The Breakdown - The World’s Most Important Geopolitical Fault Lines, Feat. Tracy Shuchart

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

On today’s episode, NLW is joined by investor and FinTwit star Tracy Shuchart. On the show, they discuss: The world’s most important geopolitical fault lines, from the Middle East to China The early indicators from the Biden administration around foreign policy  Jerome Powell’s recent statements on CBDCs  The changing global energy landscape  -- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content?   SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M=   Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW   The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com

Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io and Casper and produced and distributed by CoinDes. What's going on, guys? It is some day in March. Again, I'm on a brief baby leave. I'll be back with you soon. but in the meantime, I'm so excited to bring you a show today with Tracy Shuchart. Tracy is a returning guest to the show. She is an investor and FinTwit superstar specializing in energy and geopolitics. Now, you guys know, for me, the geopolitical context is so incredibly important for understanding

Bitcoin and any other asset. But this year, there has been such a mad rush of Bitcoin news that I frankly just haven't had as much space on shows to go deep into how things really. revolving from a geopolitical standpoint. That's exactly what Tracy and I do here talking about fault lines in the Middle East, Iran, China, and more. We also get into a discussion around energy, natural gas in Africa, nuclear in Asia, and more. I know you're going to enjoy this show, so without any further ado, let's dive in. Quick note, I'm Rob. I'm NLW's audio editor, and just wanted to let you know in advance that the audio quality of this interview is not quite up to snuff.

know that we're aware of it and hopefully you'll still enjoy it. All right, Tracy, welcome back to the breakdown. It's great to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me again. So we were just talking about this and basically I feel like, you know, the markets in Bitcoin have been so nuts for the past couple months that I have not had nearly enough time to talk about, you know, kind of larger macro topics, larger geopolitical topics.

And I thought it would be super fun to just do a bunch of that with you today to talk about some of the geopolitical fault lines to talk about some of the, you know, you and I were riffing on some of these other energy topics that seem really important. But that's kind of what I'm thinking. And so if you'll indulge, maybe we can just kind of dive in. Great. Reintroduce yourself for people who may not be familiar. I'm shy girl on Twitter. And I work for a family office. I run an energy and materials portfolio.

and I also am the Energy and Materials analyst at Hedge Fund Telemetry, which we do retail and institutional research. Yeah, I feel like people mostly know you from Twitter, because that's the way that the world works now. Pretty much. Pretty much. Yeah, as soon as you start having to sign your like Federal Reserve, CBDC Digital Dollar as shy girl, then you'll know we're in a truly different era, I suppose.

I use that for everything. in a way. Me too. I mean, I, like, I am definitely an LW. Like, luckily, for some reason, people don't have that set of initials on, like, any platform. So I always get it, which is amazing. Anyways, so where, where should we start? I mean, what are you, I guess let's talk about what you've been thinking about lately. Do we want to go on kind of like the energy side? Do we want to talk about some of the geopolitics stuff? We're recording this, obviously, right after the Biden administration has had their first foray into bombing. So it's good to see that we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, We're back to that.

But I don't know. What's the right place to dive in? I guess, I mean, right there. I mean, generally, you know, what happens when we see a new administration come into office, we kind of see a foreign policy test, if you will, where different countries would have kind of push the limits, right? And we started seeing this end of December, early January. We saw Iran. We saw the bombing attacks in herbal.

We've had problems in Syria, obviously. There's things going on in the South China Sea. So you kind of get this initially anyway, any time you change the administration, but now bombs are flying. So that's kind of where we're at in the Middle East right now. It was retaliation for what happened in Urbo, for American pride and a blast there.

which, you know, I think that it, you know, it was an appropriate response for the government. I'm not trying to defend it to the living in bottom of country, obviously, but that would be expected as a foreign policy response. Just saying that would be expected. I'm not saying it's right around. What I'm kind of looking at also, which, you know, kind of entails energy as well. I mean, Syria pretty much doesn't have any oil anymore. because of the years of war there.

