Doug Casey – Wealth And Consequences

[PORTER] We have my old friend and very significant intellectual mentor, Doug Casey, joining us in a minute. For those of you who’ve never heard Doug speak, I hope you’ll stick around and listen to the whole interview. He’s brilliant. As people who know him say, he has a V12 mind.

[AARON] Yeah. I think of Doug as an absolute Renaissance man. And I know that we’ll probably get into it. He’s got three books–it was supposed to be a series of seven–that are fantastic. And it’s kind of required reading, really, for today.

[PORTER] It’s brilliant. And it’s a great give to give your kids or grandkids. But we’ll get into that in a minute. Let’s head off the show with the way we usually do, with some fun topics. What you got for us this month?

[AARON] All right, Porter, these aren’t necessarily as fun as they are kind of concerning when it comes to– I’ll throw some statistics out for you, OK?

[PORTER] OK, let’s go.

[AARON] The US now has a record $17.5 trillion in household debt.

[PORTER] I’m sure that’s fine.

[AARON] Record $12 trillion in mortgages. Record $1.6 in auto loans. Near-record $1.6 trillion in student loans, which nobody’s paying anymore.

[PORTER] The student loans are such great investments.

[AARON] Yeah. And a record $1.1 trillion in credit card debt.

[PORTER] Now, the credit card debt is very interesting. Those could be great investments.

[AARON] Explain that.

[PORTER] Well, I think right now, there’s a very growing consensus that a serious recession is inevitable and there’s going to be a very large number of defaults. And as you know, the recovery rates on credit card debt is virtually zero.

[AARON] Yes.

[PORTER] Very little recovery on these debts. And so as the credit card companies continue to take rising charges for expected losses, as more credit cards entered a state of default, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days written off, those stocks are going to come under a lot of pressure.

[AARON] Yes, they will.

[PORTER] And they will trade at a very high yield and at a very low multiple.

[AARON] Mhm.

[PORTER] And it’s unfortunate, but these are very good businesses. Very capital-efficient, and you can make a lot of money if you buy them at the right time in the cycle. So I’m not suggesting you go out and buy Capital One today. Please don’t say I said that. But I am suggesting that there may come a time, there may come a point this year where there is a lot of stress in the credit markets and where you see that stock trading at two or four times earnings and yielding 10% or 12%. And that’s a very interesting situation.

[AARON] And there’s a good chance that we will be watching those.

[PORTER] We will certainly be watching those.

[AARON] Our analysts will be all over that. So if you guys are subscribers, then prepare for that. Porter, I’ve got to get your take on this. You’re chairman of the board. You understand, you run a publicly traded company right now. This blew my mind the other day, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. I’m sure you saw the idea of the shareholder for Tesla that had nine shares that sued, and a Delaware judge said, you know what, you’re right, Elon Musk doesn’t get the $55 billion bonus.

[PORTER] Yeah. That is shocking. And I think that’s going to have very serious repercussions for the chancery bar in Delaware. A lot of people incorporate in Delaware deliberately because that particular court had such a great reputation as being a very thorough and fair court for both management and investors. And this decision, which just sort of challenges common sense, is going to cause a big problem. And you’ve already seen that with Tesla moving their incorporation from Delaware to Texas.

[AARON] Immediately. And immediately, Elon Musk is saying don’t have a corporation in Delaware, which I used to. And so–

[PORTER] A lot of people do.

[AARON] Yeah, that’s–

[PORTER] But it’s shocking, too, because there were no guarantees in that contract. If he hadn’t built Tesla’s equity value, he wouldn’t have gotten paid. And the reason why he got paid so much was because he created so much value. So there’s lots of fair criticism of this decision. Lots.

[AARON] Well, and I think that’s the bigger issue that I have here. It’s, once again, this whole idea of this mob, right, this woke mob going after successful rich people that are merits-based.

[PORTER] Now, this will be an interesting question because I am sensitive to this issue. And you know I will never comment publicly, or privately, about what my expectations are for MarketWise.

[AARON] Right.

[PORTER] We don’t make predictions about the future as a management team. We just do the best we can. And then we let the results speak for themselves. But just hypothetically, let’s assume that–

I’m not Elon Musk, but let’s assume I can multiply the value at MarketWise 20% or 30% a year, like I did historically for 20 years when I ran it before.

And that, of course, builds a lot of equity value. Let’s say, just round numbers, it’s a billion-dollar business. Let’s say I create $200 to $300 million a year in equity value there for, let’s say, 10 years. Well, that’s a lot of money. That’s $3 billion.

[AARON] Yes, it is.

[PORTER] And how much money should I be paid as a result? If– again, hypothetical, I’m not saying this will happen–hypothetical, if I create $3 billion worth of equity value, it doesn’t seem unreasonable for me to ask for, say, 10%, $300 million of compensation.

[AARON] No.

[PORTER] If that happens and I do that over the next 10 years, do you know how much I’ll be paid?

[AARON] Hm?

[PORTER] $10.

[AARON] What?

[PORTER] I get paid $1 a year.

