TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #357: The ESG Narrative is Failing with Tracy Shuchart

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Join Marty as he sits down with Tracy Shuchart (@chigrl) to discuss the ESG backlash happening across the world. They also discuss how flattening the curve, growth recession is the new narrative and why natural gas is the perfect transition tool for emerging markets. Follow Tracy on Twitter Check out Hedge Fund Telemetry Shoutout to our sponsors: Unchained Capital Braiins HodlHodl Upstream Data CrowdHealth TFTC Merch is Available: Shop Now Join the TFTC Movement: Main YT Channel Clips YT Channel Website Twitter Instagram Follow Marty Bent: Twitter Newsletter Podcast

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I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. All right, we're recording, Tracy. what the hell is going on in the world are we hey how you doing doing well i'm uh on a back deck uh with a bit of wind behind me so please excuse the uh the wind sound freaks and tracy just moved in to a new house uh and is waiting for the furniture to arrive so i'm in my kitchen beautiful kitchen i love i love the blue cabinets they accent the room well but you're i mean i'm very excited to have you on the show right now but i'm happy actually we

had to delay it a week because a lot has happened since last wednesday when we were originally slated to record oh my god it's gone off the rails off the rails especially in in europe especially this morning yeah um well i haven't been paying attention this morning i've been to calls all morning yesterday it was pretty crazy at ecuador come out and basically war in the european union that there was 1.5 trillion dollars uh worth of the liquidity crunch that was going to force energy traders to get margin called uh and they were essentially saying that the energy traders need to bail out right now we have the uk with prime minister trust taking the helm and immediately trying to enact price controls on electricity within the united

kingdom and uh obviously we have the the war waging on between russia and ukraine and russia essentially weaponizing their their gas in reaction to the west weaponizing our monetary payment systems what are you saying you haven't been on the show what you missed today is russia came out reiterating the fact that they're um they will cut off anybody that enacted price caps on oil gas coal you name it any kind of energy form and then hours later um the eu came out and said we're going to enact price caps on gas yeah and then also use the term that they're going to have to you know you're gonna have to curb energy usage to flatten the curve quote unquote started getting ptsd yeah i saw i saw that i did catch that uh bonder lane coming out and saying you

need to flatten the uh the demand curve for energy at particular points of the day you know we're seeing that here in the united states too in california right now but let's let's focus in on price controls i mean if you have any sense of history or any understanding of basic economics price controls never work so how are uh the united kingdom and the european union planning on actually enacting these controls and will they will they not work they will not work um the eu right now is um they are their price cap is at uh 200 euros per megawatt instead of i think it's trading at like 450 right now the problem and that's for non-gas electricity the problem is that once you enact those price controls you're you know you're taking away profits

from a company first of all and it completely disincentivizes them to produce more or seek out other alternative forms of energy because you're capping them off at the knees basically so um you know that never works it's a horrible long-term strategy as far as the uk is concerned they're talking about more of a stimulus plan where um it's like 130 billion dollars worth of stimulus to companies and um to the public so that's not as bad but you know it's still it doesn't curve demand. That said, trust did come up today and say she wanted to expand drilling in the North Sea and to pursue nuclear power. So that was actually, I was kind of very shocked because that actually does make sense. So let's hope that they can pursue that path and things should ease up for

the UK, if they can actually enact that, then, you know, they get every member of parliament to back them up on that. So that looks a little bit brighter than what the EU is currently doing. Yeah, I mean, that is encouraging to see, but is it too little too late to begin drilling in the North Sea and spinning up nuclear power plants? I think this is the problem that a lot of these politicians are going to run into in the coming months is when push comes to shove and it's blatantly obvious that they're very short energy assets they're going to try and throw money at the problem but you can't uh print dollars and produce gas in a very short amount of time well exactly i mean there's always that lag between you know we're going to enact this plan and then

when it comes to fruition and you can actually get wells to start producing so you know or build nuclear plants etc so of course it's too little too late but at least perhaps it saves them in the long run yeah we'll see let's see like do you think this is this whole scenario that's playing out where it seems like much of europe is going to have a very rough winter because they're going to have an inability to get natural gas to fuel their economy uh do you think the politicians learn their lesson or do you think this is a temporary blip where they see it as a road bump on the way to this green transition oh i think they think it's a road bump on the way to the transition i mean the eu in particular has definitely not given up this idea of green

transition i mean they've you know come out and said this is the reason you know what is happening right now is the reason we need to push harder with this so um they're definitely not giving up that sort of path or doubling down on it right when you're wrong do more of it it's kind of their theory so um you know i definitely think they're in for i think they're in for a long haul and a lot of trouble and it's almost difficult to think that this is completely due to ineptitude right i mean i mean everything seems a little too you can't be making this many mistakes and have something that be on purpose somewhere yeah yeah the the whole esg narrative and uh the narratives coming out of the world economic forum by the end of of the decade you will own

