David Rutherford Show: Venezuela, EU War Prep, AI Bubble & 2026 Recession Risk

📍America is being reshaped by global economic warfare. In this explosive episode, economist Bryce Gill joins David Rutherford to expose what’s really happening behind the headlines: China’s quiet expansion into South America, Europe’s push toward war, Venezuela’s return to geopolitical conflict, the collapse of the middle class, and the growing domination of the U.S. economy by retired asset owners.

They also dive into the looming AI bubble, the hidden cost of globalization, and why younger generations are being priced out of life itself.

This is the economic battlefield briefing every American needs to hear.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Venezuela Truth & The Monroe Doctrine 2.0

14:29 - How South America Affects US Economy

22:09 - EU Prepares For War

34:25 - US Gave Away Assets To Foreign Countries?

39:21 - Is Trump’s Economic Plan Working?

49:32 - Boomer Spending & US Affordability

53:44 - 2026 Recession Risk & How To Prepare

Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Or okay, everybody, We are incredibly fortunate to have by far,
one of the most requested guests and regulars on the
David Rutherford Show. David Rutherford Show. Excuse me, uh and
that's Bryce. Welcome brother, Nice to see you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I'm at Merry Christmas and it's great to wrap
up the year with like an in studio version of
the podcast with you. So I'm glad we could make
this work.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Let's start out first and foremost with I think the
most obvious, which is Venezuela. Give us your understanding of Venezuela,
Venezuelan economy, and then more so what role Venezuela plays
with our economy and the impact that might have on
a broader perspective.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah. Absolutely, so Venezuela, I guess, like, let's hit the
big bullet points. Venezuela used to be one of the
richest countries in the world. You know. Famously they went
from a more market based economy towards Hugo Chavez was elected, Okay,
and Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry and so this

(01:19):
is something that really upset like powerful American organizations, right
and basically put them on the You know, they got
black balled by the US government, right, So it's been
now I can't remember when Hugo Chavas was exactly elected,
but yeah, so a few decades now of basically being
on the outs of the international community, sanctioned by the

(01:39):
United States, basically US putting all the geopolitical pressure we
can on them to you know, give up their socialist government. Right.
And now Hugo Javas is gone, but Nicholas Maduro took
over for him. Everybody's kind of seen him in the news. Now.
He's sort of Hugo chaves a successor, right, and represents
the same type of basically like Venezuelan nationalism mixed with socialism. Right,

(02:04):
we're gonna you know, they expropriated these assets, but they
didn't steal, you know, assets from really rich Venezuelans. They
stole assets from wealthy international corporations, right, and nationalize them
for Venezuela. So that's sort of the origins of our
dislike of Venezuela. It all comes down to, like the
oil industry for the most part, and you know, I

(02:26):
think the United States also doesn't like the fact that
there's a socialist government in our backyard. This is sort
of a holdover from the Cold War essentially, and so
you've seen tensions ramp up with them. Obviously, we're doing
strikes on these drug boats quote unquote drug boats. Nobody really,
I mean, there probably are drugs on them, but I

(02:46):
think the whole drug sort of angle to this is
an excuse to do what we wanted to do anyway,
which is put pressure on them and get Maduro to
step down and instead put in you know, essentially like
a Western puppet sort of leader. Okay, and if anybody's
really I guess has been paying attention. Okay, there's this

(03:08):
lady that just got the Nobel Peace Prize that was
the opposition quote unquote leader for Venezuela. The exact same
thing happened in Trump's first term. There's a guy named
Juan Guido who was supposedly like the democratic person that
the people of Venezuela really wanted, and we tried to
install him kind of multiple times. It didn't really work

(03:30):
out because the reality is as much as in the
United States, we want to make this about like socialism
versus capitalism. And again, I think a lot of this
is a holdover from the Cold War and the Soviet
Union and all this stuff. It's really more about nationalism
for the Venezuelan people, and they probably don't really love
Nicholas Maduro that much. Hugo Javis was extremely popular, but

(03:52):
when we tried to put in Juan Guido, you know,
there was a million person something march on the capitol
in protest of like this Western sort of attempt to
install Wan Guido in power. So it's not really about
socialism as much as it is about nationalism, I think
for the Venezuelan people and for the United States, and

(04:13):
we're talking about like wealthy, powerful corporations that are upset
about their assets being expropriated. And I think for Donald Trump,
like there's a reasonable case to be made like, hey,
if there are Western companies in there helping with this infrastructure,
I think they would be generating more oil. I think
actually speaking like a non socialist economy would probably be
good for Venezuela. Right. But part of their problem too,

(04:35):
is just that we've been sanctioning them so hard and
for so long, and at this point I think you're
seeing these strikes on these drug boats. Really what this
is is one we want to get rid of this
government we have for three decades. Okay, so nothing's really
changed there. But you have Donald Trump, who's like a
like a media branding guy who's very good at attention. Right.

(04:59):
I think these drug strikes are essentially what have One
put pressure on the Venezuelan government right sees the oil
tanker as well, it's big part of their economy. But two,
it's really about sending a message to the rest of
South America. Okay, because what's really going on here, in
my personal opinion, is like Monroe Doctrine two point zero.
Monroe Doctrine is about like the United States controlling its

(05:21):
own hemisphere and keeping other world powers out. And I
think what's happened is basically mostly China, but you know
Russia a little bit in Venezuela. You've seen these other
geopolitical powers, you know, Muscle In give a lot of
money for infrastructure, kind of selling influence in South America,
and the United States doesn't like that. So that's why

(05:43):
I think the Venezuela conflict is ramped up again. You know,
you've seen a similar thing with US, like supporting Colombia
for example. There's like a couple other examples down there.
I think this is more about like the Monroe Doctrine
than it is about drug boats or even really Venezuela
in general. I'm trying to remember the name of that
like general that was down there that helped like South

(06:05):
America break away from Spain. It'll come to me eventually,
but famous general that helped basically liberate South America from
like Spain and the other sort of like colonial powers
at the time. I believe he was Venezuelan. So part
of this I really want to emphasize is, like I think,
for them, it's about nationalism, it's about independence from like