[AARON] Oh, yeah, that’s right.

[PORTER] And why did I do that? I did that because I do not want to give this mob that you’re talking about any ability to criticize me. And they will. But when they see someone like me, who’s behaving ethically and who isn’t greedy, then what can they say?

[AARON] Well, they’ll say things, but you’re their kryptonite because they can’t do anything.

[PORTER] Yeah. I am not what you keep saying I am–

[AARON] That’s right.

[PORTER] –because of my skin color, because of my wealth, because of my political views.

[AARON] Mhm.

[PORTER] I’m not.

[AARON] That’s right.

[PORTER] And I think the best way to handle that is by demonstrating that economically by being very generous with our employees and by not being greedy.

[AARON] Yeah. And I look forward to seeing what you do with MarketWise. And I look forward also to one day you returning back to the barn and having a bit more peaceful life. But you’ve got business to take care of for now, so do what you need to do, Porter.

[PORTER] Yeah, I’ve got to get some shit done.

[AARON] Yes, you do. All right, Porter, I got one ridiculous thing before we get to the Doug Casey. It’s New York City hands out $53 million to illegals. OK?

[PORTER] What? (laughs) No way!

[AARON] Yeah, this is to illegals. It’s in prepaid cards. OK?

[PORTER] No way.

[AARON] And it’s to migrant families.

[PORTER] Oh, you know this has got to be a scam.

[AARON] New York City–

[PORTER] There’s no more — these prepaid cards are like the heart of all these financial scams.

[AARON] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

[PORTER] No one’s tracking these things.

[AARON] No.

[PORTER] So this money isn’t going to the illegals. It was approved for the illegals. It’s going to the political people.

[AARON] It’s got to, right? So this new program, Mayor Adams is defending.

[PORTER] Sorry, I know I keep interrupting, but it’s kind of like the billions we’re allocating to Ukraine.

[AARON] Well, right, that’s complete–

[PORTER] We’re approving it for Ukraine, but we’ve got no idea where it actually goes.

[AARON] Well, there’s no watchmen. And that’s what Rand Paul wanted. He’s like, “look, if we’re going to do this thing, we’ve got to have somebody watch this money.” But of course they won’t have that.

[PORTER] Ukraine’s the most corrupt Western country in the world.

[AARON] Yeah, there’s no money laundering going on over there. So anyways, this is $53 million. And as you can imagine, Americans are kind of getting pissed off about this illegal immigrant thing, right? They’re taking over hotels. They’re kicking veterans out.

[PORTER] Shutting down high schools, community centers, all this stuff.

[AARON] I mean, they’re taking over everything.

[PORTER] And of course, the media is loving this. They’re just hitting that button.

[AARON] They love it.

[PORTER] Because they know it upsets people, so there’s just more and more reporting about it.

[AARON] That’s right. More trauma, more fear, more — all that garbage that they love. So basically, Mayor Eric Adams defends his new program, saying it’s going to save the city money from their current plan because they’re actually spending more right now. And so this comes out to about $350 a month per person, which is–

this is even worse–

40% more than the current low-income SNAP recipients receive. So we have Americans that are on the SNAP program that, you know, you get your food. The illegals are getting 40% more now.

[PORTER] Both of those things seem crazy to me. You shouldn’t be able to tax one person for money and give it to another person, right? That’s just going to start a whole set of governmental problems–

[AARON Yes.

[PORTER] –which we don’t need to have. But certainly, it doesn’t make any sense at all to give financial benefits to illegal immigrants.

[AARON] Yeah, well, that’s what’s happening.

[PORTER] It’s shameful. But I can promise you there’s more to it than meets the eye.

[AARON] Oh, there always is.

[PORTER] It’s the prepaid cards. It’s who knows where they end up going.

[AARON] It’s always the contracts. It’s always the grift. It’s always unaccountability and all that type of stuff. So which, by the way, Doug Casey knows a lot about. He’s been writing about it for a long time. He’s the expert on busting up the grift of what countries and governments do.

[PORTER] Let’s bring in Doug–

[AARON] Let’s do it.

[PORTER] –and have a good chat.

[AUDIO LOGO]

[AARON Porter, it’s none other than the legendary Doug Casey, one of your mentors from many years ago, and a Renaissance man. A true Renaissance man.

[PORTER] I’m so looking forward to talking to Doug. Unfortunately, Doug, I never get to talk with you enough. I wish I had three hours a day just to talk with you. But before we bring in Doug, I want to just tell one quick story.

I grew up with very religious parents. And I grew up in the Christian faith. And I got taught a version of morality in that process. And I would say it’s not far from wrong. Lots of good people in the Christian faith.

But I learned actual ethics and morality from Doug Casey at a dinner at an Australian steakhouse on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999 that I will never forget. We were sitting at a table of maybe about 12 people, some of whom were of very questionable core ethics. (laughs)

And they were trying to explain to Doug that morality is relative. And there was a conversation going on about it.

