Speaker 1This is the Commodity Culture Podcast, where we interview prominent investors, fund managers, analysts, and company CEOs to give you an edge when it comes to investing in the commodity space. Colonel Douglas McGregor, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Of course, we have to kick things off with your current analysis of the war in the Middle East. Then I want to get to the economic and market implications as well. For now, it appears the latest is Iran has once again rejected a peace proposal, restated their demands for having total control of Hormuz. Meanwhile, of course, the Trump administration's messaging is switching back and forth from they're willing to take a deal, they're begging for a deal, whatever a deal means in Trump's mind, I don't even know anymore, and then to, well, we're going to hit them hard if they don't accept the deal. It looks like Iran. is actually preemptively starting to strike U.S. bases in the Gulf states. What are your thoughts on how this is all unfolding at this moment in time? And how do you anticipate it all playing out from here?
Speaker 2Well, first of all, the war is not over. And that's something that is not widely believed here. You know, Trump and his friends on Wall Street and in the media have been very successful in manipulating the markets and the population by saying every other week, we're close to a deal. The war is going to end. Things are going to get better and so forth. It's all nonsense. There are no talks between us and the Iranians. None. People need to understand that he's just lying, okay? I hate to be blunt, but that's what it is. And this war is going to go on. Now, I have been told that they have flown in a number of additional jet fighters. And I'm beginning to hear that you've got every B-52, B-1 and B-2 bomber that they can load up and ship out to fly strikes on standby to do so. So my perception is that they utilize this time to reinforce their position because remember, after the last round, a number of aircraft were released and sent back to the United States along with crews. And so the perception was, well, I guess we're going to have an agreement. And secondly, you'll recall that Donald Trump, when he was in Paris and Versailles, he was presented with a 14 points and he signed it and everybody clapped. And he said, well, I don't want to be Herbert Hoover and responsible for a global depression. And all of us said, you know, thank God someone has gotten to Donald Trump. He's figured it out. That turned out to be wrong. So I think. We're headed into another round. And I think he's going to try and do what he said, which is a massive, massive punch that he hopes will unhinge the regime. We say regime, I'll just say government. And I think the Israelis are pushing this very hard. Remember, he was put into office by Zionist billionaires who paid for his election. They now have, as I found out this morning from Larry Wilkerson, they've got two funds, one about. One hundred and forty, one hundred and fifty million, the other seven hundred and fifty million dollars. And this money is to be used to destroy anyone who will not support Israel and to support anyone who will. So that's where we are. And I think the people that have paid for everything want him to honor the payment. Now, that doesn't mean that he's immune to what I call the gambler's fallacy. The gambler's fallacy here is obvious. We just have to throw everything we have. We've got to hit all of those targets. We have some new ones and we'll knock them out. OK, well, we've heard that before. I don't think so.
Speaker 1But that's where we're headed. I was going to bring this up later, but you mentioned market manipulation, insider trading. I'm wondering what you make of that, because a huge part of this war seems to involve moving markets through announcements or tweets or social media posts by the president. We've seen both the broad market and especially the energy market be very effective. I think it's very effective when it looks like peace is on the table, the oil market falls, the broad market rises. And then when it seems the war is back on, it reverses. And it seems like there are insiders making an awful lot of money who know in advance when these announcements are coming out. Do you see that as kind of strangely an integral part of this conflict for the Trump administration and the insiders involved?
Speaker 2I think it's a benefit of the conflict. It's something that he's used to enrich himself and his friends. You also have to look at who are the people that own the media. Larry Ellison is one of your key Zionist billionaires. It's paid for all sorts of things for Trump. He controls much of the media. You have to go through all the people in control. They're all on the same team. So if you go on Fox News or MSNBC Business, it doesn't matter. What are they going to tell you? They're going to tell you what Trump wants you to believe, because that's what they want you to believe. Because they want this. They're going to tell you what Trump wants you to believe.
Speaker 1And he's not prepared to retreat.