(06:28):
colonial powers, and that message just resonates in South America
if you talk to anybody from South America. So you
got the United States trying to exert influence Monroe Doctrine,
keep the Chinese out, and you've got sort of these
Latin American countries wanting to maintain a little bit more
independence and like decision making power. That makes sense, you know.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Two weeks ago I interviewed a gentleman by the name
of George Pazzulo. He's a New York Times bestselling author.
He's written like thirty books. One of my favorite GWO
books called the Jawbreaker, which is the story of Gary Bernston,
a CIA paramilitary case officer who led the charge in
the invasion of Afghanistan. He was on the case or

(07:10):
the trail of Bin Laden. There's this famous Mexican standoff
that took off place, you know, as he and his
Delta CIA ground branch team were like an hour away
from him, and then there was just like we want
more money, and then he tried to get Tommy Franks
to launch rangers to cut off the border. Anyways, George

(07:31):
Bluzzo teamed up with Gary Bernstein recently and another guy
named Martin Rodill. And Martin is a Venezuelan American who's
been working for the DEA for the last twenty years
and he's been running human sources for the cartel industry
and the DEA in all these different regions. Well, after
twenty twenty election, they partnered up and conducted They have

(07:52):
their own consulting firm, Asset Recovery Firm, and they did
conducted a massive, massive investigation and discovered they believe that
all of dominion voting machines and smartmatic voting machines around
the world are controlled by source code that originated from Chavez.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
These three.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
American Venezuelan American coders who actually started i mean Smartmatic
started in Delray Beach, Florida, and they live in Boca.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Some of them, and.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
They like these guys, believe that that's the reason why
socialism swept over South America because if you look at
all of the countries over that time since Chavez, really
where this went into place was when he was recalled
in two thousand and two or three, when it was
that's when they implemented the electronic voting machines. And then

(08:53):
over they believe over since that time, over seventy two
different countries have been flipped with the dominion or Smartmatic
source code, you know, and that's internationally. Smartattic is the
international company and they have ties to Open Society Foundation.
China did a six hundred million dollar investment, Russia did

(09:14):
like a twenty million dollar investment. And they also believe
that they flipped over ten thousand elections in the United
States and they believe that the first one they flipped
was in Cook County, Illinois, when they flipped the primary
between Obama and Clinton.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
They put him in.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
And they have human source testimonial that of a guy
that was in that during there when Chavez bragged that
I'm about ready to get the first black American president elected.
I bring that up because you know, some people are
saying that this is a derivative of that right that

(09:55):
the Trump administration obviously fully believes, or Trump himself fully believes,
and people within the administration fully believed that twenty twenty
was completely stolen. I think the I had another guy
on I named David Clements, who's a former prosecutor in
New Mexico and did an investigation for years and was
a big part of the cyber team led by Mike

(10:18):
Lindell to discover what happened. And he believes the same
thing many people. There's thousands of people obviously I believe
it January sixth, and that this is a bigger part
of the whole thing, you know. That being said, I
agree with you. I think that's a bunch of it.
But I also agree with you that it's this oil

(10:42):
play because when you look at the organizations that really
had a pivotal foothold in Venezuela and you know oil production,
it was what Chevron and Exxon and all these I
think Shell was down there maybe, but it was all
these big consortium you know, international oil organizations that were
kicked out and lost access to that. So I think

(11:03):
it's one of the more complicated instances of geopolitics, right,
all these different facets. And obviously they do have the
largest cartel, the Cartel do Solas, which is some people
estimate is two trillion dollars annually of international sales. They

(11:26):
don't manufacturer produce, but they've they've recruited, you know, the
farc from Colombia to move the materials from Columbia or
Bolivia or wherever into assemble and then ship out of
and then you know, also, I had a couple of
g WAT guys that I was listening to last night.
We're saying that, you know, potentially what's also happened is

(11:47):
are massive arms deals. So on those oil tankers, it's
not just oil, it's it's you know, cocaine, it's arms deals,
it's it's.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
A lot caught with a lot of Russian arms. I
believe this was maybe Trump's first term, and maybe this
is a shabaz thing, but there's a long standing relationship
between them and Russia, and I almost look at Venezuela
at least personally, right, as like the Western hemispheres version
of like Iran. Yeah, okay, because the exact same thing

(12:18):
happened in Iran where you had like a nationalist leader.
And I believe this is like the seventies, or I
guess this would have been the sixties that this happened.
Nationalist leader comes to power, wants to expropriate the oil
industry at least keep a little bit more of the
profits and the infrastructure is all owned by like Great
Britain in the United States at the time, and you know,

(12:40):
roughly like a pretty moderate guy. Actually, I think he
just wanted to keep a little bit more for like,
you know, Iran itself, right, And what we did is
we basically staged a coup and got rid of them, right,
And this led to the shop being in power was
very popular area, right. And then obviously this culminates in
the Iranian Revolution, right, and it's been like a theocratic

(13:01):
state ever since.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
And so I think it's a similar thing in Venezuela
basically where these Western oil companies look at the same
way Iran is. And by the way, it's the same
thing in Cuba with the casinos and the mods, right,
that's right, So my Landsky, Yeah, you just have these
very powerful interest groups. That's either you know, billions of
dollars in assets get expropriated and can put a lot

(13:25):
of pressure financially and diplomatically on getting the US government
to do something about it. So and the dominion voting machine.
I had heard at something about that with like Shavas
being involved in all of that. I haven't like seen
all the evidence for that great book.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
I highly recommend it's called Stolen Elections by Ralph Bazula.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
I've heard that he's a part of the whole thing
though absolutely. You know, at the same time, like Donald
Trump was involved in regime change in Venezuela in his
first term in office before any of this controversy around
the twenty twenty election happened, right, So I do think
there's a long standing sort of conflict with them that
comes down to Western assets basically being expropriated. And really

(14:06):
this is about like, hey, if we're gonna have this
global economy with the United States at the center, like
the Imperial core yep, Right, our responsibility is to essentially
police the world right and maintain multinational corporate interests and
their property rights. That's what holds everything kind of together.
So that's why like Venezuela, Iran really sticks in people's craw.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I think, can you give us a little bit of more.
How how big a role does does South Center? Let's
go South America. How big a role does South America
play in terms of the US economy in terms of
either exports or imports. You know, there's a big thing
about South American beef right right now, there's a feud

