versa, doesn't matter. I get people yelling at me.
People have this expectation that, you know, it's a, exactly, it's some sort of savings account. Was it my green that got mad at you for posting linear terms? No, no, no. I try to do linear.
I try to do something like we get upset about it. No, I'm like, I'm like, you're true. Mike's great. He's a lot like you, to be true.
Sometimes we'll get in these little mini arguments, but we basically agree on a lot of stuff. Mike's a genius. I'll let you go. I have a clear tell after you're done with that.
Sure. Yeah, but we, well, speaking of which, when they have this panic that Demetri talks about, and that may be the case of some time that you're flat to down, passive selling has really never been tested in, in, in mass or whatever, you know what I mean? And I think in 2020, and most of all the stuff like, yeah, I got from green. So if I'm just hearing them, I'm sorry.
I think that this index funds only sold like a couple percent or something like that, very small amount in 2020, March 2020, we went down 35%. So in other words, there's a huge bid ask gap at that when, because there's no active managers left largely. I mean, there's, there's some, but most of them have been fired over the years or people. I mean, I used to have actively managed mutual funds.
And now I'm down to like, I like the horizon. Can X guys, but I mean, most of that stuff, of course, I'm actually, it's an, I'm an odd bird. Don't listen to me on investing. But anyway, it's, it's, at some point people are going to sell.
And by the way, when you're saying that Demetri about if the market is flat and it starts to decline, I view that as what might happen in housing too. Aside from all the other, you know, the FHA and all that stuff, people have been talking about lately, but you know, housing is another issue. But yeah, absolutely stock markets, massively value. Now, there, even before everyone said they're going to move their money to Japan or whatever, which probably is the least bad idea to do.
I mean, Japan is pretty cheap. I mean, like Warren Buffett would buy in there a few years ago, but it's, it's, there's a record amount of money right now invested in US stocks relative to global stocks. I mean, it's just massive. And that's partly because of this is where people put it because it's done so well.
And at some point that will maybe adjust and maybe starting to adjust now, but it's a very well known contrarian trade right now. You know what I mean? It's not very contrarian. It's for months and I'm certain to be people about it.
So I don't know how I think I cats kind of out of the bag, although we could be early. But I got to tell you, if we have this panic in a few years or in a year that Demetri talks about that kind of thing or passive selling thing, you know, if we catch a call, you know, what do you think the German markets are going to do? What do you think the Brazilian markets are going to do? If we go down 20% they're going to be down 50%.
So, you know, be careful what you wish for. You know, go ahead. No, I was going to say like I also, I've noticed that too, Rudy, that it's like everyone's talking about it. It makes me a little nervous when I see it.
But at least, you know, everyone that we follow is talking about this now. I saw the Wall Street Journal talking about this US companies are expensive. La Blah. I do feel though that there is a long term.
There are reasons to believe that this is going to stay true for years. And part of it is the institutional infrastructure. You know, people who invest for retirement, millions of people have like limited number of things that they can invest in. They're investing the same things.
They've also, as I said before, just gotten comfortable, you know, with mean reversion and continuing to invest. And I feel like it's going to take a long time. And also, to your point of mind ecosystem, you know, there are no wolves left in Yellowstone. It's going to take time to repopulate money managers.
So, well, and I'll tell you, it is, I felt much more excited about this about a month and a half, two months ago, because I knew everybody talked about it, right? And it definitely, like Rudy said, I certainly need to catch out of the bag. But here's one thing. I don't see this as a trade.
Okay. And the reason I say that is I have not been managing money nearly as long as Rudy's been buying stocks and doing his thing. But I've been doing this professionally for 17 years. I am finding on a daily basis, companies with financials and valuations that I've never seen, right?
I've never seen it. I've never seen companies that are trading at six times earnings that have bought back all the stock they can buy back. And they've got so much excess free cash flow that they're kicking it out to shareholders at the tune of 13.3% or 13.5% of your dividends. I've just never seen this before.