nothing and you'll be happy and uh there's nothing nice and hell bent on like making that happen yeah when to make it's making it better right you know it's just poor choice after poor choice yeah i mean there's no better way to uh get a populist desperate and have their hands out to the government than inciting an energy crisis that cascades into a food crisis that cascades into a currency crisis i mean there's and we're already we're already kind of starting to see that civil unrest, right? We're already kind of seeing protests in Italy, the Czech Republic especially. They had a huge protest, like 70,000 people, and now they're starting to backtrack kind of on, you know, that whole sanctions on Russia, right? We're kind of seeing them

kind of pull back on that a little bit. So, you know, we're kind of seeing a fracturing somewhat with New York right now where France is starting to get wary of the whole sanctioned thing. You've got the Czech Republic. Italy's kind of got their thing going on.

Obviously, Germany and Brussels, Belgium, the EU Commission is really driving this. I think that starving starving hungry cold people tend to revolt so you have to think if things get bad enough they're gonna have a problem with their hands yeah no and that's what will be very interesting

to see as the years pass as we head toward 2025 is what does this restructuring global energy markets the geopolitical landscape look like so we have uh one half of the equation the western world like you mentioned italy and others are beginning to say hey uh we don't want to go down this path and you're starting to see signs that they may reach out to russia and say hey we're fine taking your gas and then the other half of the equation you have russia china india iran other players who are saying hey let's just completely uh leave these guys behind and and create our own market over here what are you seeing in terms of the chess pieces that are being moved in that regard absolutely i mean if you look at the BRICS nations right i mean they're

looking to expand even saudi arabia is talking about joining BRICS and so um you know there is a fracturing going on because um you know that's what the asia um middle east asia sections are kind of like you know you have to realize they have very different economies than we do as well You know, you're talking about more of those are emerging markets. I mean, Russia, obviously not so much, but, you know, they're not, they still need to move forward, right? So they're still looking for cheap energy. And that's still, you know, coal and natural gas and oil. even though prices are high right now generally speaking they are you know less than you know

building out solar farms and winning farms and besides that you know you can't have intermittent power sources as your base load so if you want to bring your economy from an emerging market to um uh to you know uh dm market then you know you're gonna have to use those kind of resources because you got to get electricity to everybody you got to get food to everybody you got to get right um to kind of raise them out of of poverty and into a dm nation where we are we're like the aging aging economies um in the west right and so um there's definitely a dichotomy yeah it's incredibly frustrating being an american citizen and watching the current administration just shoot ourselves our future selves in the foot i mean we're relatively

inoculated from everything going on in europe right now but that's one thing i don't think many people here in the states realize is that what's going on over there will will affect us in the form of a of a credit crisis and broken down supply chains oh absolutely we'll have some sort of contagion problem plus the policy is here where you know oil gas companies are being persecuted by this industry i mean this administration's given out like i don't know just over like 127 000 permits so far within the first two years no administration has given out less than like four million so they're just not you know on one hand they want you to produce more but they're not giving you access to permits and land to do so.

Yeah, but, hey, there's already permits out there. There's already people that are sitting on unused permits, so we don't need to issue anymore. That's not how it works. You need to have that backlog, right? i mean every you know i've complained about you know as much as i you know i think europe is nuts um you know this administration is nuts as well and it's really doing nothing to really help us move forward either i mean the new inflation reduction just just call it the

inflation plan i mean there's really nothing in there that's you know that's going to do much most of those things like um for instance if you look at their policies towards like renewables where you can get tax credits and things like that for for your ev but you can only get credit if those things are made in america right so you can get a tax credit on batteries but it has to be made in america well we don't make a lot of batteries here we don't have a lot of lithium mines here right so you know a lot of it it's you know a lot of it is kind of like killer words unless you know we can you know actually bring that manufacturing here which would be fantastic the problem is is that nobody wants it in their backyard right we've been trying to you know

nevada's been trying to get a living mine open forever um arizona copper and they're running up against you know the environmentalists and been in work for the last years so are these people actually environmentalists though or are they simply malthusian people who want to see the rest of us suffer perhaps perhaps so again going back to like this global restructuring of international energy markets let's dig into the relationship between the u.s and Saudi Arabia? Because it seems like that's souring a bit. You mentioned that they're thinking about joining the BRICS countries. How big of a pivot would this be, not only for the U.S., but for the landscape of geopolitics and energy trade moving forward?