And I don’t think that Doug physically slammed his hand down on the table, and I know he didn’t raise his voice, but the equivalent in this conversation was like a thunderclap from Zeus. And he proceeded to lecture the table for about five minutes about exactly what is the difference between right and wrong and the only two laws that matter. And those two laws are, of course, do not initiate violence, and number two, which is sort of the basis of all criminal law, and then number two, the basis of all tort law, which is do everything that you’ve promised to do.

And Doug, that moment has never left my mind, and it’s guided my behaviors ever since, at least when I was sober.

That’s a joke. And I’m so glad to have you in my life and glad to have you as an intellectual father. So thanks, and welcome to the podcast.

[DOUG CASEY] Thanks, Porter. I’m flattered, and I appreciate that. And it’s good to be here with you.

[PORTER] So Doug, I would ask you a couple of things about ethics before we can start going into some more tangible outlooks for people. And I might be the only person who cares about this, but that was your mantra for a very long time. And it’s a derivative of the old Ayn Rand objectivist philosophy, or hers is a derivative of the older that you believe in. I’m not quite sure exactly how you splinter all that. But clearly, it’s a very objective way of looking at morality.

And then later, I heard– and we talked about this somewhat, but not in detail–that you sort of changed your mind about that, that you think that instead of two laws, there may only be one law of the universe. And kind of as a fan of physics and Einstein, I’m always interested in a unifying theory. So is there a unifying theory of ethics that you really believe in?

[DOUG] Yes. You know, nobody can remember the 10 Commandments, and I don’t agree with all the 10 Commandments to start with.

[PORTER] Well, four of them were just the rantings of a jealous lover.

[DOUG] 10 is way too many. Nobody can remember 10 things. And even these two things might be a little bit too complex for most people.

So standing on the shoulders of Aleister Crowley, who I don’t endorse most of his views incidentally, but he said “the whole of the law shall be do as thou wilt.”

Well that’s interesting because that’s exactly what most people do, they do what they want. They justify it, they rationalize it, but he forgot to add on a clause afterwards which is, “but be prepared to accept the consequences.” And that’s really all you need to know because if you figure out the, not just the immediate and direct consequences of what you do, but the indirect and delayed consequences, you’ll probably act in a moral and ethical way.

[PORTER] Very good point.

[DOUG] It’s funny, Google, it’s funny, remember their motto would–

[PORTER] “Do no evil.” Yeah. (laughs)

[DOUG] Obviously they don’t believe in that anymore–

[PORTER] No! (laughs)

[DOUG] –because they dropped that. But, yeah you just have to think out, what are the consequences of what I’m going to do or say? And that will guide you better than any book where somebody tells you what’s right or wrong. You’ll figure it out yourself after a while.

[PORTER] Very wise. One of the things that Aaron and I have bonded over the years is this–we say it in a little bit different way, which is we say “nobody gets away with nothing.” And it’s just amazing how many times in your life, if you do make a bad decision, those consequences are inevitable and there’s no real escaping them. And you know you’re dealing with someone who’s really fundamentally immature when they believe otherwise, and they’re also going to make a lot more decisions because you have to learn the hard way.

[AARON] Absolutely.

[DOUG] Yeah. And even if you’re not caught up in the legal system somehow and punished for the affronts that you commit on other people, your own mind, your own psyche will punish you in many, many different ways. So, yeah, do the right thing.

[PORTER] Let’s move the conversation into something that’s a little bit more financial and crass, and that is I’ve heard from several people who I respect, Chris Weber, Van Simmons, Steve Sjuggerud, that we may be on the cusp of another very significant leg up in gold.

And, Doug, I’m not sure about you, but I’ve never actually sold a single ounce of gold.

I’ve bought gold very consistently throughout my adult life, I’ve never sold any of it. And it certainly would please me if gold had a leg up in price, but I’m also sort of ambivalent about it. If it goes down in price, I’m just likely to buy more. If it goes up in price, well then that’s fine, too.

As I’m sure everyone here knows, I don’t really see the gold price the way most people do. It’s a barometer of inflation and not much more or less. So I’m just curious, Doug, do you think that we’re going to see in the next two or three years a major leg up in gold? Do you have a much higher gold price target? And what do you think about the relative attractiveness these days of the junior mining stocks?

[DOUG] OK. Those are all good questions.

I’ve been a gold buyer actually ever since I read Harry Brown’s book “How You Can Profit From the Coming Devaluation.” It came out in 1970, the devaluation happened in August of ’71.

So I’ve actually been buying gold, small amounts then because I didn’t have any money then. I was just out of college, which was a mistake going to college, that’s another story. But so if I started buying it at $35, it’s kept up with about everything, it’s served its purpose. It’s a store of value so I’ll continue to buy gold. And how high is it going to go from here? It’s in addition to everything else, it’s a crisis hedge.

So as the world falls apart in the years to come, and I believe that it will fall apart, we’re actually looking at the ongoing and accelerating collapse of Western civilization.

