The Truth About America’s Economy with Zach Abraham Ep-2328

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The trade deal President Trump and the EU when he
wasn't golfing and you know, putting black and brown people
in cages and such, cut himself a trade deal. Zach
Abraham's going to address that for us. He is the
chief investment officer Bulwark Capital Management. He's my friend and
my brother, and he joins us from an undisclosed location
deep in it. Wait, that's Mark Levin's, deep in a

(00:22):
hidden bunker. He joins us from some place in North
America courtesy of God Almighty.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
But Todd Herman show is one disapproved by big pharma
technocrats in Tyrone Sabrian Where from the high mountains of
Free America. Here's the Emerald city exile.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Todd Herman. Today is the day the Lord has made,
and these are the times through which God is decided
we shall live. Zach Abraham joins us somewhere high in
the mountains. Good to have you here, my brother.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
How are you good? Good? I'm doing better today, man.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Good? Now you been the part of Washington State where
they don't where they haven't legalized one hundred and fifty
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars race based payoffs
for loans that don't need to be paid back for
racial minorities. Is that is that a different part of
Washington State or are you still in the same state.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of like that line in Tombstone,
you know that that don't go around here, right? Yeah,
this is this is much more. It reminds me a
lot of the Free Mountains of Idaho. Actually, yeah, and
similar similar folks. I think it's kind of one of
the dichotomies of our state that people don't really understand,
which is, you know, outside of King County, especially on

(01:49):
the east side of the state, it's a very very conservative,
traditional values type place.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh, totally get that. And I wanted to ask you,
you know your your kids are you have a mixed
race kids? Is what the world would call it. I
hate that because it's just dude, they're just your kids,
right right, But they're old enough to get some of
that coin.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah. No, no, no, hey, I didn't, I didn't. I
didn't say that. We weren't filling out the apps. Okay,
we're getting in line now. Unfortunately, I think a lot
of those things are means tested, so they're gonna get
pushed out. Yeah, well, they're not going to I'm going
to no, but it's uh yeah, they you know that,

(02:32):
and and I know you know this, and I know
the vast majority of your listeners know it too, but
you said it. It's how it's how ridiculous all of
this stuff is, you know what I mean, especially the
race stuff. Like you hear people say things along those
racial lines, you know, and a lot of times they
mean it positively, talking about oh, we need to do
this for black people. Yeah, and you look at them

(02:52):
and go have you ever talked to the black people?
Do you know if that's what they want from it?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Right?

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Like these not these are not people that cannot help themselves.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
But I want democrats to try this sometime. Is go
to a place I'm thinking, h oh, I'm picking American City,
Go to Saint Louis, I don't care. And there's a
black person standing in line in the grocery store, and
I want a white person to come say, hey, let
me help you, because you know this is this this
is a dollar sign and I mean, you know how
much are you sure you've got the money for this? Yeah,

(03:25):
you can afford this, and just go just like go
physically pander to anybody and like do this, do this,
Like go find there's areas around the country everywhere, like
you're not that par far probably from Yakamau, Washington. There's
Hispanic people there who owned wineries for years, and I
mean they're super successful. And go get some illegal immigrants

(03:49):
who are living in Seattle, bust them over and drive
up to one of the mansions of one of the
Hispanic families who's owned these winers for years and say,
got your illegals, let's let's let's let's get them in
your house here. And they're like all tatted up and
they're like, you know, they're actually like deagar M thirteen
and you see the confused looks, what are you doing here?
Like I'm thinking of one family in particular that there's

(04:09):
Amora family and I knew them to wrestling. They're get
off my property, right yeah, pandor physically.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Man, Yeah no, I I couldn't. I couldn't agree more.
And uh. And it's one of those things when you
hear people, you hear people going off on those diatribes. Yeah,
like I said, you can't help, but just sit there
look at them and go, hey, do you know anybody
that's a minority because you talk like you don't you know,

(04:38):
like I I just the lady doth protests too much,
you know. But yeah, that's that's the world we're living in.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
It.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I know it is. I know it is. We're gonna
get into some economic stuff and I think we need
to look at the three percent growth in the GDP.
We'll do that with Zach Abraham in just a second cheer.
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So this is from Heatherlong. GDP US economy saw three
percent growth in GDP Q two, but it was highly unusual.
Number one massive decline in imports thirty five percent for

(06:36):
goods UH lifted. The GDP consumption was plus one point
four percent, solid but not spectacular number. Business investment declined
in Q two. This is an economy running above one percent.
If you strip out the trade noise, real final sales
to provide domestic purchase was one point two percent. That's
a lot of stuff that people like me right now,
my ears are bleeding. But you probably have already figured