But, you know, it also looks like, you know, I'm also looking at Libya. I think there are problems starting up in Libya again. We see Wagner group back in there. We're seeing weapons being shipped back in the Libya. So I do think we'll probably get involved there again. Obviously, they just restarted their oil production backup at all, slope to at least 2019 levels at 1.2 million there are today. I think we're going to see problems there.

And then I also am looking over to the Horn of Africa right now. We're seeing problems in Ethiopia. I definitely think that we're going to have to, will probably be in this administration, has a lot of those same people that Obama had in his administration in his cabinet. So likely we will get involved there again. kind of been that Obama 2.0, right?

Just because a lot of the same people are there. So those are kind of the hot spots that I'm looking at sort of in Africa and the Middle East. And then if we go over to the China Sea, obviously there's a lot of tension between Taiwan and China. The U.S. is there. Germany actually just sent a ship over there. The French just sent a ship over there. So it's definitely an area that you kind of want to be watching as far as things you can be having. Now, I do not think that China would actually invade Taiwan, not with so many eyes on them right now, right?

But, you know, there is a lot of friction in it. I want to come back to China and that region a little bit more, but maybe stay in the Middle East for just a minute, because I think a couple things are interesting in just where you brought up. It's funny actually when you were talking about the like this is what any kind of foreign or power would do. I just, I don't know if you were a West Wing person, but it's like one of the first episodes in the first season is called proportional response. And it's all about like Jed Bartlett like losing his mind about the fact that you're like, you have this constant stupid cat and mouse game of like they bomb you and then you bomb them a little. And it's just what you're supposed to do. And it never goes anywhere.

And it felt like watching that play out. I guess, you know, so I want to actually like almost ask like kind of a really like super 101 question just for people that are listening who, you know, haven't spent a lot of time thinking about like energy politics, you know, and have a perception. Like we kind of, you know, had a perception of oil based foreign policy, right? That was kind of like the 2000s. That was the dominant narrative. How has kind of the energy situation over the last, you know, five to 10 years change the way that Middle Eastern oil, for example, fits into our foreign policy calculus? And I know this, like I said, it's a super one-on-one type of question.

I just want to make sure to be inclusive of a lot of different types of people who might be listening. You know, obviously, a lot of things have changed since, you know, the Iraq We went into Afghanistan. And, you know, as far as oil is concerned, the United States. Since then, we had shale boom, right? Then we started exporting, right? So we're not as dependent on the Middle East for oil, per se. Even though it is, you know, the global commodity, it ships globally.

We can't actually sit on just what the U.S. produces because W. WTI only produces gasoline, basically, and we still need heavier things like fuel, fuel oil, and we need heavier grades to mix, to make those products. So oil flows are constant around the world, but we aren't as dependent on them. That said, right, our foreign policy is now in range after being there for so long, right? that's what comes with having a reserve currency and also having the most powerful

military. So that's, you know, we're still over there. And, you know, you have to think a lot of these alliances, especially with Saudi Arabia, you know, that we've had a relationship since the 1930s. When we discovered oils

in, you know, Aramco's American oil company, right? We've had that relationship for over 100 years, basically. So we're still involved in that part of the world. Less so for oil, but more so just because of alliances that have been built up over decades. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think that's super helpful just to kind of like be able to dissect things in terms of their real context versus kind of trot out like kind of the same old narratives. But I guess, you know, so you're

kind of mentioning start of a new administration. Part of what you get is these foreign policy tests where people are kind of like testing the water, seeing what they can push, that they pull, what's going to be the response. And obviously, kind of from the flip side, we're also watching how any given administration is trying to differentiate itself from the past one. And so speaking of Saudi Arabia, we had another piece of news recently that it looks like the Biden administration is going to declassify documents that kind of confirm the widely held belief of Muhammad bin Salman's involvement with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. What do you make of that?

Was that just inevitable? Is it just like kind of like putting the rubber stamp on a secret that everyone knew already? Or does it actually have implications for this bilateral relationship? I think that this is kind of going through the motion, right? three years later, kind of everything's been taking care of. And, you know, Biden just had a phone call with King Solomon, and literally I read the script, they didn't even talk about it.