That’s going to create chaos and fear, and people are going to buy a lot more gold. It’ll probably go a lot higher than it should. Right now, at $2,000, it impresses me as reasonably priced relative to what you pay for a meal, clothes, a car, house. It’s reasonably priced gold. But I think it could go a lot higher in real terms, not just nominal terms. So that answers the first part of the question.

But don’t treat it as a speculation. That’s a mistake at this point.

[PORTER] I agree. I agree strongly about that. I think people who want to trade in and out of gold are kind of making a mistake. It’s a barometer of inflation. It’s not necessarily a productive investment. It’s just a hedge against chaos and against the inevitable devaluation of the dollar.

[DOUG] And everybody’s going to feel a lot better if they have a big pile of gold, physical gold, in their own possession.

If everything else falls apart, they’ve still got that. That’s the way it should be treated. It always has been.

[PORTER] What about these wonderful lottery tickets that have been so good to you over the years, these junior mining stocks?

[DOUG] They’ve been very, very good to me.

I’ve actually owned a couple of stocks that, against all odds, went to 1,000-to-one and actually I rode that, I rode those trains just about to the end.

Should people buy little mining stocks? Probably not. Most people shouldn’t.

Mining is a crappy industry. It’s a 19th century choo-choo train industry where all the capital–you put giant amounts of capital in the ground to find the deposit. Chances are you’re not going to find it so most of the money you spend exploring is gone so that’s wasted.

And then your trouble really starts if you find what looks like an economic deposit, then you’ve got to spend millions more developing it, and drilling, and proving it out, but your troubles haven’t even started then. Once you make a production decision, now it’s going to cost you tens or hundreds or billions of dollars all up front. And look, anything that can go wrong in mining will go wrong. It’s a horrible business. So forget about it as a business. This is not like finding a gold mine back in the days of Deadwood where we’re all going to be millionaires. No.

Business has changed.

But why am I still involved in these things? And I still am very actively.

It’s because they happen to be among the most volatile stocks on the face of the planet.

When they move, they really move. And I said I’ve personally been involved in two deals that have gone nearly 1,000-to- one. One was Bre-X, not quite that much.

I rode that from $1 to $2.50 so that wasn’t a 1,000-to-one shot, but that was only for a couple of years and it was a fraud, as it turned out. Lots of that in the mining business also.

And the other one was Diamond Fields where I bought it at a quarter and it went to $2.50 and I had warrants so that was a better than 1,000-to-one and that was an accident

[ALL LAUGH]

[DOUG] So it wasn’t that I was a genius. And a third, and that’s in that period of time, I had a third stock that treated me really well. I had a fraud, an accident, and the third was a psychotic break. There was a company that–

what the hell is the name of that company? It’s still around.

A broker in Chicago who had a lot of money, a lot of clients, he personally drove the stock from $0.50 to $20, and I did private placements with warrants all along the way. So it treated me very well, but this is not atypical of what happens in the mining business. It’s not for investors. You can’t invest in mining for all kinds of reasons. And if you think so, it’s stupid to think so.

So anyway, I own lots of these crappy stocks. And as we speak, right now, even though gold is about $2,000 an ounce, these stocks by most parameters are at their lowest level in history. It’s actually rather anomalous, and we’re going to talk about why that is and why I think that’s going to change. But that’s it in a nutshell.

[PORTER] I’d like to just mention one thing, which was nine years ago. In 2015, there was another anomalous period that was very similar. And I would believe Doug because he’s the expert. He knows more than I do about it, but, Doug, if you remember early 2015, junior mining stocks were extremely cheap, historically cheap, maybe not quite as cheap as they are now, but really, really depressed. And I put forward the names of 10 of these stocks and said, “look, buy a little bit of each of these 10, and in 10 years, one of these things will go 10-to-1, one of them will go 6-to-1, one of them will go 5-to-1, and three of them will go to zero.”

But if you buy a basket of these things, these things have good prospects, and you’ll do all right. And I have not updated that report. But it was 10 stocks for 10 years and we’re now approaching the anniversary, so another year from now, it will be 10 years. So I certainly hope that you’re right, Doug, that they are extremely cheap right now and that that attracts a lot of capital to the sector this year, and my 10 for 10 bet ends up paying off.

[DOUG] It very well might, Porter.

One of the worst things that’s happened to the mining business in particular, but to business in general, is the evolution of ESG theories, and even worse, what are called DEI theories, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and of course, the hysteria about, uh, the climate and Mother Earth and greenism, all of this. I mean, people think that mining is about raping the Earth and exploiting the natives.

There’s all kinds of horrible things you can say about mining, so institutions shy away from it for lots of reasons. The NGOs hate mining, and the NGOs increasingly control outfits like BlackRock and so forth.

So no big money goes into it. And of course, the public only buys things after it’s run up a lot so no little money flows into it, so these things are really, really cheap right now because everybody hates the industry, actually hates it. Thinks it’s immoral.

[PORTER] Yeah. In 2015 people just didn’t like it. Now they hate it, and they think it’s immoral. That’s got to be a new all-time low in sentiment.