Well, I think, I mean, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have had a very, very long relationship. And I don't think that relationship is going away anytime soon. That said, obviously, the relationship during this particular administration is very poor, comparatively speaking. So, you know, Saudi Arabia, so you have to understand that, you know, Iran is still an OPEC nation. You've got Russia, who is an OPEC plus. So they have a lot of ties to the right nations. Plus, they're in their backyard, right? I mean, those are the people that are in their backyard so it just makes sense for them to form alliances um you know saudi arabia still has the biggest uh refinery here motiva in the u.s so you know it's not like you know they'll always have

that relationship and they still buy you know weapons from us um we still buy oil from them uh so you know again i don't think that relationship's going away anytime soon but you know when you see the destructive path the west is on kind of energy wise you know who are you going to align yourself with especially when your economy is built on oil gas yeah i mean i i tweeted it out earlier today i think it's the time is nigh for people to overthrow the the politicians and the unproductive class running all this policy in the west because again i've got two children sitting here thinking about they're young they're two and three months old how they're going to grow into this world and what the world's going

to look like when they're 10 15 20 i think it it feels like i mean there's this you can yeah maybe we live in a bubble and just because uh we cross paths on finn twit and bitcoin twitter and people within those circles team turn tend to understand the world uh more granularly than than your average joe but i do think even the average joe is beginning especially in europe to to have these pangs like something is terribly wrong here uh we need need to drastically fix something like i think we need to find a way to get these unproductive politicians out of our way and to let us just do what we need to do to make sure that we're energy secure and have an abundant future moving forward which is again focusing here on north america between canada u.s

mexico if we wanted to we could have a very vibrant independent energy sector but there's this inability when you consider all the regulations that exist in canada and that are coming here to the united states it's it's completely baffling that we're sitting here and watching these people wreck not only our economy today but future generations as well absolutely it's very frustrating but the hope that i have is that you know this pendulum's been swinging this way so hard right that they always swing back so you know i'm hoping that that's kind of sooner than later because i think you know again when you start starving people out freezing people out they start to get that heart you know hard times

hard times create strong men apparently uh it seems like i mean we've had it easy so people don't understand though you know i do have hope that this will swing back the other way um because i i don't even know how these people make it to office you know i mean how these people keep getting elected and um you know why we just watch them make mistake after mistake to be honest that's complacency people have been lulled into this false sense of reality where they believe like oh to do anything on a grand scale we need the government we need the states to come and do this where you really don't uh and again the first time you're wrong we talked about the intersection of bitcoin mining and energy in the energy sectors

and i think it's a perfect example of uh the mining industry beginning to um really stick its roots into the energy sector like nobody is really asking permission uh we're just going scooping up abandoned wells plugging in generators mining bitcoin uh a positive externality of that is you have less methane leak but that's not really the reason people are doing it they're doing it for cheap incentives and um that's what again it's just how do we get people to wake up and say hey we don't need these people to actually do what we need to do to create abundance in fact uh they're probably significantly prohibiting us from from reaching that abundance and uh i'm curious to know if you had a magic wand for here in north america what would you do

to change energy policy in short order in canada the u.s you need less you know less less regulation people are smart nobody wants to you know go out there and flew the hell out of everything right i mean everybody i think people are generally conscious about that you know don't want to dump sewage in rivers and you know leave oil spills and wells uncapped or you know be completely irresponsible about that so um you know i definitely think that you know you need less regulation and less people covering it put that back to the states get that get that back to the states let each state kind of govern themselves because really that's how it was initially supposed to happen, right?

I mean, it was supposed to be each state and, you know, was above state laws, were above the federal law. The federal government is just going to watch over everything, not to, like, get its hands in the state's business. So I kind of think we need to go back to that, right, and kind of look inward to, you know, our own communities and how we can help our own communities, right? completely agree in that i mean there are some uh promising trends in that direction

supreme court with their epa versus west virginia ruling really gives power back to the states to tell the epa to screw off um we're seeing states like florida and texas begin to in missouri begin to actively uh tell the federal government to stay out of their business and i think that's a trend that will only continue and you know that's i mean i've tweeted recently i think when it comes to oil and gas extraction specifically uh a lot of these states just need to say no we're not we're going to drill we're not listening to you um we we desperately need these resources in the economy and your policies don't make any sense they're actually not going to lower prices they're not going to make anybody more secure and uh you can make a strong argument that there is no climate

emergency in fact i think it's almost certain that we don't live in a world in which there's a climate emergency humans are thriving uh the environment is fine and the world getting a little bit warmer there's a climate is changing climate changes uh every day every month every week decades centuries uh and to think that we're gonna just shoot ourselves in the foot as a society globally because of this this thurmberg driven meme that the world is gonna is gonna boil if we don't stop using hydrocarbons uh it is always you know it keeps changing in the 70s it was the coming ice age right so we were all gonna die it was gonna be an ice age we're gonna freeze to death um that didn't happen right now it's all we're gonna you know all burst into fiery hell

