Mad Max: Hormuz Warrior

[MUSIC] Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of Geopolitical Cousins. We are back. I throw some shade at those of you who are complaining about the fact that you didn't have any episodes. But by way of explanation, my daughters were sick. Actually, my three year old got tubes in her ears. Marco was traveling, was on vacation. We also have clients, as you can imagine. Clients want to talk about what's going on. So just a lot piled up. Also as we talk about in the episode, every time we were recording, by the time we could turn it around, even when we were turning it around in a couple of hours. We were being overtaken by events because things were so crazy. And it's remarkable to think we hadn't recorded in 13 days. And not that much has actually changed in the conflict. I know it feels like every single day, five different things are changing. But oils, 93 a barrel, as I'm recording. It was 100 a barrel the last time that we recorded. So hope you enjoy the episode. Email me at [email protected]. If you have any questions, comments, concerns. We're glad that you missed us. If you did miss us, make sure you are sharing the podcast, giving ratings, giving reviews, all that good stuff. Because the more listeners there are, the more episodes we do. Simple math. Okay, take care of each other. I hope that the Doomsday scenarios that I'm outlining here don't come true. Let's hope that Marco Batyne is nihilism and his more optimistic point of view is the one that carries the day. In the meantime, we will see you out. Guys, I'm wearing a LaCosta V-neck. Marco has just popped two Barones. I've got mine here. Let's go. I love how needy you are listeners. I love it. I just want to point out that the last time that we recorded an episode on March 13th, Brent futures closed the day at 101. Right now, recording at 752 Central Time Thursday, March 26th, they're at 93. So like, what the heck has really happened? What are you worried about? Things happened, right? How's it going? Oh, man. Yeah. No, I mean, there are many reasons that we didn't record for the last 13 days. But one of them was a social experiment. Number one, to see if we were going to get stormed like the Bastille and we have, you know, I suggest that we let our listeners eat cake. I don't know what the equivalent of that is. But the other one is exactly what you just said. There's been so many twists and turns of this saga. We could have recorded three hour podcasts every single night. We didn't. And here we are. We get another, you know, like soggy taco to talk about. Yeah. Have we even really missed anything? Although did you see, I want to give credit where credit was due. This tweet from Les Shrub is the name. It's Agnoss Docks with a bunch of X. Trump pausing the period of energy plant destruction in Iran by 10 days is not a taco, but more of a nacho, not actually changing Hormuz opening. Really like that one. Then I also liked one of the replies from Tony War getting dangerously close to a quesadilla quagmire under extended supply and dispersed Iranian low intensity lethal attacks, which is probably where I'm going to come down here on the end. Because and I also thought it was interesting when they were trying to storm the bestie. Like you are the cynic, the nihilist cynic in our dialogue. And yet you're so softhearted about the listeners when they come to you and you're like, where are the episodes? You like want to respond to them? Whereas I'm like more wearing my heart on my sleeve with my analysis. But when these people come to me and they're like, where are the episodes? I'm like, bro, can you please like go away? Like I don't have time to talk to you. It's a nice imbalance in our relationship. I love, yeah. Yeah, like I find like we've achieved what we set out to do with this podcast, which is create a following of people who just enjoy listening to geopolitical analysis. And obviously there's a reason Muppets are the logo for our podcast. You know, we're not going to be right all the time. We're not going to be wrong all the time. It's just going to be comedy. But yeah, I just I just loved the fact that people want this. You know, I feel the same way. Like when Bill Simmons goes on vacation with the NBC's and ants, like I'm angry at him. I'm like, why? Like, you know, like I recording this shows you how petty I am. I'm still angry at Bill Simmons for basically just stopping. He just stopped writing. I know. He decided his fingers didn't work anymore. So I literally don't follow his podcast. I search for every individual episode because I don't want him to have the extra single follow work. I'm like, man, you're not even given me like one article a year. Can I have one trade value column? Like a mail bag? Something like you're just mail it in. Yeah, reading those Bill Simmons columns, man, that was that was college for me. Yeah, I was back. Okay, we're already off track. We will get to Bill Simmons and basketball by the end. But I mean, everything I'm going to say is going to be overtaken by events, even though we're pushing this out as quickly as possible, probably first thing in the morning tomorrow. But let's kind of get a lay of the land where we are right now. President Trump with, I mean, a series of incredible appearances, statements, tweets, the most recent one this tweet that as per Iranian government request, please let the statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of energy plant destruction by 10 days to Monday, April 6th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. But he just tell the Iranians, like how long he's going to wait until he ends the war. He also the Xi Jinping visit is back on next month. So he also sort of telegraphing telegraphing. Does Jeff fuel, if there's Jeff fuel to take you there? Yeah, there's that. But then there's also, I mean, I've lost track of how many different troop deployments are headed towards the Middle East and is it Carg Island and is it going to be 10,000, you know, troops taking Carg Island. We've got Yoav Golan, the former, I believe he's the former Defense Minister of Defense for Israel out there writing columns about how it has to be taken and all those other sorts of things. So, you know, I even saw one quote from Axios that said the Pentagon is to develop me military options for a final blow that will finally bring Iran to its knees. They're not going to be brought to their knees. I don't know why we're talking about it this way. You've had China weigh in and be like, yeah, we'd like the straight open right now. We've had Iran base. I mean, not, I don't have, is the straight open? Is the straight not open? I know we're going to talk about that in a second. Yeah, I mean, we're and crew is sitting there at 93, even though every single sober energy analyst that I respect is literally lighting their hair on fire. What? Let's pause on that. Let's double click on that because same, every single energy analyst and I've also appalled my clients who do nothing but trade oil, not all of my clients, but those that do nothing but trade energy commodities. I have called them. You know who they are? They're headquartered in nice quaint Swiss villages. I've talked to them. And they're basically like this is like, this is the end. You know, they're they're basically like fleeing civilization. Folks on X that I follow that I respect in the energy space as well are basically saying like, this is truly a monumental loss. Now, not yet, technically, technically we have been able to use a various reserves, floating storage and the bypass that Saudi Arabia and UAE have to effectively make sure that this is one of the top 10 largest crude supply losses in history. But from everything that I know, all the math that I've done at BC research and all the clients I've talked to who actually do this for a living by mid April, this is going to fall off a cliff. It's going to fall off the clizzy and just wait until you're I mean, I know you were in Europe, but I mean, I'm sure you also visited with your friends, the hoodies. I actually heard a rumor that you were named leader of the hoodies going forward. The Ayatollah Papage from I'm actually sponsored by a new line of cat. Cat, what do you call it? Vapes, you know? Oh, that's good. Yeah, cat vapes. I was hoping for a patch, but a vape is just as good. So you've got all those tankers that are going across like into the Red Sea and what is it? We're up to 5 million, 6 million barrels per day. It can be more than five. It's it's four and a half five. But just one thing I would say about that. So like it's a little bit of a side note that you just brought in, but let's do it. I'm not too worried about the hoodies. I love them, you know, my brothers in cat. The issue is Yonbu, which is the Saudi port is pretty far north. The ships are not necessarily they don't have to go through the Red Sea. They can go through the they can go through Suez. So can the hoodies fly drones all the way to Yonbu? I mean, you can open Google maps, take a look at it. It's it's in line with Egypt. So this is very far north. The answer is yes, yes, they can. But the distance is so far that the Saudis will have plenty of time to intercept those drones. So this isn't the same as when the hoodies were flying stuff at vessels off the coast of Yemen, where you know, like some poor ship, like they don't know how to intercept a missile coming at them or a drone. The Saudis will protect Yonbu from hoot attacks, I think competently. So I'm not too worried about that. You know, the hoot is joining the attack, like I don't really care. This oil is going to go through Suez, unfortunately, now would VLCC is going to have to be small ships, but whatever, it doesn't matter. Like it will get to Europe. The problem is that it's still not enough. So, I mean, for those of you listening to this and you're not in finance or you're not finance, bros, look, it's very simple. How is this war going to affect your life? Right now, it's like, oh, where gasoline prices are up. Nah. Like, the world will stop. If this continues for three more weeks, we're in 2020. Tom Hanks has fucking rona. That's where we are in two weeks. Maybe this week, I don't know. We'll see. But like, well, I mean, that's one of my questions. Like the timeline here is a little, because you know, present Trump, where we're holding off the destruction of Iranian energy plans for 10 days. I'm going to meet Xi Jinping at the beginning of May. Yeah, every two will be over by that. Everything will be fine. By the way, all of this depends on Iran eating the taco. Like, at this point in the stage, it seems like President Trump is offering the taco and it's carnitas. And the Iranians are like, that's kind of Iran. Like, can you give us a not pork taco? This is like just completely unacceptable. We will accept a cat taco with some beans on it. Like, and they're like going back and forth and not talking to each other. Or are they even talking to each other? I don't know. So, they are. That's the media just being like, you know, TDS-ing and stuff. Like, yeah, of course, they're talking to each other. But look, here's what I would say. Here's a couple of things that two headlines I want to give you. They have nothing to do with oil. Helium shortage has started impacting tech supply chains, executive say. So this is a Reuters article. Now, helium shortage can be mitigated. Other natural gas producers can step up, including the US. But it's a little bit like the neon gas fake crisis of 2022 that never happened. But like, not the less, like, here you go. We're going to have to mitigate this. The second is Iran war-chokes, petrochemical supply, sends plastic prices soaring. And finally, just LNG. LNG is liquid, liquefied natural gas. Taiwan, South Korea depend on LNG that transits straight up from U.S. Taiwan for 40% of its electricity generation. So if you're sitting in the United States of America, you're listening to this podcast, and you're like, bro, like what are these two guys talking about? We're good. We got all the oil we need between Mexico, Canada, the 51st state of Venezuela. You know, we're good. It's like, no, you're not. First of all, oil is fungible. Oil prices will rise in the U.S. But more importantly, there's also sorts of other things. And more and even more importantly, if