[AARON] Also another curve ball here, too, Doug. As you know, crypto’s taking a lot of money out of mining because there’s a whole generation now that will never invest in anything gold and silver, but they’ll do it in junk coins. But that takes a lot of money out of it.

[DOUG] Since 2017 I’ve been a believer in Bitcoin. I think it’s actually evolved into a legitimate money defined by the five characteristics that Aristotle pointed out in the fourth century BC.

I think the Bitcoin is a legitimate money, but it’s actually, I think, Aaron, it’s actually been good for gold. Why do I say that? Because we always used to say, those of us who believe that gold was money, should be money, is money, that the dollar and other paper currencies were fiat currencies and everybody thought that was kind of loony calling the U.S. dollar a fiat currency, made out of nothing in other words.

But since Bitcoin, all the Bitcoiners now call the dollar fiat. They’re using a word–they’re re-legitimizing a word we used. And I think as time goes on, they’re going to see, yes it’s smart to have Bitcoin, but you must also have gold. One’s physical, one’s electronic. So, no I think Bitcoin is actually in the long run going to be very good for gold.

[AARON] Well, hold on let me restate that. Gold, yes, physical hold in your hand, not junior miners. That’s what I was referring to. I was referring to investment dollars in the market going into–either I’m going to go into Bitcoin or I’m going to go into junior miners. And trust me I’m in all these X forums and all these arguments all the time, and it’s literally just a classification of people–

I would say maybe there’s 10% of people that would actually buy both. But the crypto people are anti-gold miner people.

[PORTER] They’re very woke. They don’t want to be involved in mining.

[AARON] They don’t want to be involved in mining, that’s a good point, too.

[PORTER]Yeah. Doug, I’ve got–I’ve got a fascinating question for you. I have I have been almost clinically depressed at the state of Western culture in the last 25 years. It is amazing how many bad decisions we make. It’s amazing how people embrace the dumbest ideas that I’ve ever seen, the whole culture of the Western world, not just Americans.

So my wife and I are now actively looking to leave the United States and we’re looking for a place that’s not Western in culture, necessarily, to emigrate to where we can get away from all these woke mind virus people.

So assuming you are going to park something like $100 million in assets, and businesses, and land, and buy into a local economy directly and in a very significant way, would you pick El Salvador or would you pick Argentina today?

[AARON] That’s a good question.

[DOUG] Well, as you know, Porter, I’ve been to over 155 or so countries, most of them several times, numerous times–

[PORTER] Uncle Doug is a rolling stone. (laughs)

[AARON] Yes, he is. (laughs)

[DOUG] I’ve lived in 10 and as we speak at this moment, I’m out at my estancia in Uruguay across the Plate River from Argentina. And it is interesting you mentioned those two places.

I would have said that El Salvador–I would say after Haiti, it was the worst shithole in the Western Hemisphere. No question about it. Awful place, awful.

I could go into why, but it’s amazing what Bukele has done by rounding up 60,000 criminals, violating their human rights. All the liberals are whining about this, and crime has gotten to–fallen to zero. And it’s a safe place at this point.

Still I don’t know if I would bet on El Salvador.

Argentina is a different question.

Argentina, of all the countries in Latin America, it’s the most European, along with Uruguay.

It’s the most, by far, the most outward looking. It looks towards Europe and always has. It has, by far, the biggest libertarian tradition, and it does have a big libertarian tradition.

It used to be wealthy, but since the days of Perón, it’s been captured by leftist ideas and has gone downhill, downhill, downhill for 80 years. And finally. When Javier Milei ran–

the average Argentine doesn’t understand economics.

Nobody –the average guy anywhere doesn’t understand economics, certainly not the average American.

But he’s radical. He’s a genuine anarcho-capitalist. He doesn’t believe that the government should exist. In other words, like you and like me, he thinks the government can be and should be, anyway, abolished. And he’s fighting an entrenched deep state, but finally, I don’t look like an idiot for putting a huge amount of money in Argentina prematurely.

[PORTER] It just took 25 years, Doug.

[DOUG] Right. Listen, if you’re too early, you might as well be wrong. But on the bright side, it’s been a very pleasant place to live.

[PORTER] Do you still own the–do you still own the lake region property?

[DOUG] Yeah. We bought–basically, Bill Bonner and Frank Giustra, it was mainly the three of us, and half a dozen other guys. We raised $40 million, and we bought a 150,000 hectares. To Americans, that translates to, let me see–multiply by—

[AARON] 2.2, 2.2 per acre.

[PORTER] Almost a million acres.

[DOUG] Yeah. Yeah, a huge amount of land plus some beachfront land plus other stuff, a couple of country clubs. That part was stupid. But we still own it. We sold part of it, and I think the worm is going to turn.

What I think is going to happen with what’s going on in Europe, Europe is going to be–I used to say Europe is going to be a petting zoo for the Chinese.

I’m not so sure about that anymore. What’s actually happening and is going to happen, it’s going to be overrun by Africans and Arabs. And I mean overrun by the millions, by the tens of millions. This has already happened in major cities all over Western Europe.