Speaker 2What Trump has done by manipulating the markets is postpone a lot of the pain. Now we still have a rise in prices for things. And I was just down in Wilmington, North Carolina, and I was able to track the rise in prices in different places. It's obvious. It was much more expensive to buy gasoline up where I am near Washington, DC, than it was in Wilmington, North Carolina. But the point is the prices are rising, yes. Have we hit bottom? And the strategic petroleum reserve, well, I'm told we haven't yet, but we're getting very close. So I think he has managed to postpone the pain. I don't know how much longer that's going to work. Now the other thing that's happened that we shouldn't lose sight of, and nobody talks about this in the United States, your supply chain structure globally has changed. The world is adapting to what has happened. So in some places, you can. You can't keep an electrical vehicle on the lot from China. Everybody wants to buy them up. The Chinese are pushing them very hard. That's all designed to reduce your reliance on petroleum. They're also buying a lot of coal. They're very interested in coal that is low in sulfur and puts out a lot of heat. We've got that in great volumes in this country. We should be making a killing on coal. I don't know if we are or not. I was involved a few years ago in that, and I told everybody, "Don't give up hanging there. You're going to sell all the coal you ever wanted in the future." It's turned out to be true. So there's a combination of adaptation overseas in many countries. And of course, in some places, you still have nuclear power. The French very wisely kept their nuclear power plants running. The Germans are now plugging in to nuclear power from France, which is interesting. They were done. They're dumb enough to completely shoot themselves in the foot. So what would I say? I would say yes. It's temporary. We're going to be hit with this like a ton of bricks in the fall. That's my prediction.
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Speaker 2Well, let's keep in mind that the cost of oil that's coming off the ship right now in a barrel is $140 per barrel. Wow. So, it's not the paper price that Wall Street promotes. It's already $140 a barrel. Now, when you go into the gold markets, I think we have to understand that you're 100% correct. Those markets have tended to follow the larger commodity herd in terms of not really recognizing or acknowledging yet what's really going on. The question is, what is the mechanism that drives it? Okay, the gold issue. So, let me take a stab at that. First of all, I would urge everybody that has time to take a moment and go to Gareth Soloway's website. Gareth Soloway is a very solid trader, and that's a big advantage. You've got lots of people like me and others who have different backgrounds who sort of prognosticate from the bleachers. But he's in the arena, and he has some interesting things to say. And he points out that the federal debt, you know, in 1980 was $0.9 trillion. Today, then it went to $14.8 trillion in 2011, $39 trillion today. Well, if you look at those numbers, gold is going to be your safe haven when this collides with reality. Or let's say when the reality collides with fantasy. And I think we're dealing with a lot of fantasy right now. So, repricing is, therefore, the rate at which global money outruns gold. It's near fixed quantity. That's the issue. And the arithmetic is complex, but I think we have to look at the behavior of central banks. Central banks have been buying this stuff, gold, for years. They're not stopping. They're continuing to buy gold as much as they can get. And other countries that are in a lot of trouble are doing two things. Some of them are selling their gold because they need cash. And in other cases, you have people selling treasuries. To generate wealth so that they can maintain the standard of living in their countries. I think the Japanese fall into one of those two camps at this point. We just dumped large numbers of euros from, I guess, a euro slush fund that we've got. I don't know where it came from, into Japan in order to prop up the Japanese yen. And what you get is a similar perception. Just as people are saying, oh, well, the war is over and everything. Everything's going to go back to normal. It won't. You're never going to go back to normal. And then secondly, oh, well, Japan's fine now. We've propped it up. Wrong. We've postponed for some period of time. I don't know how long the collapse of the yen and Japan. And who is linked to the yen and Japan? We are. If Japan collapses, that's going to have a huge impact here. And the same thing is true in the oil markets. I think, you know, we're having trouble. Trouble understanding why interest rates are rising and bond yields are rising. You know, most of us were taught that if the interest rates rise, the bond yields fall. They're not falling. We're at 4.7%. And virtually everybody I know says that if you hit 5, you're toast. We can't service the debt. And how much are we paying right now to service the debt? Well, it's way over the defense budget. That's more than a trillion dollars. I guess so. When I'm trying to understand gold, my point is this. I think Soloway said we'll be paying $13,000 an ounce by 2030, 2031. If everything stays the same as it is now, that's going to happen. I don't think it's going to stay the same. I think the war is going to continue. The outcome of this conflict is going to be much worse than anybody thinks. We can talk about that. I think you're going to be looking at $15,000 an ounce over the next two to three years. In other words, before Soloway's prediction comes true, we'll be at $15,000. Now, why do I say that? What are we doing right now? We're fighting effectively a Jewish war. That's what the Israel lobby wants. And they have wealth behind them, enormous quantities of cash. But it is now. Coincided with something