you're a tech bro, and you're like, we're good. We're just going to keep building AI data centers, no, you're not, because there's not going to be any semiconductors to put in them. You might want to put some Lego bricks, but fuck, those are build out of plastic too and demarcates you. So the point is, the point is that by mid-April, it is very difficult to see how this doesn't fall off a cliff in a non-linear way. And that's why a lot of the oil experts you're citing when they're freaking out because they see that far ahead. They understand that there's a physical problem here. It can be mitigated for a while. President Trump's order to release Russian and Iranian sanctioned oil. Great idea. Smart. I support it. Whatever. But that's 30 days. You know, and once that expires, once we lose that floating storage, it's going to be pretty ugly. This brings up the question of the new troops coming in. Look, here's the thing. I'm like one and a half beers in. I haven't slept in 24 hours. So I'm going to be a little disjointed, but let me break this down for people. Let's turn on the TikTok camera or whatever camera we're supposed to turn on. Yes. Stormin, Norman Schwartzkopf. May he rest in peace? He had at his disposal half a million American troops, 750,000 coalition forces during Operation Desert Shield. Okay. This is Gulf War I. 750,000 men with guns. Desert Shield. What's up? Yeah, Operation Desert Shield, right? Is that Desert Storm? Well, I think first it was Desert Shield, then it was Desert Storm. But okay, sorry. Oh, yes, you're right. Sorry. Keep going. Yeah, one and a half beers in. I know my history. I pay you the big bucks. This is Norman Stormin Schwartzkopf. The Schwartzkopf doctrine. What's the Schwartzkopf doctrine, which is muttful, especially for a man who hasn't eaten and is one and a half beers in, but like, look, it's, you don't do anything. Unless you have an overwhelming advantage. And so that's what he did. 12 years later, Donald Rumsfeld shows up in the Middle East with 300,000 troops and gets eviscerated in the press for having too little. And turns out he was actually right. It was cool. Like, 150,000 was all we needed to defeat Saddam. But the point is that the United States of America walked into this and it's now sending 5,000 Marines and 1,000 members of the 82nd Airborne, like guys, these all better be clones of Chuck Norris. You know what I mean? Like, eight, like, six to 8,000 troops. And then some was like, yeah, but there's like 50,000 American troops in the Middle East and already. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's cooks. It's dudes putting bombs on planes. That's pilots. There's like 10,000 human beings that you can scrounge up to add to the six to 8,000 that are coming into the Middle East. We can be generous. Say there's 20,000. Now, there's reports that there's 10,000 more. Fine. There's 30,000. What are you going to do with 30,000 people? And by the way, this entire time, Iran is like Kevin in home alone, all right? What do you think Iranians are doing right now, man? They're like, you know, the famous scene in home alone where the kid is running around the house fucking putting traps. Weird Joe Pesci. All right, we're about to walk into this suburban Chicago home and get, you know, destroyed. So there is no, unless there's some supersonic weapon that America has that's going to literally prove me wrong. The scales here are so crazy, Jacob, that if there is a plan to eventually build up to that 150, 200, 300,000 ground troops, if that's the plan, the truth is it's going to blow through our timeline, which is that by mid-April, the world economy is going to fall off a cliff. So there's really only two ways that this can go. There's only really two ways. Either all these troops are there to kind of bluff, to kind of scare the Iranians into a better deal, or President Trump has just decided that a global recession is cool, you know, like an American recession because of whatever it is that he's trying to do in Iran. And that's a, I'm not sure recession is strong enough, but yeah, I hear you. Yeah, pandemic level, total extinction event for commercial activity. Okay, we've thrown a bunch of headlines back and forth. So I want to, I want to help take us back for a second and sort of at the start of this, I think you and I were both in the same page that this, I don't know how you felt about what I did not think this was going to happen. I think you were more on that this was going to happen. But I think both of us were at this. Oh, I was definitely. No, no, I was, I was putting money at work that this was going to happen. That this was in January. Well, after it, it's well, my big takeaway was like, look, I don't think President Trump can really contain himself from following such an extraordinary success by not trying to do this again. Mm-hmm. Well, but I think both of us were on the same page that this was a three or four week thing max that there was no way that this was going to go on. I have revised my view. I think it's broken. I think we're already beyond the window. And my base case is that either he's okay with the global recession or he's of the mistaken worldview that he doesn't think it's going to happen. Or even if he wants to pull back right now, I'm not sure that he can pull back right now. I don't, I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that the Trump administration are a bunch of idiots and that the Iranians are geniuses. I actually think both of them are fairly stupid. But I think on a relative basis, the Iranians are being less stupid than the Americans are being. And that exactly what I set, the exact reason that I said this was going to last three or four weeks was that at that three or four week mark, all of the leverage starts to turn. And it's the Iranians with the asymmetric advantage that can start calling the shots. I think we're there because they have no reason to accept a taco or a nacho or whatever else it is. They're talking about deploying troops to Carg Island. They got to be thinking great. Great. Like, bring it. Bring it. Bring it. Yeah. Come on down. We are ready for it. You want to stick around? You want to do this until May? Great. We can do this till May and you can have your silly little things. that Yan Bu keep on doing it. Like just watch what happens to all these other things that are happening. I mean, they're in the driver seat here. So why on earth after taking all this punishment, would they start to pull back? And by the way, the other element of this, I mean, the sort of weaker link here, and I'm curious, I'm sure we'll get some feedback from our Israeli listeners. The situation in Israel politically does not look good. You had Sipi Livni, former Prime Minister coming out and saying Israel doesn't meet the basic definitions of a state anymore. It's territory. We're not sure what the borders are. The state doesn't have a monopoly of violence. You had, I don't know if you saw Yeh-Eur-Lapeed. Also a very brief former Prime Minister of political opposition saying that the IDF is saying that the troops, the reservists are on their six or seventh deployment, that the IDF is on the verge of exhaustion and collapse, that it can't possibly continue. Meanwhile, Israel's going to conquer Southern Lebanon. I mean, that's just a flat out invasion of a country to its north. Like we can talk about it as a belong-the threat. Okay, cool. You're still invading Southern Lebanon with a military force that is designed for short-term blitzkriegs, not for long-term occupation campaigns can't believe we have. And then before you get to the interceptors or running out in the asymmetry of everything else, so I don't know. I just, I have revised my view. Have you revised your view? Do you think we're going to be done here in a week? Like how are you feeling? Because I'm not, and I'm looking at the energy analysts, and like, I'm thinking, okay, like yeah, I'm keeping my lungs on energy and I'm keeping my lungs on shipping. And I'm adding some agriculture exposure because, and some, you know, some of that petrochemical exposure down the road, because there's no way you're fixing that in any kind of short horizon of time. Where are you at? Because I'm getting, you can tell. I'm getting jittery. You know what? I'm not in the same boat as you. And let me explain. Why? I feel like a little bit, you sound like the folks who in April of 2025 started telling me how like, "No, man, you gotta understand. Trump was always about tariffs. That was always his biggest issue. No, he actually does believe he's the next McKinley. He really does want to finance the entire government through tariffs." And you're like, "What?" Like, you know, that was 1890s, man. Like the US government was 1% of GDP relaxed. Like, that's not gonna happen. So I don't, like the reason that I am not in your camp is that the same people that I talk to, the same commodity trading firms in Switzerland, like the White House is talking to them. You know, like they, I believe they know. I believe they know that between April 10th and April 20th, there's some sort of a window where we start running out of like, you know, like Australians will not be able to fly off of their continent. The semiconductor fabs in Taiwan will stop producing chips. You know, MRIs will not work because they need helium. Like that's like the world we're gonna be in. It's pandemic extinction level of it. - Worse than the pandemic. That's, I mean, that's way worse than the pandemic. The pandemic was political hysteria. Like you're talking about physical shortages that cannot be fixed in a short period of time with the pandemic. We could decide that the essential workers had to go back and risk their lives to get us the things that we needed. We can't do that. We don't have the materials. - Factories did shut down because of the political hysteria, though, so it was a real, like, you know, - Yes, but there were exceptions made for essential workers, like the meat packers who had risk COVID and everything else. And like there wasn't a prolonged shut-in of like the feedstocks that, you know, power a bunch of the things that we're talking about in the world. - Yeah, so we both agree it's bad. Whether it's worse than the pandemic or half as bad as the pandemic, I don't know. It's, it's bread. My point to you would be that the White House understands this what I want to say to everybody out there who is looking at these troop deployments, like it's too late. If you want to actually have a reasonable, efficient, effective ground force incursion, you would have had to start massing those troops six months ago. If you're gonna start doing that now, it's gonna take you six months to put them in place to do anything. By then, like the world, you know, we're talking like Mad Max, the road warrior, right? Like we're fucking killing each other for canisters of gasoline. It's too late. It's too late. Like eight thousand Marines, like get outta here, you know? Like, oh, they're gonna seize Carg Island. Carg Island is that Chicago House in the suburbs would cabin inside, okay? Now there's a couple of other places that America may want to invade instead of the Carg Island. You know, so for example, if you look at the map of the Persian Gulf, the problem with Carg Island is that it's actually pretty tucked in. So it is far from the actual straight of Hormuz. Now it is leverage if the US were to seize it, Iran would not be able to really control its own trans shipment, transportation of energy, but then it would retaliate against energy in the region. So that's not good. No, there's a different island called Keshem QESHM. Take a look at the Google Maps. It's Iran's aircraft carrier effectively. It's right astride the straight of Hormuz. That would be a juicy place to go in. If the US could seize it, it would basically have almost like an offensive lineman holding back Iran from Hormuz. The problem is it's huge. You know, it's like, I think 60 miles across, you're not gonna conquer that with 8,000 troops. Grenada invasion, Grenada invasion into 80s was effectively 7,000 Americans. And Grenada had 600 Cubans defending it. Like, you know what I mean? Grenada, you say Grenada, I say Grenada. I'm sorry, I'm too beer steep. Okay. I know, I'm just trying to help. My ESL is coming out. My English second lecture. So the only two islands that I think President Trump could conceivably invade with the, by the way, and by the way, there's people asking, what about seizing the shoreline? You know, it's very unpopulated. Only Bander Abbas has a population. You can use eight to 20,000 Americans to kind of seize the shoreline of Iran around Hormuz. I mean, that's insanity. Like, guys, you couldn't invade Santa Monica with 8,000 people for God's sakes. It's not going to happen. So, again, remember, Gulf War I, 750,000 men with guns. Gulf War II, 300,000. So what I think is potentially a way out here, a middle ground, if you will, is the islands of Abu Musa and in Tundab, spelled TUNB. Why? UAE and Iran have a dispute over them. So America could use plausible deniability to claim that it's not invading Iran. It's actually invading islands that are in dispute. President Trump could then show that it shows how awesome America is, raised in US flag and kind of declare victory. They are strategically completely irrelevant. Other than those two tiny islands that are disputed, I, I got to tell you, everyone who's listening to this, anything short of 100,000 American troops, I just don't think moves the needle anywhere. And in fact, if President Trump disagrees with me, sorry to interrupt, because I'm going to stop very quickly, if he disagrees with me, and if he's been given bad advice, he could be walking into Operation Eagle Club. So this is Jimmy Carter's attempt to free the hostages that went south, except in President Trump's case, it could be hundreds of Americans dead. In this, you know, like a very unplanned, poorly manned attempt to use ground forces. So to answer your question, like, why am I not in the same place as you are? 