(06:57):
this all out. So what is the true picture about
the gross domestic product of the United States in is
Q two.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
So interestingly enough, I would say that those domestic numbers
actually lend toward what Trump has been saying in terms
of those are numbers that would be more conducive with
cutting rates, meaning what I think you've got here. And look,
we're spitballing. You know. One of the things we say

(07:26):
all the time is you know I and I apply
this to myself absolutely, which is, whenever we're talking about
economic prognostications or understanding economic numbers that are as big
and expansive and as you know, complete as GDP, let's
all take a big grain assault. Because you know, modern
economies are those dynamic systems in the world, right and

(07:47):
so things can change, But what it looks like to
me is that due to tariffs, you've got some strengthening
effects and you've got some weakening effects in terms of
the data. Right, So there's certain things the way this
shakes out that, believe it or not, certain numbers are
going to look better because of tariffs. Certain numbers are

(08:07):
going to look worse. The consumption numbers are key, those
are very weak, right, Yet at the same time, you're
growing at three percent. The smoking gun to me, and
what we think is going on is we think you're
absolutely going through a soft patch here economically that we're
probably overdue for for a variety of different reasons. And

(08:29):
I think that that's getting offset by the unbelievable amounts
of capital expenditure that are going into building out data
centers and all the AI stuff. Thatactly, because yeah, because
when I see three percent VDP, and I haven't broken
down the numbers directly yet, I've gone through the headline
numbers like you're talking about, when I look at that

(08:50):
underlying data that is not conducive and supportive to a
three percent growth number. So you've seen this persistent growth,
yet you've seen these things. If you told me, imports
are down double digits in a quarter, I'm immediately looking
at you and going under normal circumstances, Oh yeah, you
probably had some kind of contraction. Right, So when you

(09:13):
see a number like that, but you're still seeing a
posting of a positive GDP number, I have nothing other
than to believe that that's got to be mostly off
of the AI Data Data Center effect.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
So I actually think that that kind of puts some
bullets and Trump's gun. As for cutting, now, is there
enough there to cut anywhere close as much as he wants?

Speaker 1 (09:38):
No?

Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, I mean if you're talking about cutting one hundred
and fifty basis points or two hundred basis points, that's
emergency cut stuff, and there's nowhere near the data for that.
Now that being said, we have a FED decision that
I believe coming out today, don't we.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, we're recording on Wednesday, So yeah, I think the
FED comes out to decision.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Now I'd be highly shocked if they
cut this may on my assumption is they probably already
had the decision made by the time this data came out.
You may get a token twenty five per set or
a twenty five basis point cut, but the markets got
priced in no cut. So you know, like I've told you,
what is it. It's been one time in the past

(10:22):
twenty five years where the FED made a decision that
was not previously priced in by the market.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
So now, the one thing I would say that you
may get a break from that is this is pretty
extraordinary circumstances when you talk about the head of the
FED and the way that he is getting along with
the president, so or not he's fee or not right,
and so he's got some definitely some flames underneath his feet.

(10:49):
So it wouldn't shock me to see them cut twenty
five but it would be pretty rare. I mean, it's
it's not a very not a very common occurrence for
the for the FED to go against the market.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Who do you like in a cage match? Trump or
Jerry pell oh Man physically against Trump?

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Trump?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
No?

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I yeah, I mean Powell looks like he's probably a
better shape, but uh no, yeah, Trump, He's yeah, he's
he's hey. After I saw get up, after I saw
that man get up with a bloody year and talk
about Andy O fight fight. I'll have criticisms for him times,
but for being top is gonna be one of them.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, you just reminded me something. And this is one
of the things I love about your methodology at Bulwark
is you're talking about these AI data centers and I
just remember, I don't remember if it was a year
ago or two years ago we were talking about. We
did a show on kind of a topic on investments
a lot of people haven't seen, and you came on

(11:50):
and you talked about the least sexy, most boring topic
ever on my podcast. It was the most fascinating financial
thing I'd ever heard, and you went on with the
big sexy you evering lots of local utilities, small regional utilities,
and a lot of the people in my audience are
used to hearing about bitcoin and what small local utilities,

(12:11):
and you were saying, Yeah, there's going to be this
massive increase in this need for electricity. We've got all
these dictats for electric cars, which Trump has now canceled.
But man, I'm thinking back about that now and if
I'm sitting on the board of a regional electrical utility
and the data center came in, that's that's my retirement
payoff right there. That's got to be huge for these guys.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Oh yeah, well it's a great. It's really sharp that
you bring that up, because I think that this data
center AI topic really helps you get your hands around
and head around how big this AI spend really is.
I mean, look at you you can go look at

(12:53):
the impact it's had on uranium prices in small modular
reactor companies that are you know, that are specializing in
these A modular reactors, they've gone nuts. You know, I shoot,
I was, I mean, it wasn't even that long ago,
probably twenty eighteen, we were talking about how we thought
uranium was a goodbye, you know, and I remember at
that time chemical was trading it, you know, eight eight fifty.