else. A new reason to be stupid, I would say. We have to maintain our military and financial hegemony. And so it's a war to preserve what's left of American global hegemony, as well as to satisfy the Israeli appetite for Jewish supremacy in the Middle East and the destruction of Iran. It's all going to fail. I mean. That's my view. I think it's too late for all of these things to work. And I'm not sure that Donald Trump doesn't understand that. But I think, again, he's going to give it one more push in the hopes that he can bring down Iran. And people supporting him fall into one of these two camps. Either you're doing it because you're a Zionist and you want this to happen, or you're worried about America's national hegemony, which I would argue is an illusion. And that's kind of where we are right now. And who's against our hegemony? Well, I would argue most of the world. But who's leading it? Russia, Iran, and China. Those three great powers. Now, many years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski, whom you may remember, who was the national security advisor for Jimmy Carter, wrote in the 90s that we should undertake everything we can to avoid this triumvirate from rising to power. He said, if that becomes a reality, American military power, financial power will be driven off the Eurasian continent. I think we're there. And remember that our partners in the region, I don't want to say allies. We don't have any treaty of alliance with Israel. We don't have any treaty of alliance with the UAE or Saudi Arabia. None of the things that we associate with alliances in Europe. But those partners. Those partners have all witnessed something. We can't protect them. And at some point, somebody, especially if we go back in now, I don't know if it'll be the Saudis or the Emiratis. I have no idea. But they're going to say, it's time for you to get out of here. You know, you've already failed. We will not survive this war unless you stop. And I think we're headed in that direction. Right now. So if he goes back in again, I think that'll end it for us in the Middle East, period. And if it ends it for us, what does Israel do? It's not exactly surrounded by friends.
Speaker 1Yeah, great point. I want to dive into what you mentioned that you think the outcome of this war will be far worse than people believe. Could you unpack that for us and then what you believe the ultimate outcome could be?
Speaker 2Well, I've said for a long time that if he doesn't stop and back out of this, and essentially disengage, we're going to send the world into a global depression. Now, most people in the United States think we'll have a hard recession. I think it'll be worse. I think we're going to see bank runs. I think the banking system is very fragile. Now, there are other people that, you know, you should talk to. James Grant can talk about that. He's another expert on gold. I think Alistair McLeod has a better grip on that than I do. But I see these things happening. I have not experienced anything like this. They haven't experienced the collapse of their currency, which is eminently possible. And we're into this problem right now, as I'm sure you're aware. China is building a fortress of gold. And everybody that is associated with them is going to do business with them and gold. And it's going to be very attractive to many countries, especially those countries that are heavily indebted in our society. Remember, we control the World Bank. We control the International Monetary Fund. the ones that screw everyone we don't like with the use of our financial system. What if they just say, well, to hell with you. We renounce our debts. We're joining BRICS. I think that could happen. Now, I don't think it's hopeless because even though we may have a fiat currency crisis, I'm one of these people, and this is going to sound strange to some, who thinks that Bitcoin could come in as a very handy device as a store of wealth. I hope I'm right. I'm not 100% sure. But if your currency suddenly is in trouble, you don't have the gold that you need to back your position, and most of it is sitting in Shanghai and some other vaults like the one in Riyadh or the one in Hong Kong. Bitcoin then becomes another means of doing business, and I thought it was interesting that the Iranians accepted Bitcoin payment. From ships until the latest closure, they were moving through the straits. So everything depends now on Trump going back in again for a final showdown, which I think he will. Now, the other thing that's going to happen that's going to be tough on us is that our military power is going to be painfully exposed as not being what it's cracked up to be. It's not the end of the world. It happens to everybody at some point. But then what do you do? You do. And everyone in Washington has opposed every effort to reform, reorganize, and restructure the American military over the last 80 years. And every general and every admiral has worked tirelessly to stop change. So if we go into this depression, as I think we will, we're going to have to deal with a military that needs, how's the right, radical surgery. And we're going to have to do it in an environment of very few funds compared to what we've had in the past. So we're going to move from abundance to scarcity. Now, Jesse, what happens when you move from abundance to scarcity in a society like the United States that has had everything forever? You get a revolution.
Speaker 1Very interesting. I want to get some further thoughts on the commodity sector from you here. Because there's no doubt that behind all of this kinetic conflict going on, a war for natural resources and commodities is also taking place. We're seeing export restrictions, the market manipulation we were speaking of, you know, wars used to cut off certain nations from energy. The list goes on. From an investment standpoint, which commodities do you think are most poised to benefit from this?