'Cause there is, I just don't believe the US administration, the Trump administration is that stupid. I don't. He's definitely been given bad advice. I'm sure you saw the report that his briefing in the morning is a two minute reel of things that they're blowing up. And he's got Crystal meth, a rumsfeld in his ear talking about all the kill ratios and everything else. But so let me try and pin you down on this. So you're sticking to your guns in the sense that you think this is over in a week? - So it's not just about the US, obviously. It's also about Iran. I think that both sides, so we talked about the US. US went into this without having supplied sufficient vessels and ground troops to do anything but a short war. This isn't about President Trump wants a short war. This is about the fact that the US has no troops in the region, not 600,000 shorts of had, none. This is about the US having eight R-Lig Burke class destroyers, eight, which is like 50 less than what you need to open the streets. So that's just the material reality Jacob. It's not about what President Trump wants, although I do think he wants a short conflict. He said it before, he's called it an excursion so that. Now, your counter to me might be what, but it's not just about the US, it's about Iran. And this goes back to the podcast, I think we recorded last 13 days ago. I'm not moving away from that. Iran has leveraged right now, true. But if we fall off the economic cliff, cousin, they risk overplaying their hands. Because. Because once you fall off the cliff, once the helium gas is no longer being shipped, once plastic prices go up, you're going to have the whole world hating you except for Russia and maybe Norway, God bless them. They're swimming in the oil so they're happy. So like the point is if Iran overplays their hands, they will unite the whole world behind President Trump. Even though right now everyone's kind of pissed at the US for doing this, for no good reason. Like what are you guys doing? You riled up the hornets nest but then didn't bring the spray to kill the hornets with. What are you guys doing? You're unprepared. Now the fucking bees and hornets are destroying the picnic for everyone else. Everyone's mad right now at the US but I'll tell you this man, we blow through this into May. You've got Chinese vessels shoulder to shoulder standing next to the US Navy opening the straits and you've got every single capital on the planet, again, other than Russia, begging the President of the United States to initiate a brutal and savage punitive air campaign against Iran. So yeah, I think both sides are constrained. I think President Trump is constrained. I think Iran is constrained. If they overplay their hand, if they're sitting there and being like, yeah, we're going to cause a global recession. What's up? What's up is that you're going to be an economy parking lot outside of LAX. That's what's going to, well, that's what's going to be what's up. And that was going to feel sorry for you because unemployment is going to be 10, 15%. People in Australia and South Korea and God knows where are going to be like, you know, running around with little like plastic canisters trying to get gasoline into their mopeds. Like dude, everyone's going to be on the same page at that point. So my low conviction view, so it's a low conviction view is that yeah, I do think this probably ends mid, early to mid April, which is soon. I hear you about the Iranians and there's two. I think we can both, I think we can both agree. It makes no sense for them to give up now. Not right now. Not like date today. Yes. But like seven days from now. Well, this is the thing. They have to show that the economy is going to experience extreme pain for the United States and Israel having done this. And this is where the jawbone in the oil market and some of the way the market reaction is dealing things versus the physical shortage seems to be undermining things a little bit. Because like I said, Brent crude is at 93. The straight has been closed for the 13 or 14 days that you didn't have podcasts from us guys. And Brent crude is at 93. The companies that I consult for, the analysts that you and I are talking to are freaking the fuck out. They have no, like the world is ending. And the market is like, yeah, like things are fine. And so if you're the Iranians, you're looking at that and you're saying, well, we haven't, we have not imposed enough pain at all. And in seven days, if Brent crude is still sitting there at 90, we're still sitting there at 100, or if everybody's just, all right, there's going to be a taco and everything else like that. They have to stay in the fight long enough to where you get to the edge of the cliff. Now, I take your point that they don't want to go so far off the cliff that they unite everyone around them. But I, I, I would push back against you. This notion that the world is going to be cool with the United States making Iran a parking lot and that all the blame is going to go on Iran. I'm not sure I buy that. I think the Chinese are fine for the Americans to be distracted here. The Chinese refine and process a lot of these things. They've got energy that they need. They've got more reserves. They don't. They don't. They don't. It's the allies that are going to run out before them. Vietnam. Japan. The Philippines. South Korea. These countries are going to run out before China. They've got bigger problems than China does. And you already mentioned Australia, things like that. So I'm just not sure I see the, the shift there to all of the pressure going on Iran, whether it's going on the United States or whether we have just then gotten into an economic catastrophe that spirals and no amount of bombing them is actually going to work. I don't know. I would push back against that. I struggle to see that one. I mean, maybe look, what I would say is I disagree with you in China. I think China is going to be in huge problems here. They have a lot of problems. Everybody's going to be in huge problems. I'm just saying their problems will be relative to others. They will be a little better off. But everybody's going to be screwed. But that doesn't matter. Objectively speaking, they have to worry about their domestic political stability. And so no one in China is going to be happy that like the average Filipino is worse off than they are. They're going to be like, I can't, you know, I don't have a job right now because the plant is shut down because the input into this semiconductor production process is not available. The Chinese, they will be very happy that the Philippines is declaring an energy emergency and that Marcos, Jr. is now reinvigorated about the China-Philippines relationship. It wants to explore for oil and gas and the South China Sea together again. It's like Duterte is back except it's Bong-Bong. That's his nickname, by the way, for those of you who don't follow Philippine politics. Look, I think China came out today saying, "Hormuz has to be opened. China has huge leverage on Iran." This isn't just about US turning Iran into a parking lot. It's also the fact that Iran has a trade deficit with China. And for those of you who don't understand economics, that's insane. Like they sell more oil to China than anyone else. How do you ever trade deficit with them? Well, that's because every single thing that makes Iran a modern industrial society comes from China, every single one of them. Every single one of them. Not a single one of those things comes from Russia. So drones, you know when American propaganda was like Russian drones have Chinese component in them? Brother, American drones have Chinese components in them. Which means also Iranian drones are built off of Chinese semiconductors. What do you think? Iran has semiconductor fabs? No. So my point to you, Jacob is like, the whole world is going to be telling Iran like, "No, don't do this. This is painful to your friends like India or Malaysia and your allies like China." China also has to keep up relationship with Saudi Arabia. In particular, Saudi Arabia, in my view, is far more relevant to China than Iran will ever be. For a number of different reasons. First and foremost, they supply China with more oil. So China also has a diplomatic reason why it wants to rein in Iran. So that's the thing. If this goes off the cliff economically, Iran will lose China for sure. I think China will be much more willing to do something about this. And that's why I don't think they can let it go off the cliff. You know, no, it's a low conviction of you just to be clear, Jacob. I'm not, I'm not saying here. Everything here is low conviction, right? And you don't want. You don't want it because like, if you and I were sitting around like a drinking our brews in June of 1914, we'd be like, "Wah!" You know, this will be solved by Christmas. Like, it just makes sense. You know, the game theory proves that Austria and Serbia will just fight it out. Yeah, but do you, I agree. But do you think six weeks in, we would have looked at each other and been like, oops. I don't think so. That was wrong. Well, I mean, that was a different era. You know, it took a lot of time to like mobilize things and so on. Like, I think in this particular case, I think that we're all looking at this and we're saying, well, it can't possibly end by April. And here's where I would say the controversial view I have, Jacob, is that there's war in the streets and there's war in the Middle East. Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me. That's Tupac Shakur in changes 1991. War in the streets and the war in the Middle East. What am I getting at? This is the Middle East. There's always war and yet energy goes through it. This is something you've been saying by using the reference to do and the spice must flow. In the 1980s, okay, in the 1980s, Iran and Iraq had an eight year war that cost between one and two million lives. Don't be telling me that that was not more of an existential threat than what is happening today to Iran. If you say that, you don't understand facts and history. The Iranian revolution was 12 months old when a French armed and American supplied Iraq invaded Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu in 2026 is just a down who's saying in 1980. Same thing. Same thing. Absolutely. That's a fucking brilliant thing. That's one and a half beers in. Iraq was a proxy of the United States. The US supplied Saddam Hussein with satellite imagery. It was financed by Saudi Arabia and it was supplied by weapons by Europe and it fought a war with Iran where over a million people died for God's sakes. You know, 2,000 people are dead in Iran right now. And energy was impacted for sure, right? We had tanker wars. But the point is that we reached a kinetic equilibrium where despite this geopolitical calamity that was the Iran-Iraq war, oil flowed through the region. Why? Because Iran knew that it really couldn't cross that line. So it attacked like Iraqi vessels or vessels that were carrying Iraqi crude. So what am I getting at Jacob? I think over the next four weeks what's going to happen organically without negotiations is that Iran, the United States and Israel will effectively come to a tacit agreement of what is kosher to bomb and what is not kosher, what is halal and what is not halal. And so we're already seeing that in real time. You're seeing more and more attacks by Iran on Israel, which quite frankly nobody on the planet really cares except Israelis, God bless them, but nobody else does. Everyone kind of is like me, that's okay. The attacks against GCC are declining. So Iran is calibrating and by the way for anybody who wonders where I get this data, you can go to bcaresearch.com and click on our Iran dashboard which is available to non-clients. You can see this, attacks against Israel going up, attacks against GCC going down. When Israel tried to attack Iranian energy, what did President Trump say? Don't do that. And at the same time in parallel, Iran is negotiating with countries like China, India and Malaysia, transit of vessels through the straightover moves. We're organically coming into a world where it's going to be acceptable to have war in the streets and the war in the Middle East instead of war in poverty, they got a war in drugs through the police can bother me. Tupak Shakur in 1991. Guys, guys, this has been going on for 50 fucking years. And yet the spice gets off of Iraqis. Why? Because if it doesn't, you've got the whole world against you. Arate against you. 1987. In 1987, the Soviet Union sent minesweepers to help Americans open or moves. I'm telling you, man, in six months, the Chinese Navy is shoulder to shoulder with American Arate against Iran. So there is a world where six months from now, nay, nay cousin, six years from now. Iran and Israel are lobbying missiles at each other and most of us are sipping a peroni and enjoying a $3 gasoline because none of us are going to really care. Yeah, there's a lot of brilliance in there, but here's a few, a few more pushbacks. First of all, as, I mean, let's start with the nerdy bits. You're of course right about doing that the spice must flow, but everybody does unite against Paul and the Fremen and he launches a G-Hod that consumes the lives of 61 billion people and how much suffering and everything else that happens. That's so like movie three. Come on, man. That's come on yet, you know, spoiler alert. Second of all, I'm, I am low to quote Henry Kissinger because of how much I had to test him, but there's a great vignette in one of his books about how he said, Hafiz al-Assad, Bashar's daddy, the former Sunni dictator of Syria. He was the best negotiator he ever negotiated against and I'll paraphrase because I don't remember the exact quote, but it's something like Hafiz al-Assad was the only negotiator who understood that it wasn't just his job to go to the tip of disaster, to the tip of the clip, to the tip of the cliff. He would fling himself off the cliff just expecting that somewhere on the 60 foot drop, he would find something to grab onto on the way down and that was his entire negotiation strategy. It's hard to like map Hafiz al-Assad, Sunni, Arab secular dictator onto, you know, Persian, Iranian, theocrats, but I think there is something to that because I hear everything that you're saying, but Iran has to make this hurt more before it can allow the situation that you're talking about to come into being, or at least that's the way I think it has to happen. So maybe they can wink and nod and say, okay, Japan, okay, China, yet we're going to, I'm sure you saw that tweet about that, they're going to call it the "Iah toll," like pay us the toll and your ships can get through. Oh, well wait. But that's important. That is a way to accelerate the solution. And go, bless IRGC. IRGC's got to get PAID, baby. Let's go. Now I'm quoting Biggie. You see what happens when I have a couple of beers, man, we're just dropping, fucking big, listen. IRGC's got to get paid and they're going to get paid $200 million. If they revert, if they revert Hormuz traffic to its normal level and charge two million per vessel, they're making $2 million a day. And so this is like-- Per ship. I think per ship. No, sorry. No, no, no, no. Well, it's $2 million per ship. It's just $100 vessels. It's $200 million per vessel. So $200 million per day. Yeah, yeah. It's $200 million per day. By the way, that's just a $1 extra per oil, per oil barrel. I think everyone's going to be cool with that. You know, and you know, like some journalist-- Is that in dollars or you want, or Bitcoin? It's going to be in US dollars, baby. Well, we'll see what Iran is except. But look, I hear you, buddy, Iran having to exert more pain. I agree with you. The only problem is it's not a linear sliding scale. At some point, if the economy falls off the cliff, it's just game over. Everyone's just going to be like, OK, well, we're done with you. We're not going to negotiate with you. And we're not going to let you use a fee through Hormuz. We're going to have a 35 nation alliance. Which France is now negotiating, by the way, I don't know if you saw the headlines. The world is just going to, at that point, stop negotiating with them. And you lose the $200 million opportunity through a fee structure. You lose the ability to like get the Americans to a tacitly agree to not bomb energy infrastructure, domestically civilian infrastructure. You lose all of that. And what you get is just punitive attacks. But listen, I agree with you. My point to you is that I haven't deviated from the sort of a timeline. But the probability outcomes, there's multiple scenarios. And there's very high probability that this just devolves into a quagmire, the quesadilla that you mentioned earlier. Yeah. Well, and the reason I bring it up, so I mean, this is not my base case. But here is a scenario. So let's say I'm right about this and that Iran thinks, OK, we need to do this for 10 more days. Now everybody's too sanguine. Markets think that that's what you just said is going to happen. So we have to, we have to thread the needle here. We can't push it so far that there's global economic catastrophe. But we need people to be a little more afraid that there is going to be global economic catastrophe than they are right now, because right now they're not scared enough yet. So they push it that far at that point. Does the United States have the discipline to understand, oh, Iran is doing what it has to from its interest? We are not going to escalate. We're not going to bomb the power plants. We're not going to take cargailand. We're not going to push it. We're going to understand they have to make their point. And then we can have the art of the deal and go or does the United States escalate at that point? And then Iran starts bombing regional energy infrastructure and going after the diesel plant. This by the way raises a question that I have that's been an open one to me since the very beginning, which is the Saudis have been puffing up their chest, at least according to reports the last couple of days, finished them off. They're not grata for Iranian diplomats inside of Saudi Arabia. Hey, Saudi Arabia, you've bought a lot of weapons. Like are you ready to send your sons and daughters to die in Iran? Are you ready to fight for it? Because you're talking a big game. You're telling the United States to do that. You're telling them to send the Marines and to cargailand everything else or at least according to the reports. So to Saudi Arabia getting involved here. And then what you're talking about that they attacks on the Gulf countries going down and starts to go up. And by the way, if you really want to complete like the nightmare scenario here, at that point the Houthis decide to get involved because the Saudis are involved. And maybe it's not about Yanbu, but it's about we have to start hitting the Saudis where it counts because they're attacking Iran. And meanwhile, Vladimir Zelensky sees that Putin is lining his pockets with this high oil and sees that nobody's been listening to him because everything's distracted and he'll do what he's been doing the last couple of days, which is knocking out Russian export oil infrastructure. And now we're off. It is kind of World War One because we've had a bunch of dominoes fall because even though what you're saying makes sense to me, if cooler heads prevail, like all of that hinges on the United States allowing Iran to push this farther and then making a deal. Is the White House capable of that? There's just too many, I don't know, like you hear it like this scenario. Well, first of all, I completely respect your view. I am not taking on any, I have a very sanguine geopolitical thesis here. I'm not putting any bullish trades on right now for my clients, zero. So you know why, by the way, because the market agrees with me. I hate that. Today, by the way, March 26 today, we had a first real, real like volatility event. I mean, the US tenure yield is at 4.5%. For those of you listening to this, that's game over, baby. It's over. Game over, man. Game over. Four and a half percent of the tenure, goodbye. You know, goodbye. So that's where we are. And of course, Nasdaq fell two and a half percent. It's in correction territory. Yes, the P500 is reaching technically some very, very nasty, nasty points. We are at the liberation day event from April 2025. I think we're going to blow through a 10 percent correction and probably get to 20 at this point, like that's where we are. So the reason that I agree with you, that it's a very scary moment is because the market has been agreeing with my sanguine view for too long. Yeah. So that's where geopolitics and markets like Intersect, you can have a sanguine geopolitical view, but if the market agrees with you, you shouldn't be putting on any trades base off of that. You need the market to freak out to start nibbling at some risk on trades. So I'm just saying that just to show the amount of fear and respect I have for everything you just laid out. But one thing I would say is that we've never had a president of United States of America who is more willing to do whatever the fuck he needs to do to get out of this situation. So there's never been. - Yeah, but it's not up to him this time, man. - No, no, I would do it. - Like the Iranians are listening to this podcast and they're like, "Yeah, we gotta make the market freak out a bit more." - No, I hear you, I hear you, but it is important. It is important that America can't pivot very quickly. And not fall for like Iranian provocations. So President Trump is basically like, "They're begging us for a deal." And the Iranians are like, "We're not even talking to you." He's like, "Layers." You know what I mean, we've won. And you know what the thing is, look, success is in the eye of the beholder. And objectively speaking, I mean, I can tell you the target set of the US and Israel, we have the data. They have pulverized Iran's ability to launch missiles and drones. The problem as President Trump eloquently told us on March 26th during the cabinet meeting, which thanks tips, we knew this for four weeks. And before he can be 99% successful, but that 1% means a vessel gets impacted by a drone. Like he was explaining this today. He was man-splaining this to the world. Like, yeah, we know. We know what a symmetry looks like. President Trump, like, yeah, maybe you should have had more than eight destroyers in central force to deal with that as symmetry, but whatever, the point that I'm getting at is that you can objectively argue that America has accomplished its mission. The ballistic missile capacity has been degraded. Like I have that into data, like Iran's attacks on the region are declining. The nuclear program has been obliterated. And the Navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Like, you know, so like, this is an administration, Jacob, that