So I think it's more of kind of going through the motions that we kind of have to do it. You know, I mean, a lot of other countries have already acknowledged that, right? We're kind of late to the table. But at this point, I think it's more of a gesture. than anything else. Yeah. So I guess I want to take that same kind of line or question around how is the Biden administration potentially trying to position itself as different than the previous

administration? But I want to take it over to China because I feel like one of the things that was notable during the campaign is there was a lot of kind of tip for tap back and forth on like who was going to be tougher on China or who is going to be tough on China in the right way, right? It wasn't really a question of like being chuff on China or not. It was like, are we going to do it kind of unilaterally, which was kind of the Trumpian version, or are we going to do it like reassemble the alliance of nations to put pressure on China. What have you seen so far or any, are there any early kind of indicators of how you think the Biden administration is or isn't going to be different as it relates to China related issues? Well, I think that, I mean, we haven't seen much until this incident in Syria.

you haven't really seen much foreign policy action out of this administration, right? So far we've seen a bunch of executive orders that have to do with things domestically, but not really anything foreign policy-wise. So, you know, we're going to have to kind of wait to see what direction they're going to take. But I think it is notable that, you know, they decided to keep the tariffs on that the Trump administration had initiated. So it doesn't look like everybody kind of thought it's. as soon as the Biden administration came in, they would be soft on China. But so far, there are any real indications that they're going to be softer or not. The indications are right now,

they're keeping things as status quo. No, I think that's a good point, is that we're still really early in seeing this. Have you noticed anything maybe from the, from kind of the flip side of China starting to try to test the waters differently, or is it the same thing, kind of this early detente holding pattern? I think it's still early detente. I mean, they've kind of you know leaked stuff to the media basically saying we want to be friends

but so far it's just like your typical shine like if they're serious about it, they would be calling the administration that wouldn't be leaking the stuff to the media. So, you know, I think they're trying to just drop, you know, hints, hi, we're here, we're here, we're open, we want to talk. But again,

still early, nothing material has changed as far as policies confirmed between both nations. How much are you or have you been paying attention to China's CBDC experiments and developments? For them, it's all about control because it'll be linked to your social credit system, right? So if you do something bad, you get money deducted. They're just rolling this out now, but knowing the construct of China, and I'm reading about how they want to use this, they kind of want to enter the market as being a challenge to Allie pay and We pay.

But the goal is eventually to edge those with some progress in the market and have it all government. It has felt to me kind of like that's been the stage. Like China's kind of been like consolidating financial power at home right now. Like I mean, obviously like the, you know, putting Jack Ma on bed restress for three months and canceling the Ant Financial IPO and then totally restructuring Ant Financial and now absorbing like I think a couple of these kind of NeoBank type. services are now incorporated into the latest digital yuan trials, but in the same exact way

that the six, you know, kind of state-owned banks are. Like, it feels to me like part of the, like, step one is like break the power of private fintech money before trying to take this system kind of international via Belt and Road and whatever other tools they have. Right. Exactly. I mean, that's exactly what I just kind of see. And, you know, there are some conflicts within the party right now.

And so I think she is trying to push this. just, you know, along as fast as possible to sort of gain control again because, again, it's accomplished in the factions in the party right now. And there's a good chance that the next financial crisis that comes along with China, he will be gone. Keep that in mind when you think about how they're approaching the financial system right now. But he can not afford to have anything failed out within China right now. Or could definitely move power. Yeah, I think that's interesting context. I mean, this is one of the things that people started talking about right after COVID-19 is would this be an existential threat for that particular regime, you know? Right. So definitely, I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on there and, you know, we'll see, but grabbing more power, right, essentially, right?