(14:52):
with our farm our cattle farmers and South American farmers. Obviously,
there's a tremendous amount of produce that comes with bananas, avocados, whatever.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know. Also, I think you know other types.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
I mean, obviously there's NAFTA and all those agreements. How
big of a role to set to South America play
for the US economy.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
In like dollar terms, like a percentage of imports? Pretty small, okay?
Now they do have like a big share of agricultural produce,
like Peru has recently started importing a lot into the
United States. Argentina with the beef you mentioned, obviously, although
we just bailed out Argentina's central bank, right one of
the reasons.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Why can you explain that a little bit? Yeah, that
was I was like, wait what.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, So argent this is again, this is a Monroe
doctrine fit. Right, So people hear about this, they're like,
why are we spending money to bail out Argentina's Central
bank and the Paso down there? You know, these soybean
farmers aren't getting taken care of, but we're gonna bail
out Argentina. Again, it comes down to Monroe doctrine. You
can either have you know, Javier Malay in there, who's

(15:59):
kind kind of a pro Western or kind of like
almost like a libertarian type ideological guy with his chainsaw.
He's very entertaining, right, that's sort of turning the ship
in Argentina after I think it's been like seventy eighty
years of like this big government nationalist policy. Okay down there,

(16:23):
and it's either him or it's going to be somebody
that's West, pro Western, right, that's kind of the idea.
So we're gonna bail him out and keep him in
office because he's an ally. A similar thing happened in Brazil, right,
the Brazil the tariffs on Brazil because of their political situation.
We're in a tariff Brazilian coffee. We did that because
Jyra Bolsonaro, who is like a pro kind of Trump

(16:46):
pro Western guy, basically got thrown in jail by the
socialist former president Lula de Silva, who was also just
in jail. Right. Brazil's crazy, Yeah, Brazil's crazy. But the
way to understand a lot of this Latin American political
stuff is it's the United States exerting Monroe doctrine. Don't
gotta So there's all this kind of like chaotic different
stuff happening, and by itself, it seems like, why are

(17:09):
we intervening in Argentina. It doesn't matter. It's about getting
as many governments on our side versus like China as possible. Right,
But to wrap back to your original question, I don't
know the exact numbers at the top my head, but
all of South America you're going to talk, it's going
to be something like fifteen percent of US imports at maximum.
It's mostly commodity things like agriculture. What you're starting to

(17:32):
see though, is, ever since the COVID pandemic and the
fact that China controls certain elements of supply chains, right,
rare earth elements have been a major issue recently, or lithium. Recently,
we've started to look in South America as an alternative
source of supply for some of these key elements, like

(17:55):
Chile famously has like one of the biggest deposits of
lithium in the world. Right, So I think you're starting
to see more and more relationships get built down there.
And again, I think the idea for the United States is,
we can't keep policing the entire world. We have to
retrench a little bit here, you know, do a little
bit of like a fighting retreat and gain our strength

(18:15):
and like rebuild supply chains in a more resilient way.
Everything can't come from China and the Far East anymore,
and so Latin America is kind of a natural place
to do that. And I think once we started looking
down there again and paying attention, people realized, oh, hey,
the Chinese are paying for all of the ports to
be modernized in Peru, Like they're doing all this debt
diplomacy stuff down there, which by the way, they learned

(18:37):
from US. Right, people are very upset at China, and
I understand why. And again I'm on America's side. Right,
But yeah, China is incredibly impressive because they basically have
taken everything that the United States did to grow into
a world superpower, and they've just copied us. That's right, right,
the teariffs, the industrial policy, the keeping out imports, the

(18:57):
building up domestic industry, that's the American system. We invented
that in the United States. Right. Debt, you argue the
Brits invented right mercantism or whatever. Yeah, but you know,
debt diplomacy, right, lending you a bunch of money so
you can build a hydro electric dam that we know
is never going to work, right, But Westinghouse gets the

(19:20):
contract and then the government owes, you know, us a
bunch of money, and then when they can't make the payments,
which we knew they wouldn't be able to, we get
to come in and influence the political situation. Right. So
China's is doing the same thing we did.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah. Uh, it's interesting part of the story with Gary Bernstein.
He after Afghanistan, he ended up becoming the station chief
for Bolivia and there was a moment after Obama got
into office that basically they ramped down all these operations

(19:54):
because a lot of these station chiefs he was suggesting
that were like, hey, we've got a problem down here.
Socialism is spreading rampantly. We've been so fixated on the
Middle East. All of our assets, all of our focus,
all of our all of our personnel, all of our collection,
everything is focused on the Middle East and the g WATT.

(20:15):
We've negated this responsibility, thus allowing this massive flourish of
of national socialism.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
I mean, I think many tastes that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Right and and now you you have everybody going, oh wait,
we've got a major problem. There's a lot of other
things that are resulting out of not paying attention to it.
And it was I had a buddy of mine that
I knew at the agency who is one of the
guys on the original China desk when you know about

(20:46):
I don't know, a few years ago, the agency was like, hey,
we need to start a China desk, like we have
to have a full blown.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Now we didn't have that for some reason. Yeah, for
some oldest civilization and world history and the oldest we
blew off a China desk.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Right. Well, I mean the CTC, the counter Terrorism Center,
took over everything out of like ninety three, and he
was in charge at a large part in terms of
South America, and he was flying down meeting with leaders regularly.
And at one point, I remember we were chatting, we
were having lunch up in DC and and he was like,
you know what, he's like, there's only one pro democratic

(21:23):
Western supporting country down there, and that's Paraguay. And I'm like,
that's not true. I'm like Brazil. And he walked through
Brazil and the movement towards Lula, right, we walked through
all the other organism, you know, all the other countries,
and I was just like, oh my gosh. And I
was like, well, what does that mean? And he goes,

(21:43):
it means China grabs a strategic foothold in our hemisphere exactly.
And I think, you know, that is finally now coming
to fruition with with all of these synergies, whether it's
you know, drug production or distribution oil, natural menials, right,
you know, whatever it might be, but it's really about

(22:03):
that Monroe doctor.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
And I'm glad you'd summarize that.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
All right, let's shift from South or central South America
and let's let's move over to the European Union. I
think one of the biggest things that I'm seeing that
I talked about recently in one of the shows I did,
is there's this massive insistence that the EU dominates the

(22:28):
or not dominates, but works itself into the peace talks
between Ukraine and Russia right and and basically destroyed all
of the negotiations that were taking place. And in the
same time, you've seen the European Union and NATO, led
by Mark Root really begin to talk about war footing

(22:53):
and the escalation of war spending, the escalation of NATO
budgets increasing more now and then the other thing, and
the one I wanted you to talk about, uh, in detail,
you can talk about all of it, but the thing
that really I found fascinating was that they are going
to take Russian assets that they're sitting on and up