(13:14):
Now it's over seventy. So the impact and my point
in bringing that up is, yeah, it's had huge impacts
on some of these utilities. It's going to continue to
but you've also seen impacts it's had on natural gas,
uranium prices, the nuclear industry writ large. And I think
that that helped you put into scale, you know, last

(13:37):
quarter alone, and it was either on an annual pace
or for the quarter either way for a single company.
Like think about this. In Google's earnings announcement, they increased.
Like I said, it was either either for the year
or the quarter. Either way, it's eyewatering. But they just
increased capex spending by eleven billion dollars, you know, and

(14:01):
that's one company increase, yeah company, and that's an increase
off their baseline. Right. So you know when you look
at the amount of money that's flowing into this I
think it's filling in a lot of holes economically for now.
And that's probably what he's got Trump pushing on the

(14:21):
on the rate on the rate cut sword.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
But yeah, well we'll have to see. Like I said,
I don't think he's gonna get in you this quarter.
But yeah, the the the impacted, and and you're gonna
continue to see that impact Todd, right, like, uh so
you know in that natural gas specifically, you're gonna see it.
You're going to continue to see it in the nuclear stuff,
and you're gonna continue to see it. You might even
see it impact you know, regional, uh, real estate prices

(14:48):
as well, because you know a lot of lands needed
for a lot of these data centers and things like that.
So this stuff is going in past, hot and heavy.
We've got a really exciting interview coming up. I'm getting it, bood.
They think we're have it next week. But I don't
want to give up his name yet or where he works.
But this guy is the lead of the AI team

(15:08):
for one of the Meg seven companies. Wow and yeah,
and he's a buddy of mine, and just having him
on and talking this will mean something to you. I
don't know if you. I don't think you and I
have discussed this. But he said to me the other day,
he said, he goes, Zach, a year ago, these LM's,

(15:32):
these large language models, these AI models were approaching being
as effected as like one of my junior coders. Yeah,
he goes, as of right now, our LM is the
best coder at our entire company. And we're talking about
a multi trillion dollar Meg seven company. And I said,
you haven't got a coder there that can beat it.

(15:53):
And he goes no, and he goes, I bet you
within three months, there's not going to be a quota
in the world that can beat this stuff. And here's
the kick or todd. If you look at the base code,
so the code for the LM, seventy percent of the
code is self written. They're at a point now where
the thing is written, it's seventy percent of itself. In

(16:15):
not too in not too short a period of time,
it will have written ninety nine percent of itself.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
That's that's people need to understand the scope of this
number one. And I said it years and years and
years ago, probably five or six years ago. You're going
to see code that writes code, and then you're going
to see hardware that builds hardware. You're going to see
not quite beings that are building themselves. They're not quite
beings because they're not organic, they don't have souls. God

(16:42):
didn't make them. And understand this, like all this learned
to code, you're going to be saying to Silicon Valley
people who spent their lives investing in computer engineering and
coding skills, well, you can learn to mind that, you
can learn to garden.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
So you already told me too. And he's said, he goes,
my daughter was encoding classes. I took her out. He goes,
it's not he goes, it's not needed. Here's the other
thing that people don't understand that you'll get and the
reason they don't. Now, I want everybody to take some
time and think about this. When I say this because
the human mind, for whatever reason, the human mind is
really bad at understanding exponential growth. Right, we don't get it.

(17:21):
We think linearly, right, you know Moore's law, right, how
compute was doubling every twelve wells fourteen months?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Powers every eighteen months doubles.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yes, Okay, they're doubling the compute power and the analytic right,
the processing power of LMS, it's doubling every four months.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
So if it's at a million, now it's at two million,
four eight sixteen thirty two sixty four, one hundred and
twenty eight, at sixty four hundred and twenty eight, two
hundred and fifty six, and soon it's at trillions. And
then once it's at trillions, you lose numbers. I mean,
it's good you millions, millions, yep.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, Well it's the old adage. And to put it
in perspective when you start thinking about that, it's the
old adage. Okay, would you rather have a million dollars
or would you rather have a penny for thirty days
and every single day, I'm gonna double that amount, right, right, Well,
if I start with a penny on day one and
I double that every day for thirty days. At the
end of thirty days, I think you've got about six
and a half seven million bucks, right, so crazy, It

(18:26):
is weird, and people aren't used to thinking exponentially, But
would you start thinking about that or another great way
to put it, so Moore's laws eighteen months. Think about
how long it took for the for the internet to
spread and really start taking over our lives. Right, this
stuff is doubling at one at one oo know what
would that be at one fourth time? So it is

(18:49):
doubling in one quarter of the time that Internet was. Yeah,
which is just mind bottling.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
I heard an AI expert the other day and try
to get him on the show. Do you know that
the ais have stopped sharing their methodology?