Speaker 2Now, you're talking about our recent decision to halt exporting fuel. Is that what you're pointing at? Yeah. Our refineries are operating at capacity, full capacity. We can't afford to send anything overseas anymore. We have to sustain ourselves here at home. We haven't built a new refinery in at least 35 years. We have yet to build a rare earth refinery. You know, our mines are full of all sorts of mineral wealth. But what are we going to do for energy to get it out? And once we get it out, how do we refine it? We've been sending things to China. In the midst of all of the horrific attacks that we have launched against the Russians, verbal and otherwise, we're buying Russian oil. I mean, you can't make this stuff up, Jesse. It doesn't make any sense. So anyway, I just want to point that out before I answer your question. As a general rule, I've always taken the position now, since I first went to BRIC a few years ago, and I looked at the audience and I said, if it comes out of the ground, it's valuable. And some people laughed. Some people clapped. I mean it. If you are growing food, that is a good thing. That's where you should invest. Should you invest in copper? Hell yes. I think that's a good idea. I mean, obviously, Rick Rule is a much better advisor in this than I am. But one of the reasons that I went with Palisades Gold, which I think is a wonderful company, is because they have a very strong cash position and they are heavily invested in gold. Now, that's not the only investment. They also have a very good investment in uranium. And I point to uranium because we don't seem to understand that when you inflict losses on all of your potential friends as well as your enemies, they stop selling things to you. And I think Canada and the United States, if you put them together, it should become a fortress North America. Not so much in terms of the arsenal of freedom and all that. No, no. I'm talking about commodities. I'm talking about money. I'm talking about mineral wealth. We should be building that horrendously and famously. We can do it. We have the rivers. We have all the capabilities. But we in the United States do not have a national scientific industrial strategy. We don't really have a national military strategy. If anybody had any strategic sense, who would have attacked Iran? I mean, stop and think. This is 93 million people. The nation is surrounded on three sides by some of the highest mountains in the world. Most of the population is beyond the reach of most of our systems. The south, impassable deserts. I mean, you think it's hot where you are. I got news for you. It's much worse than southern Iran right now. And if you're on board a carrier, you can fry an egg on the deck. That's a terrible place to be if you're in the Navy. Now, what I'm trying to get across is when all of this ends, we're going to have to reexamine ourselves and everything that we need to do for ourselves, which is to be able to do everything that we need to do for ourselves. When I talk to audiences, I stress resource sovereignty. In other words, we're going to have to identify it. I didn't mean to make you sweat at this point, but we're going to have to build resource sovereignty. So if I'm going to put my money somewhere, I'll tell you where I put mine. Gold, oil, cash. That's a very sound
Speaker 1strategy in today's environment, given everything you've got. I want to talk about Ukraine and Russia for a moment because we're seeing that conflict heat up big time at the moment. Ukraine recently ramping up attacks against Russia, striking energy infrastructure in addition to other targets. Russia now massively counterattacking. They recently hit Kiev, apparently several casualties, a lot of civilians injured. Of course, Zelensky jumps on X and complains about it right after he attacked Russia, which is kind of insane. Um, what is going on with that conflict? Because people are starting to say, is Russia going to wrap this thing up? I think we also discussed this last time. And I have to imagine that the Russian people are now going, you know, they recently got a drone landed on a beach and crashed in a beach and killed a bunch of citizens. There was a bomb at some sort of restaurant, I believe, that the Russian general was attending, where some civilians were either taken out or seriously injured. When do you think this thing ends? Is the strategy here to draw it out for longer to drain resources from Ukraine in the West? Or are the Ukrainian, is the Ukrainian military and their capabilities just stronger than everybody thought?