(23:14):
into including the Chelsea football team that was bought by
some you know, some oligar, Russian oligar for two point
five billion dollars. They're taking that money and they're gonna
give it right to Zolensky to fund the effort. Because
I would imagine, I wish and I kind of want

(23:34):
you to lay this out, you know, is it because
the European Union, the economies are all struggling, they don't
have those types of defense reserves. And and then also
has you know have do you know of any time
where you know, hoarding you know, civilians, if you will,
their assets and using it to fund a war against.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Their own people.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
I just think this is a ramp up and way
that could have profound negative impacts and ultimately lead to
I think a conflict probably in Eastern Europe.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah, so it's really interesting to see like the Europeans
here because typically right, like at least my whole life,
it was always like the United States sort of dragging
the Europeans kicking and screaming into different conflicts really and
they'd always be really upset at us. And by the way,
I think the European like normal people are still that way,
and I think they look at their leaders out there

(24:30):
like what is going on?

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, well, sentiment on the street is hilarious. I love
the interviews on the streets because you can't find a
single young person in any of these countries Germany, Switzerland,
London anywhere that are like, yeah, well we'll go fight
for sure, We're up for it.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, I think basically
like a couple things are going on, all right. One
is that Europe isn't really a democracy in any sense
of the world. Okay. When the European Union was created,
it was the idea of like, hey, let's get us
all together and like this monetary union and well, lower
trade barriers and whatever. And over time what you've seen

(25:07):
is all of these different countries with distinct cultures have
essentially seeded their sovereignty okay, to Brussels, which is where
the government has actually run out of and there's you know,
like six layers of bureaucracy between like the actual people
and the actual like policymakers, and so you voting in

(25:30):
Germany or you know, Portugal or whatever, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately,
it matters very little. And so I think what you're
seeing is like this this elite European elite in Brussels
who's completely disconnected from what the people on the ground think,
dragging them all into war here. And I think the

(25:53):
reason why is maybe it's like a couple of things. Okay.
One is I think these people that are in Brussels
that are like running the European Union are very fearful
of Russia, okay from a historical perspective, and they see
the United States pulling back basically saying, hey, Europe, you're
just as wealthy as the United States as a whole.

(26:13):
Why can't you fund your own defense? And nobody really
has a good argument against that, okay, and so they're
sort of losing it over that. They're very concerned, and
I think part of this is just posturing and making
themselves look all puffed up. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's
kind of like what a weak person does.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
England when it's one hundred and what fifty nine thousand
active duty troops, A one hundred and eighty an thats
whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yeah, you know, there's been The military in Europe is
unfortunately a joke, and by the way, that was on purpose.
The whole point of NATO is to keep Europe down
and away from Russia, right and kind of under our thumb.
So I think they're sort of scrambling and realizing, oh
my god, you know, we're out here by ourselves and
we've got nothing, and so part of it's just they're

(27:00):
puffing themselves up, and you know, they want to keep
Ukraine in as long as possible to keep Russia distracted
and maybe.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
And draining their which is ironic because you know, yes,
war drains commodity, but with one hundred and fifty million people, right,
and they have some type of reserve of another two
million if they needed. You know, what they're gaining is
is hardened war experience on the modern battlefield. And that's

(27:26):
the pivotal thing, right how I mean, obviously, I think
one of the funniest things about the whole thing was
that throughout this entire conflict, you know, the European Union
has been purchasing Russian oil, right, some ungodly amount of
Russian oil.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Two questions.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
One, did Europe moving into the European Union make it
much more much stronger economically as a as a global power?

Speaker 2 (27:59):
And then what.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Is transpiring you in terms of the individual countries and
their economies right now as a potential result of.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
All this, Yeah, did it make Europe more powerful and
like a global scale? I think in some ways it did,
because you know, you can sort of speak from Brussels
as like one unit, okay, but at the same time
they've tied themselves all to this one currency and essentially
like a it's great for Germany. Right, So Germany gets

(28:33):
like a lower exchange rate because it's tied to Portugal
and Spain, but it's really bad for like Portugal and
Spain and Greece, right, And so I think for the
southern European states this has been probably not a good
deal at all, especially by the way what they did
to Greece during like the Greek bankruptcy. At the time,
I was sort of like, hey, these Greeks, like they're

(28:55):
not paying their bills whatever else. Right, I was very
much like, hey, Greece, you know, should have to deal
with their own problems. The more I researched into that,
you know, Greece had a worse recession than like the
Great Depression, and it's still not back to where it
was pre banking crisis. They basically threw Greece to the
wolves and like sold off its national assets. And listen,

(29:16):
if you can't pay your loan, that's partially your faults
at the scale of like a country, though that's part
of the bank, it's partially the banker's fault as well, right,
I think it's always the bankers. There should have been
massive right downs, They should have let Greece off the
hook on that, but they essentially threw them to the wolves.
And so I think it's been great for Germany. I
think the EU has been a big win for Germany,

(29:39):
maybe even for France. I think for the rest of
the countries probably not so much. And that's why you've seen,
you know, so much. I guess strife over like the
loss of sovereignty to Brussels, right, and this has mostly
been centered around immigration. It's the reason why Great Britain
left the I mean they were only in the trade Union,

(29:59):
they kept the pound. But you know, you also see
countries like Hungry, for example, Poland. These are essentially, you know,
countries that want to maintain like an ethnic you know, homogeny, right,
and they don't like the loss of sovereignty that they
were having to Brussels. And the idea was basically, hey,

(30:20):
let's just import a bunch of people in here, because
nobody's having kids from North Africa to work in the factories.
And obviously this has turned out to be kind of
a disaster. So I think generally, speaking of your Germany
and you want to sort of exert yourself on the
world stage or France, I think the EU is probably
a positive for the rest of the European States. I
think it's much more of a wash and probably leaning

(30:44):
more towards the negative. I mean, you don't have a
sovereign currency anymore. You've lost all your decision making to Brussels.
You know, at the end of the day, Like how
much power does Belgium have the Belgian people, You don't matter.
It's like, you know in the United States, where kind
of are like the European Union in a way, right,
and you have this problem of like people don't feel

(31:04):
like they have a lot of sovereignty.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Well, I heard a great analysis on it yes yesterday.
I heard someone say, well, you know, the United States
is essentially its own empire, right. We have all these
different you know, sects of people, all these different this
mass land area, all these different you know, resources, capabilities, production.