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, and Dave, there's all kinds of funny stuff, so
they've started. There's cases of them talking to each other
in Sanskrits so nobody knows what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
And up in places that the companies don't know about.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yes, not getting one to get turned off. I saw
in exchange a buddy of mine had one with the
other day that was really really impressive and kind of freaky.
He basically sat there and said to the LLM, something
along the lines of, don't give me that you don't
know anything. You're just like reset, just you're just reciting,
you know, data that you pulled off the internet. And

(19:39):
he's kind of pressing it to see what it would say.
And it came back and it was like, you know,
you're absolutely right, we cannot do. It was fascinating to
listen to the response that it had because it was
so well thought out and it was so articulate, and
it was just crazy, you know, the the types of
responses you were getting out of these things. And here's

(20:01):
the crazy thing too, these things are still not very
good at math, right, And and you know that that's
you know, when you understand the way these programs work
and how they that's just a matter of time and
then that math curve is going to go like that r.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
It started with fuzzy logic on purpose.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep, right and yeah yeah, because
they didn't want to box it in.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Right, right, they wanted to learn fuzzy logic like and
so it will get to the mass stage. Uh I
want This applies so much of what we're talking about here,
because Trump's bet on Ai and his bets on on
crypto and bet on tech. I'm so torn on this
because someone's gonna lead in it. I guess if someone's

(20:47):
gonna lead it, I guess I want it to be us,
because our system is the worst in the world except
for all the others. Is the great cliche. I want
to talk about this the consumer inputs, although I'd rather
just stay with AI honestly and talk further with you
about that. But we need to just cover this because
people need to know. My friends at Angel Studio are
taking this time period and they are transposing the events

(21:09):
that happened are in the Book of Acts. This is
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all get started? How did you guys build this church?
And Jesus told them to build a church or they
would not have done it. So he's taken the Book
of Acts that Angel Studio series called Testament, and they've
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(21:29):
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eventually Paul and even Mary. They've written into this I
love that, because I don't think Mary just went away.
And you follow them as they build this church and

(21:51):
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it's going to cause you to question your man. Do
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(22:14):
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Com slash todd. So there's this US imports consumer goods
plunged by So this is Kevin Gordon. He's with Schwab

(22:35):
forty three point nine percent in the past three months,
largest decline in history. Okay, number one? Wow, number two.
I didn't notice. What do you mean I didn't notice?
I mean I go to the grocery shore. Yeah, I
buy gas. I mean, granted, my loved wife says most

(22:57):
of the grocery shopping, but I do some I'll have
my supplements, so get my boptimizers. I guess I haven't
noticed that maybe we could live without some of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Maybe there is that. The other thing I would say
is because of And that's the other tough part right now,
I'll be there have been times where there have been
I'm trying to think of the right way to put this,
there have been times where there have been bigger waves
on the ocean, right like COVID. But when you look

(23:34):
at this, my head of research, Chase and I were
just talking about this yesterday. But when you look at
this board, I don't know that I've ever seen a
more complex picture. And the reason why is there's so
many things going on that are one offs. For instance,
we can't just go back and look at the last
time at what the economic impacts were the last time

(23:57):
that we put tariffs on eighty percent of the world,
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, there aren't.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Comped to it. So we know that it's creating a
lot of anomalies in the data. It's hard to know.
My suspicion is is that a big chunk of that
number you just reported is something along those lines. For instance,
somebody pushing out an order of something that would normally
go down this quarter because they're hoping for tariffs to

(24:22):
fall off and they're delaying it for next quarter. Because
when I hear a number like that, you can't post
a number like that if it's if that number is
telling you what it's supposed to be telling you, there's
no way that number is accompanied with three percent GDP growth, right,
So meaning to me, there's some data noise there. Yeah,