But it’s going to get much, much worse. It’s the same thing that’s happening in the U.S. now, where–

I mean, this actually beggars imagination, where there are 250,000 people a month that come to the southern border from all over the world, and they’re given free money, free cell phones, clothes.

They’re shipped across the country, and it’s actually insane that we’re paying to have the culture of the U.S. destroyed. Same thing is going to happen in Europe.

Aall right, get back to Argentina. It’s not happening in Argentina, I promise you. And what is going to happen is this. I think I’ll make this prediction. Over the next decade, there are going to be hundreds of thousands of wealthy, freedom-oriented Europeans, Americans, and Canadians–as Canada is turning into a shithole, too, at least as fast as the U.S.– they’re going to pile into Argentina and Uruguay. So I think this place is a good bet for the future. Now there’s other places in the world that I like, but governments all around the world are going downhill and taking their countries with them.

I mean, look, I’ve long said I’m amazed when people support politicians because people that get into politics are by their nature people that like to control other people and think they know what is best for them, and are willing to use a gun, disguised by law, to make them do what they’re told. So people that are in politics are basically criminals by psychology. But there’s no place in the world that’s good at this point. But Argentina and Uruguay are your best choices.

[PORTER] Very good. Well, Doug, I really appreciate your time. I know you’re on the way to the gym. We don’t want to keep you all day. Thanks so much for tagging along with us. And for folks who want to follow your thinking on a regular basis, tell me about the content that you’re putting out right now.

[DOUG] I advise people to read the three novels that I’ve written with John Hunt.

[PORTER] They’re outstanding. Is there going to be a fourth?

[DOUG] Well I’m very lazy and I’m not motivated to do anything, quite frankly, Porter, except watch the collapse of Western civilization on my widescreen.

[AARON] Well, your fans would love it. Let me tell you, I love the books, I’ve got a ton of friends in Colombia that absolutely love the books. And if you ever put it out, if you have signed copies, it would be a huge hit.

[PORTER] Yeah. My wife loved the books, too, Doug.

It was fantastic watching her read “Drug Lord” and connecting all these dots that you connect for the readers. It’s a spectacular book. It should be part of the high school curriculum in the United States. We need, we need, we need “Assassin.”

[DOUG] Back up one. It’s supposed to be a series of seven books reforming the reputations of seven unjustly besmirched occupations, each more radical than the next. Our hero first is a speculator where he goes to Africa and gets involved in a bush war.

Then he becomes a drug lord, but he’s a good guy, and we explain the drug business and there’s a marvelous new drug. Anyway, the third one, because he gets put in jail after that one, the third one is “Assassin.”

[PORTER] I’ve read that, too. Yeah.

[DOUG] So then of course, he’s accused of being a terrorist.

[PORTER] and [AARON] (simultaneously) Ah!

[DOUG] And I have a lot of views terrorism. So if that book gets written, that’s going to be number four. And then the last, we get much more radical on terrorism.

[AARON] It’s got to happen, Doug. It really has to happen. Yeah, your fans need it.

[PORTER] I had a small role in this book series, very small. Originally, I believe, Doug, you were going to write “Assassin” first.

[DOUG] You’re right, Porter. You’re right. And I was going to do a prequel and a sequel. And I listened. You were wise suggesting I start at the beginning. So you’re quite correct. Thanks for that reminder. You’re right.

[PORTER] I did suggest that you write “Speculator” first. OK, so you’ve got, you’ve got books, which you can find on Amazon. You go to Doug Casey and you look for the–what’s the name of the series again?

[DOUG] Well, it’s the “High Ground Series.”

[PORTER] The “High Ground Series.” And it’s “Drug Lord” –Sorry, it’s “Speculator,” “Drug Lord,” and “Assassin,” and we’re waiting on “Terrorists.”

[AARON] Yes.

[DOUG] We’re waiting on “Terrorists.”

[PORTER] It’s going to be in draft form.

[DOUG] Yeah, we’ll see what happens. But in the meantime, I do a couple other things.

I have a blog called InternationalMan.com. It’s free. And I write for that every week, along with some other really good guys, so everybody should subscribe to that. And Matt Smith, who’s a good friend of all of ours and a great guy, we do a podcast once or twice a week called “Doug Casey’s Take” where we look at current affairs and debunk what’s going on and monitor the ongoing collapse of Western civilization, essentially.

[PORTER] All right.

[AARON] Highly entertaining.

[PORTER] We’ll get links to all that out to our people and I would I just want to encourage you to please finish the “High Ground Series.” They’re monumental works of intellect disguised as novels.

[DOUG] Well somebody has to pick up where Ayn Rand left off, I think.

[AARON] Yes.

[PORTER] I agree. All right, Doug, thanks so much for being a part of this podcast. It’s great to see you again and I do plan on coming down to Argentina, Uruguay this year, maybe as soon as next month. So I will be in touch.

[DOUG] Oh, that’d be fantastic, Porter. And you’re making the right move coming down here because prices are dirt cheap.