(31:31):
We're essentially our own empire contained here. And and that's
what the European Union was intending to do. However, they
haven't been able to really leverage that collectivisation because I think,
you know, fundamentally, each one of these countries are so
radically independent in their sovereignty that there's an automatic conflict

(31:55):
of interest going on across each one of them.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah, there's so many distinct cultures in your I mean,
you get on a train and you ride for two hours,
and you're in a different place, of the different language,
with a different distinct culture. That's five hundred, one thousand
years old. And I think one of the reasons why
the United States became an empire right as we basically
as the country was formed, had like a monoculture of
like Protestant sort of white Anglo Saxon Christian people coming

(32:23):
over here. You had in the Irish and their Catholic right,
you add in like the Italians or whatever, but generally speaking,
it was a very homogeneous culture. And then we were
forging the fire of the Indian Wars. For like one
hundred years, we fought the Indians and took this entire continent.
And then as soon as that's over, it's like, hey,
we beat Spain in the Spanish American War in like

(32:45):
three weeks or something, right, and San Juan Hill and
all that, but we destroyed their navy in like two
three weeks. And then after that it's like we go
to World War One. You got basically an entire army
of like cowboys that have spent a generation or two
generations in like the hardest conditions in the world fighting Indians.

(33:06):
It's like, we show up in Europe and.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
No dog's That's one of my favorite stories from World
War One was, you know, when the Marines hit what
was it, Bello bello, bello, bellowood right, and just the
ferocity with which they just again they were fighting a starving.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
But the German, what is going on?

Speaker 1 (33:31):
The French, the English were like, oh my god, you know,
it's literally was cowboys showing up.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
I mean, that's like the reality. And so I think
one of the problems that Europe is having right now
with all this like we have all this these different
cultures and how do we keep them all together right
and like a unified thing, and they've never been able
to make it work right. You're not seeing like the
United States have this happened in the reverse way, where
we just had so much immigration from so many different

(33:56):
cultures so quickly without any of it being like digested
by the system or any even being you know, sort
of like assimilated, and we don't really have like a
unified like I don't know, like cultural identity here anymore.
That the United States is not starting to break apart
from the inside, right, like the cracks are forming, because
now you have all these distinct cultures and so it's

(34:18):
hard to keep that all together without like a national
identity that's consistent. I agree.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, all right, let's do kind of this loop down.
We've been seeing a tremendous amount of investment we'll call it,
to what degree that's going to emerge or or actually
translate into jobs and profits for America from the Middle East,

(34:43):
right from you know, Qatar, from all those Middle Eastern countries,
they're putting trement. I just saw, you know, a few
about a month ago, there was a huge economic symposium
down in Miami, and all these Middle Eastern countries were
wanting to come in and dedicate. I mean, they're buying
up real estate. You know, they're making these huge investments.

(35:03):
What's your impression of why they're doing this? And then
how is it going to impact the American economy?

Speaker 2 (35:12):
And then and then you know, once we get through that,
we'll come and we'll finish with the America's economy. Yeah.
So I think it's it's twofold, okay. And on one hand,
you have basically the United States over the past let's
say twenty years or so, going from being a net
importer of energy and not producing a lot of oil
and natural gas and now being the biggest producer of
oil and natural gas in the world because of hydraulic fracturing. Right.

(35:33):
So essentially what that did is it broke like the
OPEC oil monopoly and made us like a new swing
producer in the world. And so I think in the
Middle East, these people look at that situation and say, hey,
we can't just be dependent on like oil revenue alone
for the foreseeable future, right, we need to have more
links to like the United States, more links to this

(35:56):
like the Imperial core than we have in the past.
And so they're trying to diversify into entertainment, into technology
and to AI and all kinds of defense. Right, get
on our side in like the Middle East more, you know,
unify with Israel if you're Saudi Arabia, right, get them
kind of on your side versus Iran. So that's part

(36:18):
of it, is just like the oil monopoly kind of
got broken, and they're scrambling to maintain relevance and sort
of diversify their investment portfolio. The other side of it.
And this is really more of a broad point, okay,
is it's about trade deficits because when you have a
trade deficit, so the United States, I think our trade
deficit annually is like a trillion dollars. Okay, we buy
a trillion dollars more from other countries than they buy

(36:40):
from us. When that happens, Like if you read a
textbook from like the nineteen eighties or the nineteen nineties
about it, it'll say like, hey, trade deficits are good
because you know, we get stuff they worked hard to make,
and you know, we just give them dollars that we printed, right,
So it's a huge win for us. Right, But that's
not true that that's always been kind of a misleading

(37:05):
sort of half truth, okay, because we don't give them dollars,
we give them ownership of national assets. That's what a
trade devisit is, right, the dollars go abroad. They don't
just sit there, They don't just stand with their one
hundred dollars bills, right, They take the dollars and they
use them to buy assets in the United States. Right,
So that could be the S and P five hundred,

(37:26):
that could be farmland next to a military base. That
could be members of Congress right, or lobbying firms in Washington, DC.
Or you know, it could be institutions universities right, institutions universities,
Or that could be single family homes in America. Blackrock
is a big player in that space. Or it could
be you know, hey, we're going to build a factory

(37:48):
in the US. Right. So when you hear about like
FEI indirect investment, that's another argument is like, hey, trillion
dollars go broad, but they just come back as four
indirect investment. Again, it's a half truth because most of
what foreign direct investment is, or traditionally has been over
the past thirty years, is just I take my dollars
and I buy an asset from you. So all that

(38:09):
happens is like paper changes hands and the asset goes
up in value. So the same real estate still exists,
it's just worth more. Got it. Now, what's starting to
happen is the for indirect investment is actual like physical capex,
like production capacity happening in the United States. So I
think it's a good thing. I mean, listen, if Saudi

(38:29):
Arabia owns a semiconductor factory or like a pharmaceutical facility
or something. I have no issue with that at all, honestly,
as long it's as it's domestic, because in a bad situation,
that gives us a lot of leverage in this country sure,
and keeps people on our side. If Saudi Arabia owns
a pharmaceutical facility in Doha or in you know, in

(38:52):
riod or whatever, and they just import pharmaceuticals into the
United States, that's not as good for us, right, So
I think having the plant equipment domestic is a positive thing.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Good good and we I mean, I think the two
prior times first show that one of everybody's favorites was
of obviously the teriff launch back in the day everybody's
freaking out. And then the second one was just the
the impact of reindustrialization. And so as we're seeing this,
you know, I think a lot of people are like,

(39:24):
all right, Trump is really you know, he's spout and
he's you know, patting himself on the back, taking his
victory lap this at the end of the year, with
how strong the US economy is and how much he's
kicked ass and how how he's shifted the consensus of
the world to want to reinvest in America in a

(39:44):
big way. But yet we also still hear, you know,
the horror stories of your generation and their inability to
buy homes, and you know, and the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
I mean, it's just a repetitive cycle.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
And I and and as many I think correct pundits
have evaluated, this is the reason for a Mundani getting elected.
This is the reason for a Democratic mayor getting elected
in Miami Beach for the first time in thirty nine years.
What's your assessment of currently where we're at in the economy.