which is not going to happen either right and um you know i i think it's too much everybody's too doomy but the world's gonna end tomorrow what a disaster i'm like let's make tomorrow better instead of you know running around telling everybody well this is where i think the pendulum swings back rather aggressively is when people begin to realize that the policy is enacted and pushed by the environmentalists and the climate hysterics actually end up killing more people than quote-unquote the climate disaster ever would have well exactly exactly i mean look at where we are with all of these green policies the technology is just not there yet as much as you want clean energy i think that's great but go for nuclear i mean nuclear is great it's very

clean and as far as energy density is concerned that's where it's at nobody wants that either right? You can't please these people. But the route that we're taking right now, especially trying to use wind and solar, watch hydrogen will be next. Watch it'll be the next big thing that won't work either. We're doing that, but we're capping ourselves at the knee on everything else. You can't just turn around and change tomorrow. You can't just say, we're going to go all solar tomorrow it doesn't work that way it also isn't feasible because it's intermittent power but you know all of these policies have gotten to us exactly where europe is in an energy crisis can you imagine really i mean what you know 2022 and we're talking you might not be able to you know

wash your hair tomorrow we don't have hot water i mean that's this is silly this its policies have led us to like literally rolling blackouts and you know i mean we should be really far above that we're taking a huge step back and it's only because of the poor energy policies that the west has um insisted on moving forward with that's actually bringing us back yeah there's almost some sadistic poetic justice uh coming out of california specifically where where they're actively telling people not to charge their electrical vehicles to spare the grid. It's like, wait a second, this is the solution, and you can't have people using it when the grid is stressed. We can't have any more ICE vehicles. Are we going to plug them in?

I don't know. We don't have any. So focusing on oil and gas specifically, which is your bread and butter, to help the audience understand the opportunity cost that we're involved in right now? Like, what is the potential? Like, what could we do if we didn't have these regulations? What could the world look like if we were able to actually invest in this infrastructure?

Yeah, I mean, one good thing about shale is that, you know, it's made a lot of advancements, right? and the one of the good thing is is that is that you can bring new wells online a lot faster than you can for something like um you know an offshore deep ocean project right because those projects take you know seven to ten years to really bring them from idea to where you're actually pumping um so that's you know one of the great innovations about shale that you can do that you know in a year a year and a half and cut that time down to you know a third plus you know new technology you know new technology is always evolving in that to make things more efficient better cleaner

the thing that i fear is that you know all these energy policies now that are kind of demonizing the industry is going to cut a lot of technology off right because firms are going to be like nobody's going to be drilling anymore so you know why why why advance new technology for these companies you know so i think that that's one of the another one of the bad things another you know bad thing that we're also saying kind of in the industry is that because of the esg movement which wouldn't get into that in a minute, but we're seeing, you know, lack of labor rule, right? Nobody's going to college and wants to get into this industry anymore, right? They want to go to ESG or whatever. So we're having,

you know, real problem finding like the new generation to work in this, to work in this industry and kind of bring them up in this industry. So that's, that's also a problem. but i mean but there's so much opportunity there we you know if we just didn't have these regulations we could do it you know and we could pursue these i mean there's so many jobs because you have to think one sure you know what this what people don't think about is all the peripheral jobs you have so say you go to and go to and you know well you want to build a bunch of wells somewhere out in the middle of i don't know nowhere right so what has to come you know you need technology there you need to build restaurants you need to build uh places for people to live

you need car dealerships you need you know you can build whole towns uh around these places which you know is a thriving environment and a ton of jobs yeah that's i mean we're beginning to see it already particularly uh with drilling teams it's one of the underlying trends that i've been observing behind the scenes speaking with a lot of people who are drilling upstream as they can't actually get a drilling team on site to drill the wells there's a lot of people who are ready to drill but simply is enough equipment or talent to bring these wells online so I think you know you can think that pursue that more but on the ESG factor the one good thing that we're seeing right now

And I was kind of ESG is kind of falling out of favor in the financial world. Like we're seeing a bunch of funds. I mean, first of all, they all those funds charge a premium and all those managers and ESG funds always charge a premium because everybody wants it. Right. But there are underperformers and they're expensive and they all had baskets of, you know, if you actually look into one of those ETFs, I mean, there's a bunch of oil in there. I mean, there's just a bunch of random companies that are not, you know. Raytheon is ESG now. Oh, I think, you know, I think it's ridiculous. But the good thing is we're actually seeing ETFs now dropping ESG from their name, right,

because they're being underperformers. So we're kind of starting to see a backlash. And we even had, you know, Jamie Dimon came out just the other day, And he's like, we need to be drilling oil, gas, which is kind of a complete turnaround because JPM was one of the banks that was like, we're not going to fund these projects anymore, you know, along with BlackRock and Goldman. So perhaps we are seeing, I'm going to, you know, bring some bright notes into this. So perhaps we are seeing kind of a glimpse of a change.