unlike previous administrations could just declare victory and move on. And then just call the press a bunch of liars. Like that's what's gonna happen. And your point is like, yeah, but Iran is then not gonna accept that, sure. But then they have their own set of problems, which I've articulated, which is that if you push this to a point where China hates you, like, you know, that's not a good place to be. So they themselves could then, again, you don't need a ceasefire Jacob, you don't. You can continue attacking Israel with ballistic missiles. Everyone's gonna be okay with that except Israel's. Like, there's still ways for Iran to show the chest beat and all this stuff, but then quietly let vessels go through straight off Khrumuz while picking up that $2 million per vessel clip. - Yeah. There was a study published by the Royal United Services Institute of Defense and Security about munitions and when they're gonna be depleted. And I think it's pretty telling that a lot of these munitions, especially for Israel, but also for the US, like some precision, some precision guided munitions, like some of the stats, some of these other things. You start to run out by mid-April. So to your point about timeline, like you really do have to wrap this thing up if you're the United States five minutes. - Do the right metal CO, the right metal CO publicly just said that. He was like the West is out of missiles. - Which is pretty remarkable. Okay, well, like I said, that was a scenario. I'm not even sure that that's my base case, but I'm thinking about it. - No, no, no, we should tell the listeners this can go megabad. - Yeah, and I do think there's an extent to which once you start getting down the ladder of escalation, there is no stopping it. It doesn't matter if President Trump wants to stop it. It's close to getting out of his hands. It might already be out of his hands. Like I think you're saying that he can still stop it. The thing that is most disturbing me is, I think it might be gone already. I think it's lost. I think it's now in the Iranians' hands. And I don't know what the Iranians are thinking. If you told me that Iran collapsed tomorrow, I'd believe that. And if you told me that the IRGC, this was all part of the plan, I'd believe that too. We just don't have a lot of good insight there. If you're a version, well, actually no, let's take a step back. 'Cause one thing we wanna talk, we've been focused a lot on the Middle East and the headlines and things like that. Let's talk about Europe for a second. Because Europe, I wouldn't say Europe is as exposed to say India. For me, India is probably the worst hit of the entire world and all of this. But things looking pretty bad for the Europeans. You and I are both bullish to the Europeans. I thought 2026 was the year the Europeans could finally take a deep breath on energy. But you got that cuttery LNG coming online and they've been doing things for two years and things are gonna be okay. That's out the door. Some of my contacts have been talking about hoarding not just of energy supplies, but petrochemical supplies. And they're dealing with months, potentially, of shortages. They gotta refill the gas. What are you thinking about Europe right now? Do you think it's gonna be a tough, tough eight months for them? No matter what happens. - Yeah, I mean, like India, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, those are some of the countries that are extremely exposed to this. Europe is right behind them. And I think that there are pockets of sanity in Europe. And Mano Macron is out there talking to 35 different countries to assemble and armada. To go into the strait of remuse. Supposedly according to the French government, it includes countries on every continent. It includes countries like India, so it's not just like European countries, but across the board, the idea is that once the conflict ends, this armada would go to the strait and demine, make sure that vessels are escorted. Anyone who's listening to this and laughing at this should stop laughing at it. The French Navy is a serious Navy. It can actually do this, especially if it's backed up by India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, China. But other than that, for the most part, I think Europeans have shown a complete and other inflexibility on how to deal with the multipolar world. They're out there basically, you know, still talking about not taking Russian natural gas. And that's just insanity. Like, it's just insane. First and foremost, they should absolutely be thinking about restarting nuclear power. I mean, that's like obvious. But the easiest way to deal with this is stop begging Ukraine to allow transit to Russian oil through a pipeline that goes through Ukraine and order Ukraine to do that. 'Cause Ukraine's lights in its cities, like the heat in Ukraine that warms its people, the weapons, the bullets in their guns are paid by Europe. So like, that's the first issue. The second issue is, yeah, of course you should take Russian oil and gas. What are we talking about here? Obviously, that's in your national interest. Oh, but they're evil, Marco. Yeah, I get it, but for the next six to 12 months, you know? For the next six to 12 months, they're less evil than the bigger stuff. They're just as evil as they ever were. Just to be clear, but the issue is that this is the multipolar world you live in. There are no enemies, there are no friends. There are just interests. And so when I look at the behavior of the commission, particularly the foreign policy head and the president of the commission, I'm just not impressed by Europe at all. They seem to be unaware that in a multipolar world, they need to look out for European interests, not for ideological coherence and normative excellence. No one's gonna give you an A plus, 'cause you stood on your morals. So yeah, I think that on that front, Europe has failed the test. Europe has to understand that you might have to deal with Russia. That's just a reality. Just like I don't disagree with President Trump's administration on leaching Iranian float and storage into the market. Like, yeah, of course you have to do that. You're trying to extend the period during which you can impose pain on Iran. Similarly for Europe, like, hey, man, if America is going to throw a hand grenade into your energy supply, find an alternative. And if that means dealing with Russia, you have to deal with Russia. That is absolutely the world we live in. I hadn't sort of focused on that, but I remember in what was in 2022 when everybody was saying that the Europeans were gonna freeze in the world. winter without Russian natural gas. And I did the math and it was clear to me that they were gonna be able to cobble together enough supplies to get through the winter, especially if it was a mild winter and it turned out to be a mild winter. And I remember one of the anecdotal reports that I read was that like a month or two, it was like September or October we were heading into winter. And it was only then that the city, I think it was in Berlin, it's the Brandon Berggate that's in Berlin, is that right? They decided to shut off the lights at night so that the tourists couldn't see it. And I was like, oh, okay, so you've had enough power to keep the lights on the Brandon Berggate this entire time, like you're fine. Like if you were serious about this, you would have had the lights off already. And I say this because I'm wait, you know, France is fine. They've got nuclear power, they've got an aircraft carrier, Macron can do things and he's, you know, he's not over a barrel if you will, the same way that the central and Eastern European states are. And I'm talking to Germany now. I am waiting for Germany to wake up. I can't, as a Jew whose family fled Germany, scary to say, I'm waiting for Germany to wake up and one of the things I'm waiting for is just reverse nuclear policy. Like this is not complicated. Like just, it's not gonna happen tomorrow, it's not gonna happen six months from now, but start making a plan. And, you know, earlier this month, a couple weeks ago, Friedrich Merch was asked about this and his answer was that it wasn't possible that he regretted this, but that was the way it is and they're concentrating on the energy policy that they have. That's not good enough, man. Like if this is really a crisis, like it's all hands on deck. - No, listen, Jacob, it's very simple, man. Are you serving normative and moral goals? Or are you serving Europe's interests? Like that's the question to me. By the way, fine, Germany doesn't want nuclear power. Here's a secret that nobody seems to understand. So I'll spell it out for people. It's fine. You know, if Illinois didn't want nuclear power plants, but Ohio did, like who would give a shit? Nobody. Like it's fine. It's fine. You know what, Germany, this is for some odd reason a political issue for you. Okay, fine. Let's put some more in Denmark. Let's put some more in Poland. Let's put some more in France. And then you can just ship the electricity via, you know, like power lines. Like this isn't that big of a deal, Jacob, right? Like fine. But it's more just the coherent like attitude of Europe. It should be talking to Russia. Like yeah, look, we hate you, you hate us. We're gonna keep supplying Ukraine with weapons, brother. But we need some of your gas. Like it's okay. It's okay for 12 months to bridge this particular situation. That is the kind of strategic thinking that the world needs today. And the irony is that Trump knows how to do that. He knows how to pivot back and forth. One day he's talking about how Iranians are evil and they're cutting off heads of babies, whatever the hell he was talking about. I have no idea. But the other day he's like, ah, God bless him. They're putting up a good fight. You know, in a multipolar world, where threats are coming at you, nonstop, you cannot have a rigid ideological anchor. And Europeans are absolutely failing on that front. When I take it, you don't think this is gonna get bad enough for them to finally give that up. 'Cause they didn't give it up with COVID. I mean, they've taken steps. It's like one step forward, two steps back. COVID didn't do it. The Russian invasion didn't quite do it. I guess this isn't doing it either. I mean, are they ever, like, is our bullishness just misplaced there? - Oh no, I mean-- - They can't do it now. When are they gonna do it? Like, it's time. It was time yesterday. - Look, there's also some reasons why I'm bullish in Europe, right, that it has nothing to do with them, like learning from their own history. Like Cardinal Richelieu is like level 74 geopolitical mage. Kaya Kallas is what we would call in a gaming community, a newb. Like, she needs to know, she needs to learn about Richelieu. Like, this is, Europe needs to learn how to be Machiavellian. That's all I'm saying. And right now, shaking their fists at America for doing something stupid, like, fine. Yeah, that's fair. The U.S., again, like, stirred the hornet's nest and everyone who was having a nice picnic is now having to deal with hornets. Stinging China, stinging poor Australia. That was just out there, like, eating some veggies, you know what I mean? On a nice blanket, like, everyone was having a nice picnic and Americans fucked it up. We all understand that. It's fine. You can say something about that. But how to deal with this can't just be like, oh, well, we're going to bury our head in the sand and we're going to pretend that Russia doesn't exist. No, man, you're going to restart your natural gas pipelines to Russia and you're going to give Russians billions of dollars and it's fine. It's fine because it's temporary. You know, you can still support Ukraine. You can still give it weapons. You can still support it financially. You're not abandoning that. But you need to bridge this very critical moment. And here's why. For Europe, it's not so much oil. It's the LNG. And the thing is, there is no yarn bull for LNG. There's no way to divert the LNG transports. They got to go through hormones. The attack against the LNG field in Qatar was kind of overstated in its scope. It is just two to three percent of global supply. There's more supply coming online, globally, it will be fine. But it might require six to 12 months and nothing would speak to Europe's