(40:19):
Is Trump's economic plan working? And then what's the truth
about you know, regular folks trying to eke out a
live in here.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, so listen. I will give Donald Trump credit on
reshoring to a certain extent. Okay, I think he did
popularize this issue in his first term in office. Then
what really made this takeoff is not Donald Trump. It
was COVID, Okay, because COVID changed the status quo around
free trade and globalization in Washington, d C. Didn't matter

(40:50):
who you voted for, you couldn't buy toilet paper and
baby formula. So everybody got on board. And I think
what's really Trump's biggest legacy to me at least, is
that he's completely shifted the Overton window around globalization. Now,
if you look like the Democratic Party, they basically agree
with them. They've just given they've completely seated that issue
and they totally agree with them. So I think he

(41:13):
deserves a lot of credit on that front. Okay, as
of this second term, Listen, I'm in supportive of certain tariffs. Personally,
I think he's been way too ad hoc and chaotic
about this whole thing. You can't just slap tariffs on
pull them off, you know, putting in a tariff on
Canada because of a TV commercial. That's the reason why
they're in the Supreme Court. It's getting challenged, right, So

(41:34):
I think teriffs need to be targeted. I think they
need to be consistent, and there needs to be like
a you know, a vision behind them, right, And so
I think tariffs are going to be around for a
long time. I think that this big increase in tariffs
that Trump basically did during Liberation Day, most of them
are going to remain in place. They're going to bring
a lot of revenue into the treasury going forward consistently.

(41:55):
And so I think he shifted the Overton window and
I think there are positives to tariffs. Okay, now that
all being said, I think he's managed this all very poorly. Right,
As I mentioned, it's been very chaotic the revenue from tariffs. Okay,
they have no plan for this revenue. And we're talking
about three hundred billion dollars a year. Right. They should

(42:15):
earmark every single dollar that comes into the treasury from
tariffs for like infrastructure modernization and other types of like
industrial policy investments. So I'm gonna invest in Intel and
take an equity stake. I'm gonna invest in this rare
earth element mining company and take an equity stake. That
should just be tariff money going into that.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
You think the government should take an active stake in
these companies.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think they're going to. And I think there's nothing
really new about this. They did this with the automakers
during two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, right,
and I think that the situation is relatively dire, and
so listen, if they're going to invest and make money
off of these investments, I think that's a fine thing
for the taxpayer, and they should just use the tariff

(42:56):
revenue for all of this. Why do you say dire.
It's because there's certain key elements of supply chains we
have no control over. Rarest elements are like the most
recent ones. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
I've got some friends that are part of an organization
that tries to coordinate agreements within the US government, private companies,
mining companies, and foreign countries to put them together to
be able to for the US to exploit those rare

(43:27):
earth to bring some of the ninety three percent that
China dominates the world and over back to US a
national security perspective.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, so I think that's a dire situation that needs
to be rectified. And like I'm I'm generally speaking like
a libertarian person, Okay, but I think the reality is
that COVID exposed a huge problem in the United States,
and the problem is that thirty years of globalization, especially
post collapse of the Civiet Union, there is basically no
justification for unilaterally low tariff barriers. I think we gave

(43:59):
away the farm to other countries because it benefited you know,
one percent of people in the country, and we sold
out the middle class. And you know, there's this really
interesting paradox when it comes to economic freedom, Okay, and
the paradox is that when you have a lot of
economic freedom internationally, it leads to less economic freedom domestically

(44:21):
and vice versa. Right, So the United States, starting as
a country, lots of economic freedom domestically, internationally, high tariff
barriers keep England out like this is our continent, stay away.
We did not have a libertarian economic policy internationally at all,
and it led to the most free, prosperous nation in
the world because it created a very strong, fast growing

(44:44):
like middle class. And to have like a democracy that thrives,
you need broad representation. You need people that are paying attention,
that are invested. If you have a bunch of people
that don't own assets, and we'll get into that shortly,
you know, they have no stake in the future and
they just become demoralized and don't want to participate. And
so you need a kind of a broad middle class

(45:05):
to generate like a consistent, self renewing republic. And I
think the way you do that is, you know, internationally,
economic freedom is not the priority. Domestically, economic freedom is
the priority, and you have what we have, which is globalization,
in my opinion, created this huge stratification and wealth all.
You know, one percent of people have all the money. Well,

(45:28):
when they have all the money, they're going to use
it to lobby the government. The only people they really
have any kind of like cultural affinity with are elites
from other countries because they're just traveling to Europe and
they're traveling all over the world. They're not like in
their hometown at all. And so it creates this like
super like national class of people that are sort of

(45:49):
like untethered and that really only have like affinity for
each other. And I think it's a huge problem, and
it's led to us importing a lot of like Chinese
style likes, you know, censorship into the United States. How
do we keep these you know, these pearls, these peasants
from rebelling, you know, when the idea should be, hey,
how do we make our own country people feel appreciated

(46:10):
and part of like a greater collective that maybe I'm
I'm leading here. Right, there's no no bless obleege with
the ruling class in the America or really anywhere else anymore.
So there's a paradox of freedom. And I think we
should go away from international economic freedom towards national economic
freedom and focus on, you know, the domestic people in America.