Consolidating everything under the government. So here's a random question, like kind of in a totally different direction, just for people who have been like listening for the last 15 minutes and are like, oh, this is super. fascinating, but like, how does it connect to investing? I mean, for, for you, like, how does paying attention to these set of issues, like, inform the way that you're thinking about markets, right? Is it, is it more kind of just broad context? Are these themes that you're actually kind of, like, basing investment decisions on? I mean, you know, a lot of this is, you know, broad concepts. You know, I look at things in the macro view, right? And then I kind of drill, drill it down. So what China is doing with their CBDC, right, is it going to be a model for our, you know, central-based

digital, you know, how will that affect companies that I want to invest in, right, for areas of the world that I want to invest in? By the way, I don't, I think the Fed will be the very, very last to join that CBDC train. I think they're going to see how it works out for everybody else first, even though that they stress that they were. interested in that. But yeah, so I look at things in Macroview. Obviously, the Middle East is very important because I trade energy for a living. But, you know, again, it's just I take everything and I kind of drill it down into what I'm looking at. And still all these areas, especially, you know, I have to look at China a lot because they're a very large consumer, India, same thing, right? So I'm looking at all these different areas and how it all come together and

to the theme support within the energy in the period of world. That ultimately is what I trade. Yeah, I think it makes sense. I think it's just super interesting too because, you know, thinking about it from kind of like a Bitcoin perspective, obviously like this show, I spent a lot of time on macro because for me, it's way less about investing, you know,

specifically and more about kind of understanding the world and understanding how these different assets and flows fit into that and shape things. But I feel like there's a temptation, even if you are kind of an investor in a specific asset or asset class, to when you start thinking macro, you try to draw these really close lines between like this thing happened in a macro context. So there's going to be a correlated kind of short term price move. Whereas like it sounds like a lot of what you're saying is much more like it's less about that and more about understanding like the broad patterns in which all of these different short term kind of actions are contextualized. Right, because I'm looking at more of, you know, when I, you know, real down to an investment thing, I'm more long-term. So, you know, I'm looking two, three, five, several years out, you know. So I'm not looking what, you know, short from price fluctuations are not really something

that I'm focusing on because I'm not. Obviously, I watch it over a bit, but I'm not looking for that. I'm looking for more of it and investment. Yep. approaching it from macro. I think it makes some of the sense. Looking for the best way to unlock your crypto's liquidity?

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No layer one protocol exists in the market that supports everything enterprises, developers, and consumers need from decentralized applications. Mead Casper. Casper provides the blockchain ecosystem with a solution that makes no compromises around decentralization, security, or performance. Learn more at casper.network. So I want to come back actually to Powell and the Fed and the digital dollar.

I mean, were you at all, did it kind of like, you know, he made a point of talking about that this was the year that they were going to actually engage on digital currency. Was that kind of expected for you or did it seem like he was being intentional about making that a point? Yeah, I mean, I have been talking about it. I think he was almost forced to because Yellen has been talking about it. Right?

She's been talking about, She's been talking about digital currency and Bitcoin, like a lot for just getting into the job. Yeah. Right. So I kind of feel like Powell kind of had to address the situation, right? Even though we know that, you know, we know that they've been looking into it, right? They just haven't been talking about it. Yeah.

So I think because, you know, because Yellen is now in the treasury and she's been talking about it a lot, you know, the Fed's going to have to acknowledge that. So I think that's kind of where they're coming from. And you have the ECB talking about it now, too, right? I know. Christine Lagarde also will not shut up about this. Exactly. So, you know, I mean, the Fed, I think, you know, they had to start saying something because everybody else.

Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting scenario. You, like, just to kind of watch, like, obviously the, the thing that makes it so different is that they have the current World Reserve currency, right? So it's kind of obvious on the one hand why you would, would be the last mover there because to the extent that you see, especially in the case of China, you know, a CBDC being a wedge to try to kind of like create an alternative side long system, you know, that can get around Swift and things like that. Like you kind of like want to watch

and wait and see how it plays out and see how much you have to care. The flip side is obviously you've got people like Jean-Card. Yeah, yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, yeah, you kind of have to watch and see how these things play out because you're not really going to know how. how, you know, I mean, this whole digital yuan could be, could not work, right? So, you know, I think they're going to give it some time to kind of see how it pans out. Do people use it outside of China, right? They'll be forced to be, you have to use it in China. But, you know, are these other people going to trade with them in the BRI?