Speaker 2I think that's a very important question. I would say a few things. Just as the Iranian population is furious and is telling the government, don't negotiate. I mean, nobody in Iran wants to negotiate except people in the government. They would, I think, under certain circumstances. You have the same thing in Russia. The Russian population is furious. They would like to see Ukraine smashed to pieces, effectively annihilated on the European continent. That's how angry they are. Putin, despite all of the demonization and the horrible things said about the man, has been probably the most moderate voice in the country, arguing, look, when this ends, we want to do business with our European neighbors, with the United States, with everyone. Sounds good to me. I happen to agree with that. That's my view of us. That's what he's saying. People are saying, oh, to hell with that. Crush these people. So what can the Russians do? The Russians have more than a million men in the Russian army. Look at the Russian army today compared to what existed in 2022. It's amazing. Everything we said we were trying to destroy in Russia has grown powerful. Their industrial base, their science, their technology is running at high speed. It's ahead of us. Many, many key areas, particularly in missile technology. They have over 2.4 million people now in the entire armed forces. They just announced another call-up bringing hundreds of thousands of reservists in. So clearly there's a buildup underway. There's no doubt about that. Secondly, they have hit Ukraine very hard, all the infrastructure targets that you can imagine. The Ukrainian state is a zombie organization. Population's exhausted. When they send people out to bring in new recruits, the population comes out of their homes with whatever weapons they have and attacks the people that are trying to recruit them. This is true in Western Ukraine. For those of you who are familiar with the history of Western Ukraine, if you look at what they call Lviv or Lvov, as it used to be, and under the Austrians, Lembeck, in the western part of Ukraine, which was largely Galicia. People there are threatening anyone who comes in to recruit anybody to fight in eastern Ukraine. They are the most nationalistic, the most committed to the national independence of Ukraine. And they are, in a very genuine sense, genetically Ukrainian, because the vast majority are not in central and eastern Ukraine. They're not very different from Russians, to be blunt. And they speak Russian in most of these cities. Kiev was a Russian-speaking city before the war. It'll be a Russian-speaking city in the future. So I think there is an appetite now to go in and seize Odessa, seize Kharkov, consolidate the gains, and then at some point cross that river. Now, at the same time, you have a lot of Russians who are saying, the problem is not in Ukraine. Ukraine depends entirely for its drone capability and missiles on the British, the French, the Germans. You know, the Romanians have even provided some support. And they're saying, why not hit them, hit those targets? Again, President Putin is being the voice of moderation because he says, I don't want to expand the war. He's always said that. I don't want a war with NATO or the United States. But people are getting to the point where they're saying, well, what difference does it make? They're at war with us. Let's smash them. So to answer your question, I think it could end this year. Could it end in December? Could it end next month? You know, it depends on what the Russians do. And the Europeans, we got to go back to Europe because Europe is, I think, on the edge of revolution. And now why do I say that? Go back to 1848. Look at the revolutions of that era. You're going to see something like that in Europe. Most Europeans are not worried about a Russian invasion. And they absolutely do not want to fight in Russia. But they have been invaded. They have millions and millions of people from Africa, the Middle East, in their countries they don't want. And they're sick of these governments that have failed to protect them. I mean, Sweden, Stockholm, for instance, was arguably the safest city in the world for a long time. Today, Swedish girls are afraid of being raped every minute that they are in public. And the Swedish police, much like many of our police, are afraid to do things for fear that they'll be prosecuted by the law. This can't last. So my point is that these European governments will fall. Merz is very close to falling in Europe. And I had lived for 10 years in Europe, eight of those in Germany, two in Belgium. And I can tell you the Germans don't have much patience for criminality. And their patience is stretched very thin. So I think Putin is probably sitting there, he's not depending on it, but I think he's saying we should be patient because this is not going to last. European governments will collapse. Now, we're going to run around and do everything we can to prop everybody up. We're going to run around and do everything we can to prop everybody up because we're fragile. And if somebody goes down like Japan, we're in trouble. Look at South Korea. They had to shut down the stock market recently. The Koreans have made a lot of bad bets because they've listened to us.
Speaker 1Yeah. And their stock market is held up by a couple of mega cap companies. Always a tough situation, even more so than the American indices, which are also being held up by a handful. But with them, it was just Samsung and one other. By the way, before you
Speaker 2leave that, because that's a brilliant insight that we need to expand because in China, I was looking the other day, there are over 150 companies involved in producing electric vehicles. How many are involved in this country, in my country? Two, three? Yeah. Japan and Korea are very similar. You have eyeballs. You know, you use your Batsu. You've been to Japan, you've been to China. China is a runaway train when it comes to entrepreneurial thinking and behavior. It really is. You have to make peace with the government. That's why our friend Ma has vanished from the scene. He didn't listen because they are not going to turn anything in China over to us, to the kinds of people who have destroyed us and shipped our industry out or essentially liquidated it to make profits. China is going to preserve it. But I think it's an important point to keep in mind that they don't suffer from the problems that we do.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is a good point. You talked about migrant invasion. I want to get your thoughts on the recent mass migrant surge from Morocco into the Spanish town of Souta located on the African continent. Many have pointed out this had to be coordinated. Fifty thousand people don't usually just show up all at once at a border. They were being coming out of trucks. Supposedly, there's footage of the Moroccan police sending them away in an airplane, of them being welcomed in by the Spanish police, essentially. Meanwhile, Bibi Netanyahu's son Yair publicly encouraged Muslims to take over the area on X, along with admitting or at least stating, I mean, who knows if he was being serious or not, but he said Israel funds NGOs aimed at making Spain give up territory. Some are alleging the whole thing was orchestrated by the US and Israel in cooperation with Morocco, who allegedly named a highway in the country the Donald J. Trump Highway out of, quote, "deep appreciation of the president." What do you make of all of this?