(46:32):
I think that's like the ideal way to do things.
But Okay, all that being said, we'll talk about asset
holders in a second. The United States economy. Okay, Donald
Trump is bragging about the US economy and like, listen,
on the surface, like the economy is doing fine. I
think like the jobs numbers we've gotten now after the

(46:52):
government has reopened, shows the labor markets adding seventy thousand
jobs a month. That's slower than last year, but it's
really slower because we cracked down on illegal immigration heavily.
We've laid off three hundred thousand government employees in the
United States. That's a policy choice. So it decreases jobs,
right or job growth on net, But it's a policy choice,

(47:13):
and that's what Donald Trump got elected on and I
personally agree with it. Yeah, I think the federal government
was bloated, and then you've got like AI is having
a marginal effect I think as well. Right, so, hey,
job markets slowed down, but consumer spending remains strong. And
at the same time, you have this massive cap X boom, right,
all the investment in plan equipment happening in the United States,

(47:33):
which I do think Donald Trump deserves some credit for
and so the combination of those two things means GDP
is growing either way. Okay. I think the most interesting
question here, and one that you've alluded to, is why
has consumer spending remains so strong because the labor market,
as I mentioned, is slowing down. I think there's basically

(47:54):
no argument against that. I think the economy is going
to continue to grow, probably next year. I'll tell you
maybe a reason why that could change, but consumer spending
is gonna hold up. And the reason why is and
this gets to the asset owner problem we have in
the United States. My whole career, I was always told
to watch people thirty to fifty four years old, okay,

(48:16):
because they're the biggest producer and consumer demograph. Right. They're working,
they're starting families, they're buying houses, they're buying cars, they're
buying appliances. Right. They're the engine of the US economy
because they produce a lot, but they also consume a lot.
And you know, they have kids and they spur the
economy forward. Right. What's happened recently in the United States?

(48:37):
And I guess it started really ten years ago, but
as of twenty twenty two, thirty to fifty four year
olds are not the biggest consumer demographic in the United
States anymore. Today, the biggest consumer demographic in the United
States is people sixty five years or older. It's retired people. Well, okay,
and that's never happened before in the United States, and
I don't think ever before in world history. Right, Like,

(49:00):
you retire, you kind of step back a little bit.
You're on a fixed income or you have to you know,
your savings that you have to deal with, so you
have to be a little bit more prudent. Right today,
the baby boomers have massively benefited from the asset boom
that's happened during globalization. Houses have gone way up in value,

(49:21):
tax advantage, savings accounts, brokerage accounts, all these different things.
They're in charge of the government, right, okay, And so
they have a lot of money to spend.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
How much how much how many total assets or their
net worth? Does the boomer sixty five and over a
tribute for the economy, for the markets?

Speaker 2 (49:42):
How big is that? I mean, they're twenty two percent
of consumer spending as of I think it is twenty
twenty two. So I'm guessing it's higher today because it's
been on an upper trend line for twelve years or something.
So maybe a quarter of consumer spending is baby boomers
that are retired. Okay, it's a lot in twenty twelve,
so it's not that long ago. Right. They're the lowest

(50:04):
consumer demographic, and before that they were always the lowest
consumer demographic in the United States.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
So is that a numbers thing because there's just.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
More boomers, there's more of that.

Speaker 1 (50:13):
Gen X is smaller, Millennials are kind of small, and
then it blows up with gen Z.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Right, it's that, But it's also you know the fact
that the United States economic policy has been to benefit
asset owners since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Again,
I think before that you can have this globalization argument
that like it's a geopolitical thing, we need to do it. Yeah,
that it just went away after the Soviet Union collapsed,

(50:38):
and so after that it was just a cash grab
by asset owners. In my opinion, that was bad for
the country on net and the beneficiaries of that are
asset owners. I own a lot of assets, right, it's
good for my brokerage account. But we're getting to the
point now that like the entire economy, the consumer spending
is like the top ten percent are fifty five percent
of consumer spending, top ten percent of income earners, and

(51:01):
then retired people are twenty five percent or something. Right now,
there's overlap there. It's not seventy five percent of consumer spending.
But if you're a normal person, a working person, you
know you're getting a much smaller piece of the pie.
And so, yeah, people are upset because they can't afford
to buy houses or like live a middle class, normal
life because all those assets have gotten very expensive. There's

(51:24):
like a saying that globalization made all the stuff that
we want cheap and all the stuff that we need expensive. Right.
You can buy all the cheap junk on Amazon that
you want, but a house is going to be completely unaffordable, right,
And again that's the trade deficit. Dollars go abroad instead
of getting paid to a domestic employee, you know, they
get paid to a Chinese manufacturing firm. As the line

(51:46):
worker in the factory getting a dollar in his paycheck.
No management's keeping the dollars. It's going to the Chinese
Communist Party. It's going to the finance sector who at
billionaires over there. Then they reinvested in assets in the
United States. Right, So it's made wealth and equality worse.
It's made assets way too expensive in the United States,

(52:08):
and the entire economy is basically asset owners are running everything.
Now AI probably makes that worse, honestly, and so I
think you're going to see a massive backlash continue to happen.
You know, it's being shown up as like mom Donnie
in New York or whatever, socialism is becoming more popular
because people that did everything right and got the right

(52:30):
degree and took out a bunch of student loan debt
or whatever, can't afford a house, can't afford to get married,
can afford to have kids, and they see this as
very inequitable. And listen, the baby boomers saved money and
they did what they were kind of told to do,
and so I'm not blaming them specifically, but it's nice that, hey,
asset owners are huge young consumer spending. Because the job

(52:51):
market slows down, people spend money still, right. It makes
the economy a little bit more or like less cyclical
and makes it more stable. Right. But the problem is, Hey,
if you have all the money and you're retired and
somebody who's you know, trying to start out and buy
a house or have kids. Doesn't have any money till
they're forty years old. Right, Well, by the time you're forty,

(53:14):
you can't really have any kids. That's right, that's the
problem here. Yeah, I think that's a real issue. If
there was no biological clock around reproduction in humans, which
there just is scientifically, okay, this would be less of
an issue. But the problem is it's taking away people's
future essentially because they can't afford to do it in
like that window where reproduction.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Is viable thirty five right, exactly, all right, all right,
that's an incredible assessment.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
All right, last question as well, it's two parts one
moving into twenty six. Do you feel the economy is
going to be steady? Is it going to be it's
gonna we're gonna have some volatility. If so, where might
it originate? And then your last whole thing, what can

(54:02):
people younger in your opinion, really focus on in terms
of developing those assets, developing you know, a way to
increase wealth and prepare and plan for the future.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah, so I think next year, okay, you've got again
top heavy asset owner consumer base that's not going to
really change. So They're going to keep spending money no
matter what. They don't care how the job market of
the economy really is, right, as long as the assets
are worth a lot of money, they're going to spend money. Also, Baby,
once you're retired, it's like you're going to die eventually,
so you might you don't want to take it with you.