Obviously, you know, countries that are currently sanctioned by the United States, which is Iran. You know, that might be something that they would look into, which is also going to be very interesting to, too, because they're kind of getting a little irritated with China right now. Yeah, there was a, there was that piece that came out that was like, they used Bitcoin as the headline, but it was really about like the emerging Iran-China tensions. Yeah, so that's going to be very interesting because, you know, China is, you know, kind of ruthless. And they go into your country and they, you know, give you money. and then they sort of take power. They prey on weak countries. And you see, you know, you see this a lot in Africa and things like that.

And you're starting to seek some countries in Africa, kind of, you know, getting up to China now, which is kind of given Russian open door to move into Africa a little bit more. But that will be very interesting because, you know, as you know, because Iran is sanctioned, right? They tell a lot of oil to China because China doesn't recognize unilateral. But they can find them and they don't care. So that's one of their biggest trading partners, right? So that's going to be very interesting to see if they try to force them to use, you know,

the digital yuan, you know, Iraq, because really even if I'm like dollars. So whatever they're paid in, they go to the black market. for dollars. So that is going to be, you know, something interesting to see because the United States will look at that and say, okay, if we have a distinction in countries or if people want to work the way around dollars, are people going to adopt this for a fee? The method of exchange versus dollars, right? So it's definitely something that the government and the Fed are going to keep their eye on.

Another question, I guess, kind of around that combines these two strands that we've been talking about is I'm interested in your take on what we've seen so far from the Biden administration in terms of Yellen and the Treasury, but also kind of like the continuation of policy from the Fed. I mean, you know, so we're recording this on the 25th, I guess, or 26 it is. And there people are talking about like a, they're, using the term taparless tantrum, right? So the past week you've seen effectively, like, markets say to the Fed, like, we don't believe you when you say that you're going to keep the pedal to the metal on this aggressive policy, even though you keep saying that you're going to because we've, you know, it's 10 million less people employed. We think that you're going to be forced to, you know, kind of let rates rise again. And I guess I'm interested in your take on like, you know, people, people had a lot of ideas of what the scenario is going to be with Biden coming into power.

like how do you see things playing out right now? You know, again, you know, what's very strange about, we don't really see a lot of him, right? We've had a bunch, again, a bunch of executive orders. We don't really see him out. We don't really see what this administration is doing. They're not very transparent. And they haven't really, you know, really done a lot,

except for kind of reverse things that they didn't like from the top of administration, you know, a few things like canceled two stone XL, you know, a couple big things like that, but really this administration's been very quiet. And, you know, it seems like we see more of the Fed, we see more of Powell and more of Yellen than anything else so far. And so, you know, as far as, I mean, you know, Della and Brett was all about QI. All about QI, I mean, you couldn't have more, you know,

to people in control of some money that are more QI you weren't said. If you tried, right? So I don't really see that's going to change, you know, even though people are saying, you know, because people are watching rates and they're saying, rape curve says we're going to have five grade hikes in the next three years, something like that. But, you know, honestly, I think back in March, right,

then every central bank went full board, I think they broke something. Right? And I think we're just, we're just finding out exactly what. We don't know what's broken, but we're now seeing the rest of that, right? It's not a little bit of a year into this. So I think a lot of relations might be different. I'm not a bond person.

I'm just not my area of expertise by any stretch of imagination. But it seems like a lot of things are happening in the markets that are kind of inexplicable, right, at this point. Not just in the bond market. I mean, the entire market. Yeah. I mean, is there anything else that do you find particularly? head scratching? Gold.

I mean, I understand that it's a function of rates, and I understand, but you know, it's definitely not acting like it should, right? Because generally you want to have some sort of hedge, right? And the bonds obviously

aren't it, right? Nobody's gone on. Gold's not it. We do the oil up as an inflation hedge, but that's not a traditional sort of state safe haven asset right bitcoins up obviously but metals I think are precious metals lately I are back in it yeah it's uh it's it's super interesting I mean this is like a lot of

I don't know it's really funny like I mean you live on Twitter too but like just seeing like this is like is no one no one knows what the hell's going on and so everyone has like their theory and accuses everyone else of like their theory being wrong you know like it tends to it tends to fall around like sectarian lines of like which asset you want to be right you know but it's like every i guess it's funny thing is that it feels like everyone agrees that like something is strange it's really just a question of like how it plays out like that's where the bets are you know right i mean I mean every day i mean you know I mean energy is doing extremely well I can't really but every day I look at this market and say the market is so weird.