And to me, I feel like this is one of these ultimate tests. What are these? What was it that you said to me on an episode one? You said, I'm either I'm Paul on the road to Damascus or something?
You said, yeah, my religion needs to change, right? Yeah. I'm Paul on the road to Damascus. Yes.
Yeah. And my religion's got to change. I mean, I don't know if we just keep going to infinity. I mean, eventually it tops out.
But what does that tell us in lieu of capital starting to flow elsewhere? I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.
My big bell weather for this stuff is crypto. I've used that consistently as my bell weather. And I feel like there's a really good argument to make that, well, look, they're different. They're different cryptos, but the ones that were really driving that were getting the big pump from Trump's election, the Solanas, the XRP, the Cardanos, those all peaked on January 17th when Trump launches me point.
And my sense is I feel like I don't know. I feel like that was really the peak. That was the peak for crypto. I don't know what the peak was if we, you know, maybe we are in for the NASDAQ and the S&P.
But I guess I would put it this way, Zach. I as someone that has, you know, benefited from that trade, as you know, that whole sort of nihilist trade, I'm just at a point now where I just feel like it's hard to argue against the you're not going to lose money going for value at this stage, you know, and while it's always fun and I'm not saying that there are opportunities to try to gamble, it's, you know, as you say, like, and you're one of many more people that I know who I speak with and they all say the same thing. It's like, you know, it's like Mediterranean in 5,000 BC. I'm just putting my hand in the water and they're just grabbing fish.
And I just, I have a hard time believing that that can go on indefinitely. And you're not, you know, sure, it may take longer than you'd like for the valuations to be recognized as to the price to adjust accordingly. But I mean, how much low, how much cheaper can these things get? Yeah.
You know? Yeah, no, I'm sure it might be on it. Well, yeah, and that, you know, that's the other nice thing about the dividend income is you're sitting there, you know, you got a portfolio, it's cranking out and not everything, but you know, 79% dividend yields, you know, that those aren't bad returns, those stack up pretty good on their own, right? So if you're looking at these things, and that's the way so many of these things are that are cheap, you know, I was giving you metrics of those companies.
I feel to mention that a lot of those companies were looking at the fifth, those same metrics are trading at 90 80 90% of book value, right? So if they do get hit harder, you're just buying it for 20 cents, you know, Rudy, what are your thoughts on this? This sounds so easy. Where are these fish?
I can grab out of the shallow. Well, yeah, I forgot like that. Probably I wouldn't be able to grab them, but people that are fishermen, trained fishermen. I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to be a little bit skeptical.
So I'm not, I mean, I'm not moving any money right now. I think the, you know, I'm a big fan of the United States, which I love the United States where I criticize a lot. I know you guys are the same. I'm keeping the vast majority here and I will for the foreseeable future.
Although I, you know, I understand the arguments. I should say though, Rudy, I think the right way to frame it is it's not that we're saying that you should move money out of the U.S. and we're saying is that it's hard to find well priced companies in the U.S. Oh, complete.
You end up investing in companies outside, but not because you can't believe. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with you. It's hard to find, you know, reasonable companies in the United States.
That's yeah, we completely agree on that. I'm just as an aside, you mentioned crypto. I'm looking up a Doge coin right now. It has a 27.57 billion market cap.
And that's a coin, as you know, was a joke. And there was actually an interview with the guy who got the guy named Bennett, I forget his last name, interviewed this guy. And the guy just said, I mean, it is a joke. I mean, it is a joke.
And now look, 27.5. So this is all the result of ZERP and the Fed, which is, you know, my favorite punching bag. And we're still seeing the results of that. And I think we will for the rest of our lives in somewhere or another.
I mean, look at stock valuations now. Look at the crypto valuations. And by the way, if you notice lately, I think somebody said the Bitcoin NASDAQ correlation is like 97% or something like that. So it's all, when someone says the Fed is restrictive, I just laugh, you know, so anyway, just get in there.