And I think what would really help us, at least in the financial world, is we really start seeing kind of these banks change right because if we want to get these projects up and running they also need funding so yeah it's i mean it's hilarious that all these people are are turning on a dime right now as things hit ahead it's now well and you know i mean mostly i would say you know we're seeing that in the us eu i have to say still die hard anti oil and gas But we are seeing kind of a change here in the States, which is promising to me. Yeah, no, it is promising to see. And so if you're in oil and gas, like what has been like a contrarian play in the space

throughout the last couple of years that you think is going to pay off as this ESG meme begins to die? Because I think it is dying. It's inevitably not profitable and doesn't make any sense from a human flourishing perspective. It's ridiculous. So, you know, I still think, and I've been pounding on the table on this for years on, you know, U.S. nat gas, because I always said that it's a perfect transition fuel because it's clean burning, you know, more so than, say, oil, right? It's cheap. It's abundant.

I mean, it's not so cheap right now, but, you know, cheap and abundant. and I think it's a perfect transition especially like emerging markets especially in Africa nations in Africa and such so you know I've been you know vested in not gas companies

you know especially ones that have access to distribution centers you know either via pipeline or that kind of own you know produce and you know have their own distribution center and now that you know and now that it seems like the eu's you know can like cut

themselves out at the knee as far as russia is concerned because they're going to enact price caps um really you know the market's really tight in asia right now um and so you know the us is really the only place that you go right now i mean if you look at nigeria wants to produce more but they technically speaking can't i mean they have big dreams but they had a lot of problems with you know aging equipment and theft um so i think right now you know if you look at somebody like algeria algeria spain's getting a lot of gas from algeria but you know russia has a big hand in algeria so um i don't know how much more you know it'll take a lot of negotiation i guess to get them to send more to the eu but back to the united states is uh the united states is really the only

place they can go right now so i expect you know the us to pick up i mean the us has already picked up a lot of that business that you know during that shift away from russia but you know i think they'll pick up some more so you know i've been definitely you know pro us that gas for quite a be you know the last five five years or so and then you know i mean i think there's a lot of opportunity in general to starting investment because you know over the last probably seven years or so when we saw a lot of mergers and acquisitions we saw a lot of bankruptcies you know so i think that you know kind of the people the ones that are still standing are are pretty solid at this point just because the rest kind of went away yeah and the and the lng

is becoming a huge topic now too because as the european countries lose access to nordstream one and nordstream two and they can't get the the gas they're they're now turning to lng providers and So is the infrastructure in Europe ready to actually supercharge an LNG market? Not yet. I mean, they still need to build out facilities. They have big goals. I'm hoping by 2024. But, you know, I would say that's probably going to take longer than they think to build out those storage facilities.

They just don't have them. which means we'll probably see a lot more you'll see a lot more spot cargos and things of that nature because they just don't have a storage. They want to build out the storage which is great but I just think it's going to take a couple more years than they anticipate. But at least they are thinking about it and they do have that plan.

so yeah no that's another thing with the buy-in ministry of like the eqts or not eqt um toby rice's company the name's escaping me and then at the largest natural gas provider in the u.s they want to build more lng exporting plants but they're having problems at the government level as well well yeah i mean yeah you know they're getting kicked in the teeth with constantly with this administration right i mean there was just a lawsuit with lng um shaneer right they they just got their permit just got struck down for their turbines at their distribution facility center um so you know you know ease up on this permit thing yeah no i was correct it is eqt i had to double check there

it was um but it's uh what else like in terms of shifting the narrative back towards abundance i know the first time you were on we discussed bitcoin mining in oil and gas fields and it's been a couple years i believe since since you last been on the show and so have you been paying attention to that trend um are you are you uh bullish on it what do you think about it no i mean i think it's you know i follow you so i do what you have to say but no no i think it's a great trend and i think that's you know um i i think that it's going to take more creativity what we can do with those those wells and things like that i mean aside from just bitcoin mining too right i mean i think we can get really creative i think we should

if people follow the bitcoin mining and it's successful i think people will start thinking other ideas right that we can use um kind of those you know those wells that are kind of just sitting there that are that are tapped right and so i think you know um people just need to see like one example of something that works really well that's really successful and then we can think oh yeah you know i bet we can invest in this doing whatever i don't have a idea yet off the top of my head but but i'm sure there's a lot you know i'm sure there's a lot of ideas out there there's a lot of entrepreneurs out there's a lot of smart people out there and so So, you know, I think if they can get more interest in using those wells, not just for traditional, say, you know, nat gas or oil drilling, but, you know, I think that that'll be a really positive thing.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of people talking about like gene splice or like the algorithmic gene splicing data centers and AWS needs high uptime. So they probably aren't ideal for off-grid stuff. But I think the simple application of going and finding these abandoned orphan wells and using the gas and then plugging it on the back end is just a win overall. If you really are an environmentalist and want to clean up all the waste throughout the United States, I mean, there's no lower hanging fruit than going and finding all these abandoned wells. Well, exactly, exactly. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of ideas out there. I think there's a lot of entrepreneurship. And I think it literally takes a lot of, you know, a lot more education, you know, explaining things to people because, you know, everybody's, this last generation or two almost has spent, yeah, the last generation, all they heard is this is horrible.