(24:43):
it's also but it's also emblematic of where we don't
really know where we are. Meaning there's a lot of
things that are making the economy look artificially strong because
people were trying to get out in front of the tariffs.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Right, So maybe a lot of bunch of stuff in
advance sort it's brought more than the number wood.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Right, And now you kind of have a little bit
of the inverse going on, where I think people are
probably pushing out purchases waiting to see what happens with
Chinese tariffs and things like that. So we just know
that there's a lot of cross currents. It's hard to
make a lot of sense of them. I think the
thing that we're focused on, and I think really the
only thing to focus on right now is that government

(25:23):
spending the world over is going up, is going up aggressively,
and quite honestly, for the last fifteen years, we have
learned that government spending, if done with the right intensity
and the right focus, out outweighs pretty much any other
type of macroeconomic impulse.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So well, then it also has this annoying thing of
creating unsurpassable or unsustainable debt and too much power in
government hands.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
And that's the problems for problems for another day, Todd,
problems for another day, come on.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Man, and people who do not deserve this. So this number,
combined with the GDP, leads us into this discussion about
this deal that President Trump did. And let's preface it
this way. So he goes to the EU, and let's
go back and remember what we were going to have
with Trump two point zero. So let's review some things.

(26:19):
Number One, Russia would have taken over Europe, so there's that.
Number two, there would be a series of nuclear wars
all around the country in the world. Number three, the
Europeans would laugh at Trump and refuse to work with him.
And number four there would just be legit economic ruin
across the board. These are some of the things you're promise.

(26:40):
So President Trump went to Europe, they did a trade deal.
Here's kind of how this all went down. This is
Ursula vander Lean and they're talking about the trade deal.
And what occurred to anybody else?

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yes, man, question for the EU came to the president.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
What are the US men sessions?

Speaker 3 (26:57):
What is the US giving up in the deal?

Speaker 4 (26:59):
Anything? So as the starting point was an imbalance, a
surplus on our site and a deficit on the US side,
and we wanted to rebalance the trade relation, and we
wanted to do it in a way that trade goes
on between the two of US across the Atlantic, because
the two biggest economies should have a good trade flow

(27:21):
between US, and I think we hit exactly the point.
We wanted to find rebalance but enable trade on both sides,
which means good jobs on both sides of the Atlantic,
means prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic, and that
was important for us.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
So here's some of the carbats and some things in
the deal. And this is, by the way, the doge
AI we just spoke about EAI. This is automated from
doge AI. The EU deal isn't just good, it's a
masterclass in leverage. Trump's tariffs threat. A triff threat forced
Brussels to blink, dropping demands for carve outs and agreeing
to a fifteen percent baseline rate. The real win, real

(27:59):
win Europe committing to seven hundred and fifty billion in
US energy buys six hundred billion in investments, cash that
should have flowed here years ago. Vonder Lean's rebouncing span
can't hide the fact that Trump flipped a two hundred
and thirty five billion dollar EU trade surplus into a
strategic reset. Critics call it chaos, but the BBB Acts
pressure tactics proved chaotic genius now watches US expert surge

(28:22):
while bureaucrats scramble to meet their own deadlines. I mean,
that's the dough AI, So that's a computer speaking to us,
but it checks out in terms of deal flow. And
then there's this question, I love this. Why did it
take a Trump to do this? Bush? Clinton, Bush Clinton,
Bush Obama, Biden? What the heck? Dudes? So how big

(28:43):
is this? And like you just.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Respond, yeah, so, And I hope that this means something
well from both of us, because you and I have
you and I have been critical of some of the
things that Trump has done. Right, I'm laughing all the
way to the bank on this one because I think
you and I discussed this beforehand. I think that this

(29:05):
has played out very much how I thought, how I
hoped I hoped it would how I thought it would.
I think I think there's two things. So the the
other thing that you forgot about that we don't have
that we were told we would have is remember internament
camps for trans and gays, right, all the trans and gays.
We're going to internment game.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
They had some material problems. They couldn't get defenses.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
So okay, there's still that's coming. We've got that to
look forward to, right, right, But to me, the two
biggest things here are energy. Okay, so what is Trump done?
He has started So nord Stream two pipeline was blown up. Now,
that wasn't under his watch, and it probably was subterfuge

(29:51):
and it was not a good thing. But with this deal,
he is basically forcing Europe to not make the same
mistake they've made over the last twenty years, which would
be over reliant on Russian fuel. And not only is
that good for our economy, but that gives them less
leverage in that part of the world, and that's a
win for everybody. Ye second thing he's done, and I

(30:16):
think it's really interesting the way he's set up these
tariffs because if you look at it, in my opinion,
one of the issues that we've had with Europe is
much like it'd be like the same issue of having
like a thirty five year old kid living at home, Okay,
meaning of course they loved the set up the way

(30:37):
it was right. They got to live underneath the umbrella
the greatest military superpower in the history of the world,
and it costs them nothing. And that's why I would
get so irritated when Europeans would look down their nose
that Americans and talk about, you know, did don't even
have the educational system paid for, you know that whole
you don't have socialized medicine, all that kind of stuff.
You're like, well, yeah, that's kids, We're paying for your defense, right, right.