[PORTER] I can’t wait to see them. OK, Doug, thanks so much.

[DOUG] I’ll see you soon. Aaron, good talking to you.

[AUDIO LOGO]

[AARON] Doug Casey. I mean what can you say? A literal living legend.

[PORTER] He’s been so much to me in my life and he’s done so much for me and it’s great to just see him. I really got to get down to Uruguay, spend some time with him.

[AARON] He would love it and also we get the upside of seeing Matt Smith.

[PORTER] Yeah. And maybe I can, maybe I can point the listeners to some opportunities down there. If the new president of Argentina can just make Buenos Aires safe, it would really transform property prices.

[AARON] Yeah. And I know I’ve got friends that are boots on the ground down there right now because I live in Colombia, and I got to tell you it’s very attractive to me.

The prices are really, they’re kind of bottoming right now, right? And you know, Doug brings up a great point of, where are Europeans and Americans and Canadians going to go? They’re not going to Europe, they’re not going to America, they’re not going to Canada.

[PORTER] Think of what a good long term investment it would be if you could round up a couple hundred million dollars, leverage that into creating something in the Recoleta, which is the upscale district in Buenos Aires that was designed for digital nomads, and encourage people like exactly what happened in Medellín maybe 10 years ago–

[AARON] Yes, that’s right.

[PORTER] –encourage people to come with certain kinds of residency cards and permissions to come there and start working. And you know, what Doug was telling us, I think it might have been after the recording, but he was telling us that you become a citizen in Argentina requires only two years of living there.

[AARON] That’s it.

[PORTER] And you only have to live there for six months, which is, man that’s pretty easy to pick up another passport.

[AARON] There is no faster passport in Latin America. I’ve researched it. And yeah, two years, it’s the second that you get there, you are on your path to residency on your path to citizenship. And that’s unprecedented. And by the way, what are the things that we love? Meat and wine.

[PORTER] Yeah.

[AARON] And what do they have down there, Porter?

[PORTER] Lots of good wine, lots of good beef.

[AARON] Yes they do.

[PORTER] Well I think it’s very attractive. If, again, if they can find a way to make it safe, if they can pick up the El Salvador technique of just putting the violent people in jail, and then it would be very attractive. So I’m going to go take a look this spring and we will report back.

[AARON] Yes, definitely. OK, Porter, let’s get into a couple of segments here and then we’ll close out the show. So I just was on X, I love X as you do.

[PORTER] I love it.

[AARON] Clown World, you just can’t make this stuff up, this comes from Canada, we were talking about Canada not being free, as well.

There’s an NDP bill, is seeking to criminalize the promotion of fossil fuels. Are you ready for this, Porter? And prescribe–

[PORTER] Hold on. This is in Canada?

[AARON] This is in Canada.

[PORTER] Do you realize how big the fossil fuel industry is in Canada?

[AARON] Huge.

[PORTER] So we’re going to make our greatest natural resource advantage, our greatest comparative advantage in trade, we’re going to make it criminal?

[AARON] For you to talk about it in a bad way. Are you ready for the quote? Here’s the quote. “It is prohibited for a person to promote a fossil fuel, a fossil fuel-related brand element, or the production of a fossil fuel.”

Basically what they’re saying is if you were to promote any type of fossil fuels over climate change agenda, you can be charged as an individual. So if you wrote this on your X–

[PORTER] So hold on. It’s not only a law that’s targeting the fossil fuel industry, it’s also a law that’s targeting speech.

[AARON] It’s speech. This is a speech law. So as an individual, for example, if this passes, which it probably will, if this passes, Porter, and you got on a rant on X–

[PORTER] How is Canada going to have anyone willing to live there?

[AARON] –you get up to a $500,000 Canadian fine. If you’re in the oil–if you’re in the petroleum–

[PORTER] $500,000 fine?

[AARON] Up to. If you’re in the petroleum industry and you make a comment that’s derogatory against climate change, you get up to bucket million fine and up to two years in jail.

[PORTER] These people are like Jacobins. They’re really insane.

[AARON] They’re insane, like literally insane.

[PORTER] I got to be–I got to tread very lightly here because there are still speech codes.

[AARON] Yes there are.

[PORTER] Believe it or not, I’m not allowed to speak freely about a topic, currently not allowed.

But let me just say this, in many high schools in America today they are teaching something called what it’s–

what is it? It’s not latent bias, it’s what do they call it? It’s part of the DEI speech codes in schools, and they say, I forgot the term they use, but they say that white children have a form of prejudice, a form of racism that’s so deeply seated in their psyches that they’re completely unaware of it.

[AARON] So we got to draw the trauma out.

[PORTER] And that we can’t– (laughs) that we– yeah so–

So in other words, there are people who believe they can read other people’s minds. And they’re no longer simply judging their behaviors, they’re judging their they’re judging and interpreting their speech and their thoughts.

[AARON] Well, I mean they have to socialize them to put the guilt into them to draw out this, this ancestral racism that they have.

[PORTER] It’s really madness.

[AARON] That’s madness. No it’s completely madness.