This is horrible. This is horrible. This is horrible. So they don't know anything else, but this is horrible, right? So, you know, I think it's up to us to kind of spread the knowledge, right? Yeah, not only spread the knowledge. And I think like Bitcoin mining as a mechanism to leverage all these wasted energy sources is a great application. But then what does Bitcoin mining actually secure?

It secures this peer to peer digital cash system that cannot be controlled by any one government or coalition of governments, which many could argue that this is why the world finds itself in the place that it does today with the weaponization of Swift and bank reserves against Russia. I think the Bitcoin narrative is twofold. Number one, in the energy sector, you have that ability to leverage these wasted resources but then number two in terms of international trade of these energy assets you just create a much more level of playing field in terms of the settlement system that you're using to to conduct this trade so you're not really beholden to a petrodollar system or the winds of the west and what they want to do with their monetary system and so actually i think

bitcoin is the most peaceful path forward in terms of reducing the amount of friction we see on the international stage when it comes to trading energy assets and then um weaponizing monetary systems yeah absolutely i mean absolutely i mean we're already saying you know we're already seeing a kind of a you know fracturing away from switch from you know other countries like um you You know, Russia's starting the Mir system as the Mir system. It's just not widely used, which is their version of SWIFT. But, you know, a lot more people are kind of joining that. So we do have this split.

That said, you know, obviously 100% better would be something completely out of state control, right? really out of the state's hand because you know uh look at cbdc they're all gonna you know have central bank digital currencies and they're gonna control your life even more so than they already do which is completely the most frightening thought ever so if that doesn't scare you enough to kind of want to turn into your own banker i don't know right yeah i mean you just escaped canada canada doesn't even have a cbdc yet and the amount of control and they're confiscating your bank account i mean it was nuts you have no idea i mean can you imagine yeah so what was it so what what has your life been like last few years and

why did you decide to finally get out it was crazy there i was actually not there for the sort of thing i i moved i moved back to this i finally just found a place to live but i moved back in uh february um but you know i mean it just was becoming increasingly increasingly more government control right i mean they had all these internet laws where you know they can go after you now if they you know find out that you posted something that they don't like they can literally go after you for hate speech or whatever and go to jail for it um so it's just those like it was like those interesting little steps and then when covid hit forget it there it was like all out and now they have the excuse to you know do whatever they wanted to do government control

I mean, we were locked, literally locked down for two years. We had a curfew. You couldn't step off your lawn after 8 p.m. or you could get arrested. I mean, it's like, well, that's what I wanted. Well, like, how, this is perplexing for me as an American looking North and seeing how obviously Justin Trudeau is like a robot.

Like, how do people put up with him? Like, how has he not been, like, can you impeach a president? like are people happy with what he's doing i think what i think is what you know how canada is is they really believe that government is for the good of them we are the government we're here to take care of you right because they've never really you know never had like big rebellion and they've never had, you know, very different from the States in that way. So they actually think most people, not everybody, obviously, but a lot of people there, they actually think the government's doing this

to take care of me, and the government knows better than me, right? And they're already kind of socialist anyway, you know, socialist healthcare system, things like that. So it's kind of, you know, I think it's just their nature and they're different than, say, people from the United States. We're a very rebellious kind of people. Do you see any future in which Alberta rises up and says, hey, we're done with you, Quebec,

and we're going to leverage our oil resources. We're going to stick up for our rights. I think you're already starting to see it, especially in Alberta. I mean, there is a very big split between the West and the East. The problem is, is that most people live in either Ontario or in Quebec. And so, and they're very liberal and left-leaning. So there goes, you know, they kind of run the country, basically. But, you know, I think you're starting to see the West, especially again in Alberta, Saskatchewan.

I think you're seeing a little more of the rebel side. I mean, look at the truckers, right? That was huge for Canada. Yeah, that trucker rally got me on Tucker Carlson because they froze all the bank accounts, and they had to turn to Bitcoin to raise money. And I had to go on Tucker and explain why Bitcoin actually works in that situation.

so shout out to the truckers for getting me on tucker yeah actually i got really emotional because you know just not used to it i really did even though i wasn't there like this is so great yeah well i think i mean i think that thank god for the canadian truckers i do think they did instill some confidence in other blue collar workers across the world obviously we've seen the farmers rally uh in netherlands and in poland all across europe the the common man is actually doing the hard work again that's another reason i've really been trying to meme this this concept of the unproductive class the people who run governments or live in coastal cities and do like excel pushing jobs that actually don't produce the

things that make the economy go around uh trying to nasal navel gaze at the people doing the hard work that make our modern reality actually possible uh i really who makes the economy run the guys drilling oil guys driving trucks the guys you know um out there in you know boats shipping everything and this this is that's who runs the economy right so um you gotta you know think our problem is one of the big problems is in you know the u.s government everybody's you know everybody's like a lifetime politician right they've all done nothing else except for be a politician so they're completely out of touch with you know their constituency yeah and then you just use the heuristic like anybody who's actually productive would never want to be a politician