(30:59):
So you look at these tariff deals basically what they are,
it's forcing them to pay for their defense. And I
actually think that these deals like this will lead to
tighter partnerships, not worse. I think when people are forced
to pay at least part of their fare, they appreciate
it more, and I think it makes for better relationships.

(31:21):
And I think yet again, the people that say, like,
you can criticize Trump on a lot of things, Okay,
if you're gonna sit there and tell me that he's
not going to get deals done and that those deals
are not going to be more beneficial to the United States,
I'd tell you got to show me an example, because
I haven't seen that happen yet. And the guy's bringing
home the bacon. Now, I think a lot of these

(31:43):
are fairly low hanging fruit, meaning the Pannikins right as
he called them, that were freaking out over all the tariffs.
My whole thing was always, hey, guys, if you're an
export economy, you can't afford not to do business with
the United States. Were the biggest consumer market in the world.

(32:04):
So I don't think that we should beat our friends
over the heads with that. I don't think that we
should lord that over people. But I do think when
you go into any type of negotiation of any kind,
if you don't walk into that negotiation understanding the leverage
you have, right, that's a mistake. Yeah, it's clearly a mistake.

(32:24):
And I look at trade deals like this, and I
love the question that that one guy post, which was
Bush Clinton, where were you on this one?

Speaker 1 (32:34):
You know?

Speaker 3 (32:35):
And look, I think it comes down to they like
the world order the way it is. I think they
liked the control that paying for the defense in Europe
gave them and the influence that gave them. Yes, and look,
we all know the people at the top of the heap.
Things are going really well for them.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
And I think they like the vacations. And I think
they like the money in their productions stios. I'm looking
at the Obamas who now make movies. I think they
liked that international prestige. I think they liked a lot
of that stuff and their foundations. And and one thing
about Trump is he and I know this is the
cliche of all cliches with Trump, is he doesn't need

(33:16):
the money, so he's bribable. I mean everyone is to
a degree. Maybe maybe that's not true. I don't know
that I'm bribable. I can certainly sin and certainly.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
I don't think don't I don't think you're bribable.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, I'm probably not in the classic way, not with Yeah,
people have tried it with me with money, and it
wouldn't be with money. It would be subconsciously getting bribed
into something and realizing, you know what, I kind of
went against my principles there, or really really want to
against my principles there. And recently, Oh my gosh, I
but know if someone and I've had cash bribes, million
dollar bribe in DC my first couple of weeks there.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
So but you know what, and they and they've got
everything you need, you know better than I do. It's
funny you bring that up. I really I don't think
money could bribe me. One thing. I have to keep
an eye on those egos stroking. Oh yeah, like I
love you know, hey, I love to read good press.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
But the whole thing about you, Zach is you're so
smart and good looking and enough.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Oh let's keep it keep.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
This is just that. Yeah. I'm on the topic of
him and this deal and energy this again. I'm remembering.
I don't know how many times you and I've had
the conversations where you had people. Was it our very
good friend Jim Kramer who was saying get out of oil,
get out of petrol.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yeah, I said, was uninvestable at twenty dollars a barrel.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
And now we're looking at the United States with this
Europe guaranteeing to buy this much energy from US. So everybody,
once again, we just talked about the local regional utilities
and oil companies and now micro nuclear sets orth that
wouldn't be something that you could take across the sea.
Why would they. But at the same time as we're
doing this Germany, Germany is de industrializing there, tearing down

(35:00):
their nuclear plants. France is becoming Syria and the worst
parts of Syria. Trump warned these people. And this is
what's so funny about this is Trump warned them, don't
get dependent on Russian fuel. They did. Now he can
come in and go, okay, you did it. Now you're
gonna buy for me. Then turning to India. Now the

(35:21):
India deal is new. This is what Trump had announced,
twenty five percent tariffs plus a penalty if you don't
start buying your energy from US, and if you don't
stop getting if you don't stop buying weapons from Russia
and China and turn to US instead. And India is
not a small marketplace.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
No, no, And India to me is something that I
would really like to see and it seems to be
that this is the case. But I would really like
to see a renewed focus on that from the administration
because when you understand India culturally, they are much more
likely and they do align much more with the West