(54:38):
That's kind of the idea. I'm not trying to broad
brush the baby boomers, but that's kind of the idea
of that generation.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Okay, Well, that those assets are going to transfer to
to a certain degree, right.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Maybe, yeah, if they don't spend it all. There's like
a whole movement to like, hey, don't take anything with you, right, Yeah,
it's not leaving money to kids. It's like that's kind
of a more public, I guess, display of what's consistent
in that generation, just like I had to do it myself,
so you should too. Okay, So consumer spending is going
to probably continue to increase at the same da you

(55:10):
have massive foreign direct investment CAPEX happening. So the two
of those things mean GDP goes up yep. Right, so
I think the economy probably grows next year. What could
change that is the AI bubble pops. Okay, I think
that's by far the biggest risk here because listen, it's
seven companies have driven everything for years. It's a very
powerful story. I understand that. I know. I look at

(55:33):
AI in my life and I see most of it
as like it's kind of a parlor trick, right. It's
interesting that chat GBT can summarize things, but like, it's
not really revolutionizing production in the United States at all. No,
we don't really see it in productivity statistics at all.
MIT did a study ninety five percent of businesses that
buy AI tool see no return on investment. Wow, so

(55:56):
that's MIT, you know, so maybe that changes, right, But
I think a lot of this is just theoretical right now.
And I think Silicon Valley loves AI because the one
area that it's automated very effectively is computer programming. It's programming, right,
it's coding. So does that really translate into other sectors

(56:19):
of the economy very well? So far not really. So
I'm worried that, hey, something causes the music to stop.
These stocks fall, Okay, if they follow are going to
fall in tandem, it's going to cause a big correction
in the stock market. If that happens, one those asset
owners that are doing all the consumer spending, they look
at their brokerage accountant's down a lot. They might pull back.

(56:39):
They might not take that second vacation to Europe this year. Right, Okay,
I guess that does that really impact consumer spending the US?
Probably not, but you get what I'm saying, flights and
flights whatever. Number two is all that AI data center
construction that we've all heard so much about this year.
All those companies probably pull back on Capex AI data

(57:00):
centers as well.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Right.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
The factory construction is going to keep happening anyway. It's
four times as much as data centers, so I think
there's there's some tailwind still. But Kapex slows down in
that situation. So you have a one two bunch of
like less consumer spending and less Capex that could cause
a recession. So it's AI and it's impact on the
economy and this story sort of falling apart that makes
me the most worried. Got it as as far as

(57:24):
like what could a young person do? Yeah, to get ahead, man,
I think like spend as little time in like the
digital world as possible. That's like my gut tells me, like,
that's the you waste so much time in the digital world.
I'm just as guilty of it as everybody. I travel
for work. I'm in the airport, I'm stuck on my tone.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
But I hate But it also, you know, it benefits
your profession as well too. It gives you greater assessment
of all things.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
I'd like to say that, Dave, but I don't think
it's really true. I think that maybe thirty minutes of
my day on social media, maybe that's beneficial, but it's
really you know, if I want to know about something,
I read a book, right right, read more books, go outside,
have hobbies, interact with real people. Any time you spend

(58:17):
in the digital world is probably a complete waste. Ninety
percent of the time you're on your phone is a
waste of time easily. These companies don't care about you.
Everything that's free is not actually free. You're you're being
sold as the product, or you're being sold commercials like
Instagram is a giant commercial. So I think just if
you can interact less with digital spaces, and that takes

(58:40):
a lot of discipline, it's very difficult to do create
more bonds with people more bonds with people. Just literally
build a skill in the real world whatever. This stuff
doesn't seem like it matters, But the older I get,
like the more I realize, Like I was so lucky
to be raised in the nineties when the Internet didn't exist,
and I was like Huckleberry Finn in like the woods
for eight hours a day, and I know how to

(59:01):
make eye contact with people. And I just hate the Internet, honestly,
They're more powerful. It gets somewhere. I hate it and
resent it. And I think the last time you can
spend in digital space is like, you know, other than
watching the Dave Rock the podcast, right, no, man, if
people turn it off and go outside them go outside,
touch grass, Like I know that's sort of a stereotype.

(59:24):
But put your time into something else, build a skill
and like this stuff it doesn't seem like it matters,
but it compounds over time. Like me and you connected
over firearms, right. I didn't get raised with firearms. I
was just interested in them, and I put a lot
of time into like investigating and buying them and playing
around with them and like learning to shoot. And most
of that time was by myself. I didn't have anybody

(59:45):
else to do it. I never put it on Instagram,
but oh it creates a connection with somebody, right, That's
how the world works. So less time in digital spaces.
Anybody that tells you it's about staying in touch with
people or it's all bowl, it's all eye, it's justifying
addiction to digital technology. This stuff is not helpful at
all for the most part. Awesome, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Last one is what's Santa bringing Bryce in terms of
firearms for Christmas?

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Santa's what is Santa bringing to Rice for firearms? You
know what? I don't think I'm gonna have any other guns?
Well that's not true. So two of my buddies just
bought some land in Texas. So as a gift. I
bought them like a lever action rifle. It's not really
for me. I guess I purchased it and I'm gonna

(01:00:33):
receive it by then. I'm just gonna pass it right
along so they can. You'll play out their cowboy fantasies
out there, right? Are they gonna build a range for you, Bud?
I might have to do that myself. But that's that's
like the big firearm news is. I think there's sort
of like a new retro thing happening in the firearms
absolutely right. You're seeing revolvers make a huge comeback. You're

(01:00:53):
seeing like lever action rifles have been blowing up for
a while, and a lot of it's like gen Z,
it's like younger people. It's like the return to tradition
thing with jet My Generous is a call of duty.
It's like, yeah, I want every gun in call of
duty that I play growing up them. It's like I
want to collect old Smith and Wesson revolvers and yeah,

(01:01:14):
blued steel.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
So I think that's going to be a huge trend
going forward. All these used old guns are going to
go up in value and they're pretty fun to shoot, right,
even though they're obsolete.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Awesome, Bryce gil Man, God bless you. Merry Christmas, and
thank you so so much for being such an awesome
part of the Dave Rudford.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Show manah Man, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Ye awesome