And so the politicians are only, like, psychopathic sociopaths who want to have power over people and not actually produce. We need term limits. And, like, somebody under 80 would be nice. Yeah, I mean, we're getting ready for another Trump election season here. It's like, this guy's 84. Our current president can't even make a sentence. let's kick these people out all of them yeah well again going back to like the states rights thing

i don't know if you followed uh my beating of this drum over the last couple years but again i really am bullish on states turning around to the federal government giving them the finger and saying leave us alone again going back to bitcoin mining i think we should start bitcoin mining permanent funds states like wyoming north dakota south dakota oklahoma tennessee kentucky with all these rich natural gas resources should simply like issue muni bonds raise some cash buy some miners partner with a mining company go to their abandoned wells tap them open mine bitcoin with them pay back the muni bond holders and then roll any profits into a permanent fund above that and you get to a point where you build that up over the course of many years and the federal government

comes to you and says hey if you don't do this you're not getting this money you can turn it around and say hey i've got this permanent fund i actually don't need your money so please off leave us alone i love it i think it's a fantastic idea yeah we need to mean this uh into reality tracy uh i'll hit it with you i'll do it i'll help you i like it i really like the idea i think it's brilliant because really i mean you know you're always going to be beholden to the government if you're going to ask them for a handout right that's kind of what they want right i mean you know yeah just you know that just gives them more and more power over you well that's like the very interesting situation we find ourselves in now like do you think we could be seeing the

beginning of a hyperinflationary crisis in europe that leads to a credit crisis here in the united states and like while we're like how do we get away from this how do we get away from this like is the the nation-state model as it's currently erected built on a house of cards of debt isn't imploding on itself like do you see a scenario in which these governments actually fail absolutely i think we're gonna i think we're we're gonna have a huge problem i would watch you know i would watch fx right now because i think we're you know with the dollar so strong right now we're starting to see cracks and it'll be again right we're at 144 145 um the dollar is way too strong right now emerging markets are going to hit

so i think where the crisis is going to start i think it's going to be a currency crisis first is where that's going to start and that's going to bring down the house potentially hopefully not but you know it's not for that far gone to think that it would yeah i mean you have the euro trading at parity or below parity with the dollar which is insane exactly i don't think it's near close but i mean look at europe's a disaster so i think that could easily go lower yeah and they're all going to be forced to exacerbate the problem because the only mechanism by which they know how to like try to solve these problems is just to print more or get more handouts which is just gonna you can't like we said earlier you

can't print money and produce natural gas it's not how it works you're simply going to drive more currency units at scarcer and scarcer supply side assets exactly exactly but that's all you know that's all they know how to do is boom and bust right they you know print a bunch of money you have a booming booming economy right put that in quotes um you know and now that and then now you know they're gonna try to hike us into our recession and then they'll you know as soon as we get into too big of a recession then they'll have to print again it's a vicious cycle we've been doing it for years well that's another interesting part around like the orwellian dystopian uh language around this have you have you noticed the trend of people at the federal

reserve and at the ecb beginning to like try to meme the term growth recession into the minds of people it's not gonna be bad right yeah i mean the growth the growth recession uh line is particularly nefarious because they're like hey we need to cool down the economy so that we can heat it back up and get people like larry summers and others coming out and calling for anywhere between five and ten percent unemployment completely neglecting to address the fact that there would be mass suffering if if that happened right now and when especially when you consider the financial straits that many american citizens and european citizens alike find themselves and like your average american has no savings you know two years of you know lockdowns

i mean it wasn't as bad in the u.s but still you know how many businesses went out but you know out of business how many you know small businesses never you know came back you crushed the economy again how many businesses are you know not going to come back i mean already today germany schultz was you know talking about yes a lot of businesses are going to have to shut down this winter but it's not permanent right once you've shut down a business the chances of it coming back up are you know one to two percent so i mean it's already happening with that and flatten the curve i literally had ptsd all morning yeah well and then i mean it's extremely sad because especially in the uk over the last couple weeks you've had a lot of small business owners and individuals get

their electricity bill which seemed to be variable from month to month and a lot of people are waking up like holy crap like if this persists for for two or three months i'm not going to have a business exactly exactly so um yeah those are all floating around twitter they're shocking i mean they're even worse than than eu so um we'll see i have a glimmer of hope for uk a glimmer you know but we got to focus on you know we got to focus on the u.s so we don't get that bad first i mean we're at the point where we could actually save ourselves we're not you know completely down the hole yet you know we're at the point we can just stop thinking we'll be okay i mean i i know like the bet the way out of it where we don't keep digging is