Yeah. You know, just as a whole. Yeah, it's interesting. That assessment that something broke and we don't really know what it is, I think, is a pretty good one. I mean, I think the thing for me that, like, you know, it's interesting watching this particular response that we've seen this week, where, again, it's basically the market, it seems to be being like,

again, we don't believe you, that you'll be able to like just keep, you know, this sort of focus. And on the one hand, I will say that, like, I think that, like, once, you know, once the Georgia runoffs happened and it was clear that the Democrats were going to have the Senate too, like the kind of the blue wave narrative came back around like, oh, it's just going to be UBI. And it's very clear that, like, Republicans are going to fight tooth and nail against a lot of that, just like, as we've seen with how far they're fighting against kind of the most recent stimulus stuff. But the flip side is like, you know, again, Yellen and Power are like the very clear signal is that they are insanely focused on the full employment part of

their mandate. And like, and if it seems to me, no one has said it this bruntly, but it feels to me like if the cost is, you know, like a million Teslas, you know, in terms of like crazy price ratios and valuations to get full employment, that they're willing to do that. It feels like that's why they're continuing to deny that asset prices have any, that they have any impact on asset price inflation, you know? Right. And, you know, I mean, you kind of think we've had, like, you know, had other, you know, Federal Reserve heads, you know, speak throughout the week this week.

And, you know, they're all kind of basically same, the same thing. We're not worried about the yield curve right now. We're worried about, you know, employment. You know, I think, like, yesterday, we had, like, two of them, wham-vams. we don't get really, you know, so, you know, they're focused, or so they say, on employment right now. So I don't really see them cutting easy street, even though the market is reacting like it stays right. I agree. So, uh, I want to actually shift gears now into kind of more of the energy side and some of these under-discussed topics. Like when you and I were

brainstorming the show, there were a few different areas that you, um, the, the, you thought were like things that just were really not paying attention to that we should. And I'd love to get into them. You had a phrase you said, natural gas is going to be the gateway energy drug. And so maybe like talk to me about what that means and then we can get into some of these specific areas that you are paying attention to. I'm not really thrilled about U.S. natural gas. So I'm looking at different parts of the world when I talk about natural gas, right? Even though it does include the United States, that's really where my focus is. But as far as energy transition, right, natural gas is abundant. It's much cleaner than oil, and it's cheap, right? So when you're

looking at emerging markets and things like that, moving, making the energy transition, you know, solar and wind, and even green and blue hydrogen are still very expensive. You know what's not? Natural gas. So I think that this is going to be the gateway for a lot of countries, a level of emerging markets. You're going to see it huge in Africa. You're going to see it huge in Asia. So that's really, you know, I focus really is on natural gas and I'm looking again at markets outside of the United States. You also have Qatar.

Qatar just made the world's largest gas project ever. So they're obviously thinking that this is important. You have the Miss Med gas corridor, right? We have Egypt, Israel, Greece, Italy. That corridor is closing up with various fronts. There's pipelines that area is growing abundantly. There's so many opportunities in the city. So all of these countries really that, you know, and I think you'll see that,

Some are expected in the top of America as well, but really the big demand right now that's growing is in Africa and Asia. And where we're going to see demand will double and triple over, you know, the next 20 years. And so when we look at these areas, right, you have, you know, in Asia, natural gas is close to over 127% Asia, Africa at 19% India at over 100%. So I think that

that's why I'm very very successful. And if we look at Africa, even, you know, we've got some very large projects going on in Africa than everybody's really talking about right now. There's a plant in Tanzania, a $30 billion project, more than deep. It's a private

like $2 billion projects. And actually they have two projects, 122, 115. You have Nigeria that has a $20 billion project and another $10 billion project. So these are areas where we're going to do with a lot of growth. Yeah, it's interesting. I was reading about some of these places where there's been this big shift even, like Egypt stopped working on a huge coal plant and started really, really emphasizing natural gas over the last few years.