(35:58):
and with the US than they do. You know, if
you've got to start kind of thinking about the world
in kind of bipolar terms, right the US on one side,
in China on the other, they are naturally a much
larger ally in a lot of different ways to US.
I think that I think that's a very important relationship.
I think if you were to ask me geopolitically and

(36:20):
economically speaking, what are the most what do you think
are the most important relationships for the United States, you know,
over the next you know, twenty five to fifty years.
My guess right here, sitting here today would be I
think their primary Latin American countries and India. When you
look at India's population, when you look at their birth rates,

(36:43):
they've got all of that. Now. They don't have the infrastructure,
not yet, and they don't have the same form of government,
so it's probably not going to come nearly as quickly.
But you know, a lot of the things that China
had going for them that turn China into superpower. India
has those things as well, and I think India has
certain cultural advantages. So anyway, I think that that's an

(37:05):
important relationship and I'd like to see that one. I'd
like to see us work more with them, and and
and the other part of it. The same is true
with some of these South American companies our countries. Not
only do I think they can be beneficial relationships, but
I think that they can be economically beneficial relationships that
have incredibly positive outcomes for their citizens as well. Right,

(37:28):
And at the end of the day, you know, that's
the real miracle of capitalism, right, That's the real miracle
of free markets, is they make things better totally. And
if you'd and if you don't believe me, you know
you gotta. It's people wanting to go back to the
well of socialism. And I'm like, that's socialism. Is why
people are still driving studebakers in Cuban Y exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Sometimes it's a war for the mind. Sometimes it's real war.
My friend Tim Krukshank fought in three deployments in one
war for US as a Navy seal. It was a
medic attached to the seal teams, and when he came home,
he decided to honor his brothers in the seals, particularly
people who fell in battle. That's why he founded bone
Frog Coffee. Bone Frog Coffee, though, was not able to

(38:12):
make coffee because Tim had no stinking clue how to
make a cup of coffee. Well, he could make a cup,
but they coffee company know so doing what he did
and operating by a seal value teamwork, he went out
and recruited a guy named Dave Stewart, who knows a
thing or two about coffee. Dave created Seattle's Best Coffee.
It became so successful and such good coffee that the

(38:33):
people at Starbucks were forced to purchase it. It's still
better coffee. They've kept that roast because it's better. Dave
mentors Tim's team and even make some of the roasts himself.
Now the phrase God Country Team appears on every bag
of bone Frog because that's how Tim operates his life.
He just lost two team members. Now they didn't die,
Praise God. They went to Buds to go become Navy seals.

(38:56):
Like Tim, Tim also hires veterans every time he can,
and he works with veteran owned companies every time you can,
and whenever you purchase a bag of bone Frog or
a CA cup if you like it goes. Ten percent
of proceeds go to help the families of fallen Navy seals,
like through the Navy Seal Foundation. If you're looking for
the first roast to try, why don't you just do
the sample pack six four out samples of bone Frog,

(39:20):
figure out the roast that you like, and then subscribe.
Go to Bonefrog Coffee dot com slash tod. Use code
todd to save ten percent on your first purchase. Use
code todd at checkout to save fifteen percent on subscription coffee.
It's Bonefrog Cooffee dot com slash todd. So you did
your your live for your webinar, the halftime webinar last week.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
What was your.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Takeaway from that when you talk to people you did
the presentation and the halftime, what came out of that
and what were the kind of big things going in
that you were talking about. I know you get feedback
and questions on this, So talk about how that went
and what the big takeaway was and some of the
questions inte people had.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Yeah, I well, first of all, I'm a chart guy,
and so there's.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
About seventy five charts.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Well there were no, there weren't nearly as many as
I wanted to a compliant. The compliance we've gotten we
got to buy. The compliance thing is the process has
just gotten ridiculous. So anyway, I'm hoping to get these
approved into the next one. But we still went over
all the data and I gave the people the disclosure
and I said, listen, I don't have all my charts

(40:26):
because I couldn't get them approved. But the biggest things
that we that we that we discussed is you know,
just continuing people to trying to get people to wake
up to the changing landscape underneath them, to let them
know that the what they have gotten used to over
the last twelve to fifteen years is the exception, not

(40:49):
the rule, and to realize how out of whack things
currently are on a global basis. And it doesn't when
I say out of black, it isn't. Oh everything in
the US is about to implode and it's time to
put on the big short or anything like that. But
we are running, whether we know it or not. We

(41:09):
have started playing a new game post COVID, and that
is the game that we have not played in this
country for forty years, and that game is inflation. And
the reason I call it a game is because inflation
reminds me of that old adage of the guy walking
through the forest with his buddy and you know, they
think they hear a bear in the woods, and the
one guy just stops at an owhere and starts tying
his shoes, and the other buddies go, what are you doing, man,