deregulate and just let people drill and actually invest in this infrastructure and embolden oil and gas industry specifically like hey you guys are doing a good thing um we are very thankful that you're providing us with our modern day lifestyle that is a solution how do we get there do we need a movement of citizens standing up and demanding hey we need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot do you think um something happens politically do you think the failure of esg leads these people to wake up like how do we actually make this so we don't shoot ourselves in the foot anymore i think we need to do it we the people need to stand up and and do it right um think locally because by the time people start you know revolting usually it's too late so we need to start you

know with the grassroots movement literally you know and really start educating people and get out there and you know try to try to change things hopefully you know if you do it at the local level and then go out you know from your individual communities to then your city to then your state um you know i think that that sort of organic growth is a lot easier than trying to tackle the federal government right away do you know what i mean if you're just going straight to the top i think i think if you have some more organic growth i think that movement um could be much more peaceful and better and you know kind of go go from the inside out instead of trying from the top down yeah and again yeah bitcoin can help here you just go to local counties so that's

like in northern tennessee i have a company we're buying up a bunch of these stranded natural gas wells and we essentially go to the farmers where a lot of these wells exist and they've just been sitting there for decades not doing anything we say hey what if we pay your land lease and we actually come on onto your land and use your natural gas and maybe we'll even give you some of the bitcoin um for letting us use your land and they love it they're like all right you're taking a cost we're getting use out of this and they go to the county and say hey this is actually good you're reducing methane leak um and then you get a good local reputation there so that's on the bitcoin mining side of things and that's another great thing i'm not sure if you've

caught this trend but the beef initiative where uh there's a grassroots movement on the farming side of things where uh there's people really myself included encouraging others to go stop buying your your beef directly from the grocery store go meet your farmer shake his hand and figure out how you can help him because again another part of this energy crisis is the food crisis that comes after it and trying to front run that is extremely important no it's really good and then you cut out those you know a lot of those costs are because there's very few meat processors right so they jack up prices whatever they want if you can cut that middleman out it's better for the farmer and it's better for you right so and the beef tastes better i've been

We've been talking about that for a while. Actually, you know, make friends with your local farmer, butcher, find one, you know. I mean, I know somebody in, you know, Oklahoma who ships. So that works perfect. Yeah, go shake your local rancher's hand, freaks, if you haven't already. Tracy, we're getting to the top of the hour here. I want to thank you for coming on.

Is there anything on the top of your mind that you think the freaks should be aware of as we wrap up here in the context of energy, credit markets, currency markets, whatever it may be? Yeah, well, I want to, I mean, there's a lot of bad things going on right now. But, you know, I kind of want to wrap up by saying I think it's better. Definitely keep your eye on the currency markets because I really think that's where everything is going to start cracking first. that's how you're going to know is when you start seeing some you're just seeing like straight up moves and like the yen and the dollar and whatever but when that starts cracking you're going to see a ton of volatility and it's going to get nuts that's you know that's going to be i think you know one of your one of your first clues that stuff is going down and to you know kind of uh

make sure your stuff your house is in order just in case because it's gonna happen you know the credit crisis is definitely happening in europe before before it happens in the united states but i think that that'll be your first first clue and then um you know again you know if you you know we all want to get out there we want to change things for the better so you know get local men, with your, you know, with your neighbors, with your people, with, you know, and grow your group organically there. Because, you know, right now, voting people in or out of the federal government, it's not really doing it right now. No, it is not the way. I would encourage you to vote and vote for every, you know, office. But I think it's really kind of

the organic growth of the movement that we're talking about here today, I think really starts on the local level. Yes. Go shake your neighbor's hand too. I'm here. I'm here in a small town. This is our noon bell. The kids know it's lunchtime now, but the, uh, no, I agree. Go shake your neighbor's hand. Go shake your rancher's hand. Think local. And another thing I want to encourage you guys, you have power. speak up if you see uh this trend that is taking down europe right now coming to the united states

you don't want to come here speak up tell your local uh county commissioner tell your state representative write your senator at the federal level say hey we do not want this to come to the united states uh we need to to act completely differently everybody thinks somebody else is going to do it so then nobody ends up doing it you know what i mean so you know take the take initiative and don't think oh somebody else can take care of it right take just take care of it takes two seconds to write an email to you know your local representatives or to your senator if not you then who if not you then who get off your ass you don't even have to get off grass probably listening to this right

you just have to put it in your computer what you do every day anyway your command t open up a new tab and search for your local representative tracy it's a pleasure i'm glad to see that you have escaped canada and you weren't safe for pastures uh hopefully now that you're in this if you're ever in texas let me know uh particularly austin we can we can do this in person perfect love it awesome well i hope you enjoy the rest all right peace and love freaks