And Mozambique seems to be like a huge area of focus as well. Absolutely. And then, you know, there's a lot of companies in that area that are very interesting that are not U.S. companies. So, I mean, that's, you know, I think that's very exciting. And then, believe in line, nuclear, which the West is most shunned, right? especially after the Kukushima, Germany decided to get rid of all of their nuclear. After that happened, you know, kind of shunned in the United States a little bit.

But if you look out, we have about 440 nuclear power reactors right now operating 32-20, plus Taiwan. And there's about 50 reactors underproposal rates. now, right? Most of these are in Asia, which is notable in China, India, Russia, UAE, San Diego. And then there's about another 50 in the pipeline, and most

of those are all in Africa. And, you know, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Sudan, Zambia. So, you know, natural gas and nuclear are going to be very big in New Jersey.

What are the larger implications of that, right? Are these things interested just because, kind of from an overall point of view, are they, how, I guess, how do they play into, you know, issues back home too? Is it just kind of like the general balance of how we think about energy the world over, or is it more specific as well? Yeah, no. I mean, again, I'm looking for, when I, you know, I'm looking for areas that I want to invest in or something that I want to invest in. So, you know, You know, I know a lot of people, you know, I'm on a lot of energy for it, right? And I see a lot of people are like, you know, everybody loves uranium.

And everybody's like, well, you know, when nuclear coming back, we could have, you know, Texas just happened, right? So it's like, why don't we have more nuclear, right? But again, the West is kind of shone nuclear. So I'm just here to say there are opportunities in that, in that space elsewhere in the world a lot, a lot of opportunities. It's just where it kind of blocked into this mindset. Yeah, it is interesting how much the, like,

the hangover from nuclear is, especially because you have, like, you have Bill Gates out, like, every day in, like, some other press outlet talking about, like, fourth generation nuclear reactors and things like that. Yeah, they just gave, you know, I think he and, who was it, Dezos, to save a bunch of money to that kid, well, I don't know, she's very young for a nuclear fusion project.

So, you know, whether or not that can be done and the friends are working on that as well. But, yeah, there's a lot of money going into that thing. Super, super interesting. What else are you watching outside of kind of this? I mean, you said that kind of the North American natural

gas stuff isn't as interesting to you, but I know you've been looking into some of the like Great American Mining Co and these companies that are thinking about these kind of different approaches, you know, connecting it back to Bitcoin. Is there anything interesting in that space that you've been watching? Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, I'm Marty Bent's project, right? I think it's super, super, super interesting. You know, I don't really come across the type of project often. But, you know, I kind of look at, you know, where I think there could be an advantage for, you know,

there could be an opportunity for Bitcoin is, you know, I think carbon capacity can be a huge, huge, huge, more than it's become a huge deal, right, for natural gas and for the oil companies. Right? And usually they take that and they just take it back into the ground. I think there's an opportunity there where you could use that energy to sort of

mind getting it right? Why not? Instead of just sticking it back into the ground. I don't know how to do it, guys, but there's my idea. Yeah. How much, so I was going to ask you kind of a different question. So we are, obviously, kind of a lot of the things we've talked about today have come down to.

it's too, like, we're in this, like, weird period where we're in between one administration or another. So a lot of the geopolitics, a lot of the kind of foreign policy stuff isn't yet determined. Right. Call it over the next, like, three to six months. What are the things that you're paying the most attention to? What type of signals are you looking for just to understand, like, kind of what we're in for? Right. So I'm really looking to see where, you know, if we get involved in Libya again, that means we're going to the board of Africa again.

that we're going to be a bit more militarily engaged once again, right? Yeah. So defense would actually do it extremely well. So I'm kind of looking at that for foreign policy. Obviously, I'm looking to, you know, to see internally like, you know, are we going to have an infrastructure plan? You know, I know that any plan that Democrats put, you know, who initially is going to get shot down.

but, you know, it's going to be a lot of money. But kind of looking at, are we going to have any sort of infrastructure plan as laid out by the Biden administration, you know, before coming into office? So kind of I'm looking for those kind of things. Also, mining is kind of, you know, are we going to move supply chains? We're going to try to move supply chains back to the United States, right? But I can kind of talk about that. We have the chip shortage, right?