Speaker 2Israel and their friends in the United States, their agents, the same people pushing war in Ukraine and pushing war against Iran, have advocated for and supported the destruction of our borders and the influx of people that would weaken our national identity, culture, and history. Really, that's true. There wouldn't be any Muslims inside the United States, in my judgment, were it not for those people that fielded these NGOs and have pushed this sort of thing. This goes all the way back to 1965. And yes, the Israelis have had a hand in pushing these people into Europe, not alone. So did the Emirates. I was in Germany on a visit. I was standing in the railroad station in Nuremberg, and I was watching thousands of Muslims get off the train from various places. And they would come up to me and ask me, "Do you speak English? Can you show me this and that?" They had 100-euro bills. I saw someone with a bill that was like 500 euros. And I asked these young men, because mostly they were young men, "Where'd you get that?" "Oh, I got that in Dubai. I got that in Kuwait, because they were paying these young men to do this." There was an interview. It was an interview that I saw on German television, which was almost instantaneously removed and never seen again. And it was a group of Muslim men, young men, on the border with Austria. And this interviewer said, "So what brings you to Germany?" And they said, "Oh, the women. It's great. Rape is easy here. We can rape and nothing will happen to us." How many little boys have been raped in Germany at Christmas? Christmas markets and festivals, I don't even want to go there. If you try to find out, the government will suppress it. I visited a city where I went to school. I was taken out to look at a migrant, what do you call it, a migrant assistance center or something. And the surrounding forest was full of them, and it was full of feces, as these people were using the open woods to relieve themselves. And they told me that they didn't have any German women working there. They were working there because they had two German women who were raped. And so they removed all the women and replaced them with German men. This is a catastrophe. It's deliberate. It's not an accident. I hope the Spaniards sober up, and I hope the rest of the Europeans do, because the only way to stop this is with military power. You're going to, you know, there's an old expression that is probably older than Mao, but he became famous for it. He used to say, "Shoot one, educate a million." He was right. And I'm afraid that sort of thing is going to be necessary. We may end up doing some of the same thing here. We're larger in terms of geographical land mass, but we have been the victim of this sort of thing. We've got millions of people in the country we didn't ask for. They're not interested in becoming Americans. They don't want to be Americans. They want to subvert us. They want to replace our society with theirs. Replace our laws with theirs. So forth. This is a recipe for disaster. And the people doing this are the ones that you referred to earlier. Now, I don't know why they put that up there for Donald J. Trump, because I don't think that was Trump's desire. But then again, Trump was elected to deal with these things. He's failed. Failed for a lot of reasons. And so you run into Americans, "Oh, did you see what ICE did? They were terrible." And I look at these people and I say, "You know, if you get within 20 feet of a policeman who is affecting an arrest, uh, you're, you're, you should be fined for it. And certainly at least temporarily jailed because you don't interfere with law enforcement. Oh, they were terrible. They, this, and I said, do you know the circumstances? No. And how about the people that came to protest this? They were from out of town. You know, it reminds me of the whole Antifa thing and that should have been dealt with harshly. But we behaved like Europeans. Sure. Go ahead. Rape, pillage, burn. We'll recover. We'll make it right. Not anymore. Yeah. And I think
Speaker 1for those out there who get triggered at talking about, you know, immigrant invaders, migrant invaders, et cetera, you got to consider, do you want to go to vacation to Somalia, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan? I mean, no, you don't. Right. Why? Because you wouldn't feel safe. So when you bring that society and culture into your country, naturally, you're going to get a similar environment to what they have in their country, but you would never visit in a million years. So just, just some food for thought there. Final question. Many believe we're in a fourth turning event where political geopolitical societal and monetary upheaval is accelerating, which will eventually lead to a reset, whether that's catastrophic for humanity at first, it is believed there will be a light at the end of the tunnel and humanity will be able to rebuild. In the next cycle, when things start anew, I'm wondering what your thoughts are there, if there is a light at the end of this tunnel, in your opinion.