ability to flex its muscles, its market size, and its sophistication like, yeah, sure, whatever. Hey, Russia, we'll take some of your gas. Your desperate, aren't you? Like, and then after 12 months, we're just going to stop buying it again. You know, so yeah, that's where I am on this. I think so far Europe's performance has not been great. Now, there's been a lot of criticism that Europe has no teeth, has no teeth, has no that. I disagree with that. Like, what are they supposed to do? The US did this. What is Europe supposed to do? But I do think that the fundamental, like basic precept of geopolitics in the multipolar world is that you have to look out for your own interests. And that means making deals with the devil on occasion. Yeah. I would just, I would caution, I've heard that the damage in Qatar is worse than that. I don't think anybody really knows until the fighting has stopped and until we actually get in there with the day, and the fighting's not over. It could get worse from now. Fair. Until there's a real damage assessment, I would put a pin in that. And also, you know, a lot of the supply that's coming online and coming years is from the United States. So maybe Europe becomes dependent on the United States rather than Russia or has to play both sides off of each other. I also don't know if you saw this. This was from the Singapore Foreign Minister said this in a press conference, I think, or some kind of thing earlier today. And I'm going to paraphrase a little bit of it, but it's sort of, I think it does two things. Number one, it underscores what you just said about Europe and about the need to not have ideology drive policy. I think it also, though, pushes against what you said about the world, United and against Iran. So the Singapore Foreign Minister says that the Poxymaracana has, you know, been great for everybody for the last 80 years. But whether you like it or not, objectively, this period has ended. And the underwriter of this world order of the United States has now become a revisionist power and even a disruptor. The larger point is that the erosion of norms, processes, and institutions that underpin them, remarkable period of peace and prosperity, that foundation is gone. And what you're seeing now in Ukraine and the Middle East and Asia are the symptoms of an underlying tectonic rupture. You have to take the world as it is rather than trying to assign blame or to use pejorative adjectives. So I'll, like, I say all that to say, I think you're totally right about ideology, not having room there, about having to narrow the articulation of the national interest. But I would also just point out that Singapore saying the US is the revisionist power in the room. Not Iran, like the US is the one that is driving this. This is the fault of the United States. We were all, we will all suffer for it. And we all have to make our own deals accordingly going forward. Which, you know, from Singapore, that was like a pretty eye-opening statement. And as always, like, Singapore only exists because they're very good at geopolitics. So they're always a place to understand how things are going. - Yeah, I mean, and that's where I think that, you know, when you see some of the statements out of Europe, it's just, yes, you've identified the problem, but you're not doing anything as a solution to it. From a geopolitical perspective, I think that it needs a reawakening, you know, of just European interests and how to pursue those. So, you know, I was talking to a very good friend of mine who I won't mention, but he'll be listening to this. So he knows who he is. Like, if I was running Europe's foreign policy right now, first step would be to go to Beijing. - Yes. - You know, and we just be like, yo, like, how do we fix this? And then my second call would be to put it. And be like, yeah, like, let's restart the pipelines through Poland. I'm gonna keep supplying Ukraine with weapons. And I'm gonna keep supplying Ukraine with money if you don't want to sell me gas because of that, then fine, fuck you. But if you want my billions of euros for your gas, then like, let's set a price and let's restart it because I'm not gonna let American adventurism hurt the European economy. Like, I'm just not gonna do that, you know? And I just don't think that that's, So what European? Commission did is they postponed. I think the date, what was it? Europe postponed the date when they will ban the purchase, right? And it's like, shut up. They postponed the date when they're going to ban all purchases of Russian oil, I believe, right? Yep. They're weenies. They're total weenies. So here's the headline. The European Commission has postponed the scheduled April 15, 2026 announcement of a legal proposal to permanently ban all remaining Russian oil imports. Shut up. Just like, what are you doing? Who cares? It's a commodity, you know, it's transactional. You're not supporting Russia by buying their oil. Someone else is going to buy their oil by the way. So it's like one way or another, Russian oil is going to get to the market. This is just virtue signaling bullshit and there's just no room for that in a multipolar world. So yes, I've been very, very bullish Europe for a number of different reasons. It's not like their foreign policy acumen is the reason I want to own European banks, you know what I mean? Which by the way, have outperformed Nasdaq over the last like 18 months. So the view has been right. And it's not like my view on European assets is going to be wrong if they'd never learn how to behave. I'm not making a market's investment point. I'm making just an overarching geopolitical point. This isn't about Europe being divided. This isn't about Europe having 27 member states. This isn't about the EU. This is just about basic precepts of geopolitics. If Singapore has figured it out, if Mark Karney from Canada has figured it out, like you guys need to get on on the same page. And if I see more virtue signaling from the EU commission about this stuff, like, you know, it's the most on European thing. And this is the funny thing about this Europe gifted us Nicole Machiavelli. Europe gifted us Cardinal Richie Lue. Europe gifted us Lord Palmerston. Like these are the Europe gifted us collodialism and imperialism. And world wars one and two. Yeah, it's about time they start like brushing up on their own history and learning how to play the game day invented. All right. Well, we're not we're not going to hit everything before we turn to the NBA. What have we missed? What have we missed? I'm not sure. It sounds it sounds to me if we're trying to summarize views here at the end of this because I also want to emphasize something I mean, and let me know if I'm putting words in your mouth. I think it's nothing but low conviction views from here on out. Like I'm not highly can yeah, yeah, it's a war. Yeah. And for me, at least like my initial model for the three week four week war to me is broken. And I don't know whether that's because of what Iran's doing, whether because the Trump administration had bad information. I don't know, but like it's already gone on longer than I thought it was going to go on. And the scenarios that I am starting to entertain and prepare for are more nightmarish, which is not normal for me. My analysis is normally the opposite direction, but like I am staying up at night and I'm worried about kind of what I'm seeing. It sounds like you're a little bit more sanguine, but not so sanguine that you've got conviction the other direction and that you think the nightmare scenarios are crazy. Is that a good way of summing up where we are in this moment? You know, the constraint framework that I write about in my book, "Juipalic Alpha" is very, very difficult to remain wedded to it when it's very, very dark. So again, the siren song of these people are morons is very powerful, you know. And what I want to make very clear to everyone listening to this is that I am the most bearish I've ever been in maybe my life. You know, as you said yourself, the pandemic was a political hysteria. This is actual molecules not being able to get to where they are needed. Right? So this is so bad, but it's so bad that you would have to be an absolute moron not to understand that. And while there may be some of them in the cabinet, I don't think that they are the majority. I think this is basic mathematics. I think that the same people I'm talking to who trade commodities, the White House is talking to them as well. I know that for a fact. They just stand the physical reality of physics of molecules. And so I think that the Trump administration knows there's like a ticking clock. And to your point, like, yes, it's not about them. I think Iran also understands. And by the way, I have evidence of this. I have evidence of what they're targeting. I have evidence of their behavior during Iran, Iraq war. I have evidence of how they're negotiating safe passage of vessels through Hormuz. So I believe that Trump administration knows that it's got to wrap this up in basically the next two weeks. And I can already see that Iran is behaving like it has in the past, which is being able to separate trends, the shipment of energy through Hormuz from geopolitical conflict, you know. So that's why I guess I'm both extremely concerned. But that extreme concern tells me, look, Jacob, you and I can't be the smartest do men in the world. Like other people know how we can't. Why not? As the rest of the world impressed you so much. Oh, man. We are the Quesad Tatarak. We can take this place. We can see the other side. Oh my God. No, no, no, we're not like even. Yeah. Look, man, I mean, you know, but so yes, I think you've summarized it well. I'm sticking to my constraint framework. And I believe the constraint framework will force the two sides to come to an equilibrium. That equilibrium may not be articulated in a deal. It may not be articulated in a ceasefire. It may not be articulated in any rhetorical, verbal, written agreement. In fact, it may be so subtle. You may not even know there's an agreement. The targeting, the kinetic action, the actual warfare will simply migrate from what's relevant for the economy in the markets to what's not. You know, and by the way, one thing about Israel, everybody says, "Worow on Israel, man." You're not like adding them to the equation. Well, because they are, you know, not wagging the dog. I don't believe that. Maybe initially they were maybe Netanyahu just convinced President Trump to do something stupid in a hasty kind of way. But, you know, like there's massive leverage the US has over Israel. Supply of interceptors, you know, help with servicing their fighter jets, which are not made in Israel. There's also some ways the US can get Israel to agree to kind of a tacit equilibrium with Iran. But the biggest issue is what you mentioned earlier, which is that Israel is about to expand into Lebanon. Yeah. You know, and that is something that, I mean, it's a pretty big endeavor. It's going to enlarge the state of Israel. That's, you know, it's a country of 10 million people that's about to take on another goal in heights kind of a project bigger. I mean, for what I understand. Yeah. And has a prime minister who's talking about them like a great power and a former prime minister who's talking about Turkey being next. I mean, they've proven me wrong since October 7th on Hasbalah and on Hamas. But at a certain point, they're going to be overextended. And I think they're already there. I mean, no, this is this is this is going to just, you know, man, this is the I mean, we got to redo our ranking of leaders. We know, you know, I mean, like I think that was we got to do the draft picks again. But look, I think, I mean, from what I just stand, Israel is going to expand to tire. Right? Yeah. No. So I think that Israel. But like, Israel doesn't have an occupation army. Like it does now. Well, that's what I mean. Like it like, okay, like good luck. But look, the point is from the perspective of this conflict with Iran and the straighter for Moose, which is far more relevant for everyone listening to this than anything happening in Israel or Lebanon, you know, be as that maybe a human tragedy. Like, let's leave that aside. The point is, Israel is going to have to listen to the US. If the US tells Israel, hey