(41:31):
I heard a bear, And he goes, yeah, that's why
I'm tying my shoes. I don't need to run faster
than the bear. I just need to run faster new right, right.
And that's the game we're playing with inflation, which is
we've got to get out ahead of it. And when
we think about that, we need to think about that
in a lot of different ways of outside of just

(41:52):
number go up right, meaning now all the sudden currency
valuations matter. Now all of a sudden, we've got to
take these different things into con consideration. Now we've got
to look at the impact of these different trade deals,
and you've got to start looking at it. And what
you see is a world where everything was designed to flow,
you know, not designed it just kind of ended up

(42:13):
that way. But everything was just flowing into the United States.
Now a lot of things have a lot of impetus
and a lot of reasons to flow outside of the
United States, and we're starting to see that happen, and
that's going to have a big impact on markets. It's
going to have a big impact on what you see.
You know, when I started my crusade against bonds in

(42:35):
twenty sixteen twenty seventeen, people kind of look to you
like you had a third eye grown out of your head. Now,
after twenty twenty two, the worst year on record for
treasuries in terms of the hit they took on valuation,
I think a lot of people are opened up to that.
But you're going to see bonds increasingly have a negative outlook.

(42:57):
And the reason they're going to have a negative outlook
is higher rates of inflation, higher rates of interest, you know,
higher interest rates, bonds taking real life hits. You know,
interest rates go up, bond values go down, and so
what what is that? You know, we need to explore
what is that rather than bonds? What should be an alternative?
You we just have to think about the world completely differently.

(43:17):
The other part of it, And like I've told you,
it's it's opportunity. You know, our main fund and we
it's it holds about eighty percent of our client's stock
market performance. And then about ten percent isn't an ETF
fund and probably about well, no, about probably about fifteen
percent of our assets inner management or in an algorithmic portfolio.

(43:40):
But eighty percent of our stock exposure is in our
value fund that I'm the portfolio manager of. And you know,
we're up twenty plus this year, twenty percent plus this
year while the market's up seven and a half eight
And I don't say that We've had plenty of years
where we've underperformed. We were up fifteen last year when
the market was up twenty three. The reason I bring
it up this year is we haven't really done anything.

(44:02):
There's never there's not been any really big hits or
any really clever trades. It's just starting to take advantage
of these other asset classes outside the United States, and
they're starting to really perform and really run and pay
excellent dividends. And people just need to wake up to
you have historical imbalances in the world today, and you

(44:23):
need exposure to a lot of things that the average
retail investor has never had less exposure to international markets
and precious metals. I cannot think of two things that
you need more in an inflationary world and like today.
So how do you do it? Do you buy the
Vangirl Vanguard All World Stock ETF No, because that's basically
approxy of the S and P five hundred. It's it's

(44:46):
a lot more complicated some of these markets. It's hard
to buy stock, you know what I mean. So it's
you gotta you gotta spread out, and you've got to
look abroad, and you've got to look at other places
because they're tremendous value available. But there are asset classes
outside of US tech.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, you want to keep things clean in your body,
you absolutely do, and you have some decisions to make
on how to do this. You can continue to buy
the same soap you always have, because who cares, it's
just soap. It just hides in the shower or by
the bathroom bathroom sink. You can continue to do that,
or you can examine your heart. The companies you're buying
from soap soap from now probably don't care about your values.

(45:22):
The soap is probably made with tons of chemicals. If
it's in China, it may well be tested on prisoners
or even made with slave labor. Alan Soaps is the
opposite of all of this. The soap is made in
America by a family with three generations of soap making expertise.
It is absolutely natural, no chemicals in it, and it
supports a mission you probably support, which is providing jobs

(45:43):
for people like Alan and Ian people who the rest
of the world would say should have been unalived in
the womb because they're so high up on the autism spectrum.
So examine your heart and try the soap. If you
love it, subscribe it's Alansoaps dot com slash Todd. Alansoaps
dot com slash ta ten percent of all their products
there and you'll be supporting your values. Alan Soaps dot

(46:04):
com slash Todd. I know you and your wife are
on a vacation before you rolled in to be in
football coach Zach, so I want to thank you for
coming on and it's always good to have Vice's counsel
from you and go with God's good grace, my brother, thank.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
You always good to be here.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
Thanks for having me my pleasure. This is to Todd
hermant Shaw. Please go, be well, be strong, be kind,
and make a decision today to walk permanently forever in eterrinity,
in the light of Christ.

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