Speaker 2Well, you can make the case for the fourth turning. I mean, there's no question about it. You can make that case. I tend to take a somewhat different view. We in the West tend to think in linear terms. In other words, we start here and we go up and up and up and up and everything's irreversible. I tend to take more of an Asian view. And in the Asian world, particularly in the East Orient, they look at cycles. You've got to remember, we're dealing with civilizational states in the form of China and Iran or India. They're not just large nation states. They're civilizations with their own identity, culture, and history. They have been through these things in the past. They've seen it rise and fall. And when I talk to these audiences, I tell them, you know, you went through cycles where you fell into the abyss, but you climbed out. And your time is now. It really is. India, China, Iran, these are great powers, great nation states. They are going to grow. The difference between them and us is that we have had people in charge in this country for at least 50 years who have tended to be in charge of this country for at least 50 years. And we've had people in charge of this country for at least 50 years. to see any success anywhere in the world as a danger to us. It's not true. In other words, when I talk to people, they say, what do we do about Iran? I said, we disengage. We send a message to Xi and say, we are disengaging. This war was a mistake. We're getting out. We're letting you know so that you can let your partners know. We're getting out. We're getting out. In Iran, no. And we're going to disengage and we're going to get out of these spaces and we're going to bring our forces home. We should do that. It's time to focus here. You know, China did not make us ship our industry overseas. It was done to us. You know, you could talk about the Boston Consulting Group, you know, just pick, what's his name, Romney, who ran for office who was close to Ackerman and all sorts of other people, Singer. They were all involved in enriching themselves. These are people we call vulture capitalists. Don't blame things on China. It's ridiculous. We've done it to ourselves. We let this go on. It has to stop. We need to rebuild here. The good news is we've got still enormous human capital. We've got tremendous scientific industrial power. We just need to revivify it. We need to reinvigorate it. We need to move in new directions. The wealth of the world is not going to be determined in the future by how many automobiles we build. All right? Things have changed, but we can do those things. But we're so busy right now wasting trillions on not defense, but war. You know, changing the name of the Defense Department was probably appropriate. Might as well call it the Department of War. It has nothing to do with defending us. These people are not trying to destroy us. You've got to get out of the business of going around and trying to destroy them. But we must protect our borders. The Europeans had to protect our borders. And that's what has to happen.
Speaker 1Tell us about the National Conversation and anywhere else people can go online to follow
Speaker 2your work. Well, the National Conversation is an attempt to build a third-party movement. We're really happy to see that there are now people like Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others who want to do that. We'll see what they do. We want to recruit people. But we want to recruit capable people, competent people. The biggest problem you have in Washington right now is an acute lack of competence. I have to be blunt. In and out of uniform. It's across the board. The second thing is, you know, my sub-stack is called McGregor Warrior Diplomacy. And it's an attempt to address these kinds of issues. So there's all sorts of things posted on that. I just wrote something. And I try to write every couple of weeks. And I'm not going to write every couple of weeks. I'm going to write every couple of weeks. And I will continue to do that. But there's a lot of old material there, things that I wrote years ago, that if you read it, you're seeing it unfold now in military terms particularly. And the effort is to get people to understand that the world has changed. Imperialism, which is what a lot of people accuse us of, that is building bases all over the place, that world is over. If you put anything forward in a location that's within range of your potential adversary, what happens? You end up like our bases have in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. So those days are over. We need a new approach. And the new approach is really the old approach. You know, it was Washington's view that we should be the engine of prosperity for the world. The idea was to stay out of other people's wars. We fought too many wars against people that weren't the enemy on behalf of people that had no business controlling our country. We can go all the way back to 65.
Speaker 1Probably earlier. Well, I'm going to put a link below to your sub stack, as well as the nationalconversation.org and your X account. I recommend people follow you there as well. Douglas, as always, fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2Jesse, thank you. Have a great day.
Speaker 1Thank you for joining us today on Commodity Culture. Earn up to a 4% annual yield on your physical gold paid in gold ounces through monetary metals. Go to monetary-metals.com to find out how to put your gold to work for you. Link is in the show notes below.
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