Okay. So in closing here, and you both have stayed on longer than you agreed, but in closing, what are the things, and this is a really big question, but trying to make it as simplistic as we possibly can, because I definitely think it's an environment where you've got to pick which signals you're going to listen to, and then I think you're best sort of just blocking other things out, right? Just focusing in on your source code, if you will. Do you mean, when you're watching these things evolve as it relates to both the political and the economic side, what are the things that you're going to be watching the most closely and what are the indicators to you that you feel are the most important and the most predictive, given the data set we're looking at right now, where should we be focused?
Where? In terms of which direction things are going, is this heading to, you know, are the geopolitical issues heading toward positive outcomes? What are we looking at economically? There's just so many cross currents right now.
One of the things we're talking about internally is what are the things that we're supposed to be paying attention to the most, right? So not just as it relates to markets, but, you know, culturally speaking, politically, what do you are maybe, I mean, there's a couple, maybe there's some linchpins that you think are kind of the most important things to be focused on right now. And I do apologize, but I'm going to have to jump off in five minutes. But, well, I mean, I feel like, you know, I think I told you, I recently discovered that France is the contribution of France's public sector to its GDP is 57%, which is kind of blew my mind.
I think the need for governments in the West to spend the fiscal spending needs of governments in the West and the colleges and the need to, for example, in Europe to rebuild their defense sector. And generally speaking, for Western economies to catch up a lot of the ground that they feel that they've lost to China and Chinese manufacturing, I think that's going to be a huge driver of outcomes. I also think what I said earlier about the battle between the old elites versus the new elites and the old governing consensus versus the new governing consensus, the big one. I think geopolitically, one of the things that's really interesting is what is the new order going to look like?
And I feel like what that order is going to look like is increasingly the US playing the role of an offshore balance or at least that's what I think the Trump administration's foreign policy doctrine looks like. It looks like they're basically saying, okay, we're going to take ownership of the Western hemisphere. And then as far as Europe is concerned, as far as the Middle East is concerned, as far as Asia is concerned, we're going to basically find people that we can deal with, we can partner with. In the case of Europe, we've got NATO, if you want to use it, great, let's keep that infrastructure in place, the European Union, et cetera.
But we're going to let you guys take a lead on that. We're going to be kind of playing a supporting role, same thing in the Middle East, we identify Saudi Arabia and Israel as two countries that we want to do business with. And we want to try and kind of just play a supporting role and let you guys figure it out, same thing in Asia. And I feel like that's what the future of the world is going to look like, which means it's going to be, it's going to be much more dynamic and much more fluid.
So I guess that's kind of where I would answer that question. Rudy, how about you? What do you think are the things both economically, like I said, so many cross currents, so many cross winds? What are the things that you're focusing on that you think that we should be focused on in your opinion, of course, to kind of figure out where the world is going at this moment?
I'll give a short answer because I know Demetri's got to run. I'll give a micro answer. What you should concentrate on is your family and your friends and your children and your grandchildren and your parents if they're still alive and your neighbors. And in the broader sense, find common ground with people.
I have a lot of people on Twitter that I follow them or they follow me and I disagree with them and they disagree with me on a number of issues, but we agree on certain areas. Let's instead of arguing about those other issues, let's agree and work towards the common ground. That's why I always promote, like Dennis Gassin and Ron Paul, two very different people who have a lot of common ground together and they're good people. We need more of that in this country and the world.
Amen. Right on, man. Don't they agree with the man? Perfect, no.
All right gentlemen. Well, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for overstaying the time that you committed to. And just the reason I have both of you on is I think you're great at synthesizing these things and taking a step back and taking a breath and being rational and being level-headed. So I think we all agree we need a lot more that these days.
So thank you both very much. Thank you, Nick. And you can follow Dimitri at Kefenas on Twitter and you can follow Rudy. It's at Rudy Havenstein, right?
Sure. Yep. On Twitter. Anyway, all right.
Thanks, man. We will continue the interview series next week. That's it for today. We'll see you next week.
We'll see you next week. We'll see you on the regular stream podcast. And we'll be just right back. Investment advice cannot begin without a client service agreement.