[PORTER] And the same thing with transgenderism.

[AARON] Yeah.

[PORTER] It’s madness. Are there some people who have legitimate confusion of their sexuality? Of course. Herma–herma— Hermaphrodites?- Hermaphroditism is a rare–

[AARON] Rare.

[PORTER] –very rare, but a legitimate biological issue. But I was reading somewhere that like 4 out of 10, 10-year-old girls now believe that they’re misgendered.

[AARON] Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s yeah, it was it’s like in the 30%, 40%. It’s unreal.

[PORTER] It’s like a giant social delusion.

[AARON] It’s a complete delusion. Well, now there’s even the furries, which are kids identifying as animals.

[LAUGHTER]

[AARON] It’s a legitimate thing.

[PORTER] I’ve always loved dogs, but I didn’t think I was a dog.

[AARON] No, no and that’s not good to do that. All right, Porter, let’s get to the mailbag. And if you guys want to write us, we always love the feedback. [email protected].

[PORTER] Also, we will read angry feedback.

[AARON] Yeah bring it all. We love it all.

[PORTER] Nothing funner than having Porter read mean tweets.

[AARON] Fortunately, we actually get a lot of really good feedback lately. People are enjoying the show.

[PORTER] Oh, I have a good one. I got a–

[AARON] Oh, you got a mean one? Is it a mean tweet? I mean X Tweet? OK, while you’re looking for that–

[PORTER] I’ll look for the mean tweet.

[AARON] While you’re looking for that, I’m going to read these. So Ed wrote in, “well done, the discussion was valuable, but the segment with Doomberg was priceless. Thanks for bringing such an intelligent guest to the program. Please, please try to duplicate the episode many more times.” Here’s the issue, Porter.

[PORTER] Yeah.

[AARON] How many people are as smart as Doomberg when it comes to knowing their field?

[PORTER] Nobody.

[AARON] Nobody. So guys, we don’t want to let you down with our guests, we get the best that we can, but Doomberg is special. Just FYI. And Jeff said, “great podcast, first time listener. I really enjoyed Doomberg segment. Keep up the great work.”

That is our feedback for this week. Once again, [email protected]. All right, Porter, let’s hear your mean tweet.

[PORTER] Oh, my mean tweet was, I got involved in this dispute which I’m not allowed to discuss.

[AARON] OK, I know which one.

[PORTER] And someone associated with this dispute sent me a mean tweet.

[AARON] Oh, really?

[PORTER] He says quote, “you are an absolutely comedic-level loser. I’m in multiple group chats about this dispute, and we, the Google searches and comments, we find about you are hilarious.” That’s his wording, I don’t know quite what that means. And then he says, “I hear you see your kids twice a month.” And I’m like, “well yeah I’m divorced.”

[AARON] Yeah that’s kind of what they do.

[PORTER] I visit with my sons twice a month for five days.

[AARON] Parental custody.

[PORTER] Yeah. And that’s–it just seems a strange thing to insult someone with.

But he goes on and he says, I can’t say some things, then he criticizes me he says, quote “these people want the loser thief liar living in Miami to shut up and focus on being a father,” as though I can’t criticize an institution here without somehow losing my rights as a parent. So can I read my reply?

[AARON] I would love it.

[PORTER] I can’t. It’s got too much–

[AARON] OK.

[PORTER] It’s got too much information in it.

[AARON] All right, all right. We, anyways, yeah. There was a sensitive subject that happened recently and let’s just say we can’t talk about that subject, however–

[PORTER] We will tell the story someday.

[AARON] –we will tell it one day. Yeah. We will tell it one day. Porter actually has a plan to tell the story. And here’s the deal with Porter that maybe you guys don’t know–

[PORTER] It’s a big fight about DEI.

[AARON] It’s a big fight about DEI, but here’s what you also don’t know about Porter. In his DNA, he never forgets when something goes sideways and people do stupid things, right. So in your history in your career, you’ve taken mental notes of other financial publishers that have wronged some of your staff–

[PORTER] Right. It’s really fun when it’s like seven years later, no one even remembers, and I’m like, “wha-bam!”

[AARON] And let’s just say Porter’s got a plan for this one so it will happen. And when it does, we will certainly talk about it and we will enjoy it.

[PORTER] We don’t, we really do not like racists.

[AARON] No, not at all.

[PORTER] Don’t like anyone who’s prejudiced, don’t like people who insist on judging other people on the basis of their skin.

[AARON] Nope.

[PORTER] We think that’s disgusting.

[AARON] Yep. Definitely. All right. Well that’s our show this week, Porter.

[PORTER] What a way to end it.

[AARON] Everybody, thank you so much for being our listeners and we have a lot of exciting stuff coming for you for the rest of the year, lots of exciting guests. But once again, we wouldn’t be here without you guys, so thank you so much.

[PORTER[ Thank you all very much.

(VOICEOVER) Thank you for listening to the Porter and Company Black Label Podcast with your hosts Porter Stansberry and Aaron Brabham. We’ll see you soon.

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