man, like, can you please not piss off the Iranians for the next six months while we're getting this traffic to Australia from Moose? What's this girl going to say? No, we're going to fight Iran and Hasbalah and Lebanon and ethnically clans four million people. Like, no, come on. Like, that's just not going to happen. Israel is going to be like, okay, cool. Like, you got the lead on Iran. Well, we get to take a third of Lebanon, right? And in fact, you could argue that Prime Minister Netanyahu is a genius. You know, he's all he's got us all distracted by the Seran stuff. You know, like, we're all like, oh my god, I'm going to have to like, hoard gasoline the way I hoard it toilet paper. Like, that's what that's what we're at right now. Meanwhile, Israel is about to expand to like ancient cartage. But was Carthage, I guess it was that far. I was thinking of it as like ancient Phoenicia. But yeah, I mean, and it also goes to the multiple, I mean, Russia and I. - I mean Phoenicia. - Yeah, Phoenicia. I'm not talking about my carthage. Like that's near and dear to my heart, my goodness. - My bad, my bad. Yeah, sorry. Phoenicia, Phoenicia, like tire, tire. Yes. - Russia invading Ukraine as a version taking to go into Carboh, Israel taking southern Lebanon. There's no difference in things. - No, I know we're getting it. - These are all the same thing. Serbia taking back Kosovo. Let's go there. - India taking Kashmir, like getting rid of independent status. They're China getting rid of one country, two systems with Hong Kong. - France taking back Belgium. What? What? Like where do we stop? Listen, this is the world of revanchism. So when Singapore accuses America of being revanchist, fine. But the thing is that the world we're in, and the reality is here's the truth, man. There were never norms and values to begin with. They never were. There was just one big bully that told you there were. But America broke norms and values throughout the 90s into 2000s. I don't care what learned elites at CFR events sipping, you know, water down cocktails in crappy ballrooms and a high-at-end DCC. Okay, there was never ever a normative moral commitment to some sort of bullshit international law. You as did whatever the fuck you wanted. - But you're speaking as a Serbian. Like there were, the difference is like in the 90s, like if you went to see the Wizard of Oz, you saw the scary version with all the smoke and the big stuff. And now you are looking behind the curtain and it's just a little man like pulling silver. - No, look, what I'm trying to say is that there never was any of that shit. Okay, well, American elites just told that themselves to take a sleep while at night, but you know, the Turks got to ethnically clent's curds, but then Serbs couldn't do it to the Albanians. And by the way, of course they can't. That's a humanitarian violation of rights. - I agree with you. - But you're not getting it. - The idea of it was alive. Like it was there, it was treated as something that was real, like it had currency. It has no currency anymore. I mean, you either have herpes or you don't shake them. Like I don't care what the idea is. And the truth is this, look, what I'm getting at, what am I getting at? What I'm getting at is that it's not like America broke that. That's what I'm getting. I'm actually defending the US of 2026. By saying that now that there's no overpowering superpower to just bully everyone and be hypocritical and everybody has to take it, now everybody gets to do that. That's the only difference. That's the, and that's why I think that the sooner countries realize that the world, that's the world they're in and put the sign out of the shop window down, that was Mark Carney's point at Davos. His speech's point was, you know, we gotta stop just telling each other that America's revanchist and evil and that they've turned away from norms and international law, we just gotta start living the world we're in. And that's my criticism today of Europe in this particular crisis. And that would be my retort to Singapore. America's not revanchist. There was never any world system to begin with. There was just power. And now that power is diffuse, so Azerbaijan gets to take the Gworn of Karabakh back. - Yeah, I mean, we could debate that till the cask of him, but I will say, I think the thing about Karani taking the sign out of the window is well placed in the conversation. And I'll also say like one of the parts of that speech that I think has been underplayed is one of the things he says in it is that, and we will all be poorer and less technologically advanced and less cosmopolitan because of this, but so be it. That is, unfortunately, what's in front of us and now we just have to do the best we can. I was actually thinking about this in the car today. We have it so good. We have hot water in our houses and we can stream. I can stream anything I want online at any time. Like things are good. Like I think we're gonna look back and boy, did we really do that? - But you know what? - Let me try to, I know I was a bit or serve like 10 minutes ago, but let me actually be very optimistic about this now. I'm not sure that you are correct. - Good. I want to be wrong, tell me. - Yeah, so like we're going back to the 19th century. That was the last time the world was like this. And the 19th century was actually an incredible moment of technological innovation and sophistication on the number of different levels, including philosophy. And I actually think that we're gonna go back to that era because competition between states is not necessarily a bad thing. It can get out of hand. I agree with that. That's where we get world wars and that's the danger. But I think that this world where countries are pursuing their own interests and competing with one another can be healthy. So far as there is a less ideological alignment, and this is the normative case for realism. The normative case for realism is that pursuit of power and devoid of ideology can actually be pacifying. Because then you're not painting your enemy as some sort of an evil force. You're not trying to normatively or from a value perspective, create these zero-sum games where everyone has to be not just defeated, but destroyed in a kind of social, delirient world. - Yes. - No, sorry. - No, I mean, that's it. In the 19th century, when Bismarck tried to create the German empire out of Prussia and various German kingdoms, what was his ideology behind that? It was nationalism. Germans should live in the same country. But he wasn't trying to say the French don't deserve to exist 'cause they are evil. He was saying like, no, actually what France did is correct. They have it figured out. We don't. We need to be more like France. That was the impetus for nationalism throughout Europe. And in a way, that's what I'm getting at. The 19th century was largely devoid of ideology. There wasn't, I mean, there was some of it, like modern kids and republicanism. There were some ideological currents, but countries did not necessarily see each other as, but they didn't see each other as existential threats. The way that it eventually, you know, happened when the ideology was introduced in the 20th century, particularly communism, you know, German fascism. - The right to exist comes out of that conversation. I will say, I've been reading about, 'cause I agree with that view. It's a view that I've been talking about myself for years now. But going back and reading some history of the 1890s, and I'm still pretty early on in my reading here, but it's funny that it's also, you're right about cultural effervescence and innovation and technological innovation, the switch from coal to oil, electrification, so many things that change society in-- - Medicine. - Yeah. - It was also a time of incredible inequality. Like for the upper classes who enjoyed these things, yeah, things were really, really good. And the lower classes who weren't enjoying these things, things were worse than ever, and they got a picture of what these really wealthy people were doing all the time, which starts to bleed into the rise of communism and the proletariat and the anarchists and the communists and the fascists and everything else, which is to say, even if you're right, if you're saying when view is right, two weeks, like the United States has a ticking clock, Iran has a ticking clock, they're gonna get together, they're gonna figure this out. How many people are gonna starve in the world nine months from now because they don't have enough food, because we've already had a closure for as long as we've had. Like that's already baked in, you know, and maybe we're fine, maybe I'll be here in 2027 and I'll be saying, blive things like, oh, life's so great. I can stream whatever I want on TV. Meanwhile, how many millions of people died in Sub-Saharan Africa because they didn't have fertilizer? One other thing I wanna say is that metaphor that you said about you either have herpes or you don't, it's the wrong question, 'cause in the 1990s, you can ask the question, but did you love her? Like now the question is, do you have herpes or not? But there was another equation in the '90s and if you wanna understand soft power at its core in both how weak and how strong it can be at different points in time, like that's your question. Anything on geopolitics before you wanna get to the NBA? - No, this was great. Just 19th century, whenever I think of 19th century, I think of like steampunk. I'm a big fan of steampunk, so I just think we're going back to that. It's just gonna be swash buckling. Globalization and cosmopolitanism is not gonna go away. It's just gonna be a little bit more steampunky. But yeah, all done with geopolitics. I did wanna bring up one thing. We haven't talked about the NBA in a very long time. - We have not. - We do try to cater to some basketball fans. By the way, if you're not a basketball fan, if you're not an NBA fan, this concludes-- - You're broadcast. - You can turn off here. NBA expansion. - Yeah, baby, to what last time? Vegas and Seattle, right? Right. So I have an alternative proposal. Great. Let's hear it, Komish. All right. So my proposal is that the NBA should expand not to Seattle and Vegas. It should expand by 30 new franchises. 30. Yes. Okay. So hear me out. The biggest problem in the NBA today is that basically you've got like 10 teams that decide like 20 games in, they don't want to play anymore. Okay. So the gD coefficient is through the roof because you've got 10 teams that just like couldn't really beat a college team on purpose. And there's also sort of for, you know, like ideas on how to solve this. How do you get these like crappy teams to care so that we can go and watch a game and like care about what's happens? There's no way to really do it. I mean, you could like kind of flatten out the probabilities of the draft. I've got a better idea. You create 30 new franchises in America and Canada. Maybe Mexico. I don't like the Europe idea. It's too far. Like it doesn't work. Leave them be. I was going to say that so that the Europe idea, should have said and Adam Silver is apparently pushing this as there would be 12 NBA Europe franchises. The Saudi Arabian public investment fund would get the one in Paris. Cutter sports investment would get the one, excuse me, in London, cutter sports investments would get the one in Paris. Wonder if they're still going to be doing that based on the war that just happened in general. But that would not be, but that would be owned by the NBA or co-owned, but they wouldn't be part of the NBA league. My idea is you create Serie A and Serie B. You create the NBA and NBA league. And the reason that you don't want a fucking tank is that if you're in the bottom four, you go to the league. Oh, yeah. Religation. Sure. Religation, baby. Religation. And now what happens with the players when you get relegated? Hey, man, like you don't get the TV deal. You can't pay your players. They get effectively cut, but there's an expansion or rather a relegation draft where their contracts can be picked up by other teams and they don't count against cap. So effectively, you know, like if the Sacramento Kings, you don't get relegated, the Mar de Rosins is suddenly like free player. Like the LA Lakers can take him and don't have to pay his salary. Like, I mean, they pay his salary, but he does not count against the cap. And it'd be pretty sweet to have the Mar de Rosins right now if you're the LA Lakers. You know, coming off the bench is the seventh sixth player like sick. So what am I getting at here? I'm getting at first and foremost, like who says no to this? Players? Why? You just created 400 new jobs in North America for basketball players. You don't have to go to Euro league to play. You don't have to go to like the Saloniki. You can go play for Kansas City, you know, whatever. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the the the the the B league does not get the TV contracts, but they negotiate their own B league contract. And what we know about TV right now is the only thing that's hot is live sports. I mean, we've got some desperate attempts by TV networks to like promote, you know, crapping new sports. You've got you've got instantly a brand new basketball league in America's like basketball crazed cities like the Midwest. And it's you know, live TV. And I think it would be it would be probably better than the Euro league instantly like the quality of this league would be very high. I think the problem. Well, I think there's a couple problems. And I've been thinking about this myself lately. And I have a friend here who actually I think used to work at the athletic or we need to get somebody on to talk about this because there's also a geopolitics of sport and like talking about soccer and you know, the world. Like we actually do need to get into this from it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The world cup is coming. It's important. You're right. But, you know, there have been if you were if you followed us at all in recent years, you would have thought baseball was dying and the NBA was ascendant and that the NFL would be around for a while. But concussions and everything else would conspire that and the basketball was in the capital. Now you've got the athletic and the New York Times writing pieces that are saying, uh, maybe baseball is actually overtaken basketball. Yeah. Number two sport. Higher percent. Game seven for NBA finals, Thunder Pacers, drew 16 million viewers. Nobody watched Game seven Dodgers, Blue Jays, 26 million viewers. And that's a trend in the US. That's just in the US. How many people in Japan watched that game seven? Yeah. So like, and I actually myself, like, I mean, I love basketball. I love to play basketball. I will say basketball has gotten. I'm a little tired of these guys. Yeah. Like I'm tired of the resting and I'm tired of the whining. Thank you. The game. The game is not fun to watch anymore. We're just jack and threes all the time. I, I wine about it too because like when I'm playing pickup, guys like to play pickup with me, not because I'm not good. I'm like a 38 year old white guy who's had surgery on his hip who can barely do anything. You know what I do? I box out and I pass the ball. So everybody's like, get me that guy because he's not just going to stand in the corner, jacking up threes the whole time. Like they like me from that point of view. But everybody's doing it. The game has fallen off. It's not like I actually don't watch it that much anymore. I follow it. And then I turn on the place. I would much rather turn on the Atlanta Braves and have a beer and talk about how the Braves are doing. Then watch basketball. So I agree with you. I mean, like my son, despite my greatest attempts at brainwashing, uh, became like a baseball player. And in Serbia, growing up, we definitely had baseball bats, we just didn't really use them for baseball. So like, you know, I was like the immigrants dad in the stands yelling like slide on first base. And like my son is just like like his head is in the hands like, fuck dad, you don't slide on first base. And I look why not? It's cool. So look, I completely agree with you. Like I've got into baseball myself. I think what they've done with the world classic is amazing. By the way, we didn't talk about Venezuela like revenge baby. Let's go waiting the world classic. That was hilarious. Canada almost beat the US in the quarterfinals, which would have been hilarious. They'd like US beat Canada and hockey and Canada beat US and baseball. But for basketball, I think the big problem Jacob is aside from resting. It's that like 30% of the games are already over by the time they start because teams are actively thanking. And if you force them to go into a league, where effectively they lose the TV dollars from the Syria A, like series A league to the series B, like I think people would not think. Teams would not try to tank. It will be competitive. And I think it'd be cool. Like, you know, having the Indiana Pacers compete with, compete with like a bunch of like lower tier teams for a whole season would be interesting. Like who's going to get relegated? Who's going to get promoted? Those things are going to be interesting. Obviously, I think it's going to be very difficult to sell this to owners of crappy teams because they're the most at risk. But I do think that the franchise fee of 30 new teams, dude, that would be a lot of money. So it would. I would also just throw on the pile here. Like there's also is kind of geopolitical baseball came of age during the American Civil War. Basketball is invented in the 1890s in the US because they're trying to figure out what athletes can do indoors. Also makes sense with like the makeup of the country. Kind of easier to be outside when it's a smaller country in the 1860s versus once you're like out in the plains and people are spreading and things are cold. Like it's kind of different. But yeah, just just a reminder like we were just talking about like the 19th century. Both baseball and basketball are children of the 19th century. There's nothing to say that some new sport won't arise or that one is going to overtake the other based on how culture is going. So yeah, I'm with you like tanking. Tanking is a huge problem for basketball and they have to do something and they're not treating it with any kind of urgency. The quality of the game is like it's hard to watch the regular season. Like I will only watch playoffs. Exactly. And by the way in the playoffs, you see how good the game is even with a three point shot and everything. It's is the regular season that the problem is just by the way the expansion fee right now is between seven or 10 billion per franchise. So when the two new teams come into the league, every team is going to make about a billion dollars from the two new, but if you expanded by 30 teams, I'm not saying that these teams would pay a 10 billion dollar franchise fee to be in the second league, but I'm sure they're going to pay like a two billion fee. It would be like two billion dollars per every NBA team. Like if you actually think about it. I think what I think a version of what you're talking about is also like you already have the G league or something like. Yeah. Yeah. Like take the current. I mean, they would never go for that. You want to get rid of tanking. So just install relegation now with what they have bottom bottom eight teams get relegated every single year. And not only do they get relegated. Salaries of players go to G league salaries. That would be crazy. Contracts like shift down to G league level. The only thing I would say is that right now most G league teams, not all of them, but a lot of them are in like. you know, not even media markets. I mean, we're talking like tiny. But there's, I think you could find Jacob 30 cities of good size that could support an NBA team. Like Nashville, Kansas City, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay. You know, I'm obviously going with the football teams, right? That don't have an NBA team. Vegas, Seattle, look, I'm already at six. You know, like we could, we could find 30 cities in America that are not like, wherever the fuck main, what is it called? Main clause or whatever, whatever, like Bangor, like, I don't even know where Portland, I think, you know, someone is in-- - Drive by it, main. - Like some of these G-League teams are like pretty, pretty like in tiny markets. So, you know, yeah, I'm just looking at-- - Yeah, Portland main. Portland main has the Red Claws. Sorry, the D league team is the Red Claws and they play in Portland main. I think we can do better than that. You know, Nashville, Knoxville, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Vegas, Seattle, there we go. Like, I got seven teams already and these are serious cities. They're not Austin, holy shit. Austin would be a great place to have, like a new basketball team. Yes, the San Antonio Spurs would be mad, like, shut up, you'll be fine. You know, so anyways. - Well, and I mean, soccer is, I mean, Austin FC is quite a pretty-- - Yeah. - Yeah, and then, you know, you could have a team in Montreal, you could have a team in Vancouver, Canadian expansion could be serious. Like, I think that, I think this would really be a great way and NBA owners would be able to cash out at two to three billion per owner currently, due to the expansion to 30 new teams. So you gotta be sitting there. If you and the Indiana paste are owner and you're like, holy shit, we're likely to be relegated if this comes into play or maybe bad example 'cause, you know, Haliburton's gonna come back. Let's say who really is constantly a terrible team. Sacramento Kings, you know, Vivek is sitting there being like, oh my god, we're gonna get relegated. Sure, but do you want $3 billion instantly in your pocket? I'll think that. - It's a nice dream. And unfortunately, things are, I mean, yeah. The cultural tide is turning against the NBA. They have a very big problem on their head. And I don't think they realize just how bad. Or maybe we're just old. Like maybe the NBA is like the sport for Gen Z. I don't know, but like, there was something out of touch between the way that the NBA stars are interacting with like American culture. Something is not like that the gears are grinding up against each other. I can't even, I don't even really have a take there. All right, anything else cousin? Did we miss anything? - I think that's it. We're probably gonna have to record a lot more. - No, we're gonna wait another 14, no, that's fine. We're gonna record again on Sunday. You miss Koreans, but stop all the energy that you're wanting. - I don't love energy. - Let them win. - Let them win. Let them win. - Let them forward to their friends. Like every single time you want to win Japan, there's not an episode there. I want you to go find five people and send it to them. And then you can come and complain to me. And I'll listen to you and you can sit on my couch and I'll listen to your stories about your dead cat. - Jacob, thank you. Yes, if you're gonna win, I encourage you to win. Thank you. Thank you for listening and for liking us. But please do forward it to five people. - As well. Also, I would just say that if we wait another two weeks, we might be recording this with like one of those like bicycle dynamos, you know, so just keep that in mind. - possible. - You know, we might fall off the cliff. By the way. - I'm done. I'm down here on the golf. We got plenty of natural gas. - Listen, yes, exactly. You're at the episode. You're gonna be fine. I'm in California, baby. We might have $10 gas at 80 minutes. Ultimately, I think the title of this one, I don't know what it's gonna be. But I'm going to make a bid for Mad Max to road warrior. I think that should be the title of our, because that is where we're headed, baby. If this isn't over in two to three weeks. - Mad Max, Hormuz straight. Mad Max. - Oh, nice. Yes. - The Hormuz warriors. Mad Max, the Hormuz warrior. There you go. Nailed it. - All right. - Or, no, Mad Max, Fury straight. - Oh, that's good too. - No, no. - Although I like the original Mel Gibson ones, just because it had a certain like, you know, psychotic edge to it, which later revealed to be quite appropriate. - Yeah, well, they are, I mean, I love them. I can't wait. I mean, I can't wait. - You can't wait for us to be driving 1970s America muscle cars and steal it or rather. - No, no, I can't wait for this movie. Next movie, I'm not trying to be CEO of the bullet factory. Please, I'm trying to stream my movies here with my non-alcoholic beer. Come on, calm down. - On that note.