Well, first we had Corona, right? Coronavirus, all the supply chains went down. Now we're having a chip shortage. So, you know, hundreds have been talking about bringing back the supply chain, right? So I think that it will be interesting to see if this administration, you know, how this administration handles that. Or are we going to see more minds here? Are we going to try to bring other production lines?

fact like art methodicals, automobiles, etc. We're kind of looking at that. See kind of what direction they're going to take. It's kind of what I'm looking at. There's foreign policy and domestic policy. Yeah. And I mean, the supply chains are kind of where those things overlap, right? To the extent that they can build momentum for that.

You know, it's probably unrealistic, like, given just this stratification of politics in the U.S., but it's hard to see from where we are that, like, everything doesn't, again, just fall into these super party lines, you know? Even if you kind of had a Biden administration proposed something that, I don't know. It's just, like, that's, that's one thing that I've definitely seen is that we are, we didn't get a lot less divided after this election. I mean, you know, I mean, of the, you know, there's two half can go on. Right. There's two parties in government. Well, we have to be independent.

Change is slow. You may come in with all these great ideas, but generally we kind of end up with some sort of watered down compromise version. That's just the way that it works. Before I let you go, just a couple of random ones, have you been watching the GameStop saga at all? Yes, who hasn't? It's all over time.

Diamond hands. Oh, my God. I currently have Diamond Hands on my Twitter profile in solidarity. Nice. Yeah. What do you think of all this? I mean, it's like, do you, do you buy the idea that it's, that there's kind of this protest element to it? Or do you think it's just like, that's a convenient kind of like post-talk narrative? Yeah, I think that's just kind of, I mean, I think it's really, I mean, I think it's really interesting. I think kind of, you know, I mean, if you looked at the Wall Street Betts before, too, you know, a lot of times they would try to push around these little stocks after hours, right, if they could. I just think that it became so huge

because suddenly everybody was watching and you know GameStop was one where big guys were betting against right? Yep. So, you know, that became kind of like the retail trader

against big hedge funds and I don't really necessarily think it was really that but it's really interesting to watch like everybody kind of get involved, right? at least it was like something to talk about other than you know COVID for a few weeks. Seriously.

Also, I have to say that Roaring Kitty's like testimony before Congress is probably the best testimony I've ever seen in my life. Really? I didn't see that. I need to. Oh my God. You have to. I did. One of my podcasts from last week or whenever it was, it literally has like the excerpted part of his whole. opening statement. Oh my God, that's a great. I have to read. Yeah, the, he opened with, here are some things I am not. I am not a cat.

Totally dead pan. Yeah, is pretty amazing. Anything else before I let you go that's on your brain that we should chat about? No, I mean, next week is OPEC. So I don't know.

Any of trades energy is listening. Next week is OPEC meeting. right. And if you remember, the Saudi Arabia had kindly picking a million barrels off the market for February and March. That, I expect, will probably not continue being that the market's tight. You know, I think they'll

at least increase by 500,000 barrels. Also, as a group as a whole, right, they decided to not go ahead with 500K increase in February. So just be prepared. I think there's oil coming on to the market. However, I do think the market can handle it right now because we're getting pretty tight. All right.

Something to watch for. Right. Cool. Well, Tracy, thank you so much. I always love getting to chat about the world and energy and all these things. So thanks for hanging out and I can't wait until the next time. Yeah, thanks so much.

One really brief reflection on that show. On the breakdown, we discuss central bank digital currencies a lot, but it's mostly in terms of how they'll work, how they compare to Bitcoin, and what little tea leaves we're getting from central banks about them. In 2021, I'm fairly convinced that CBDCs will enter the broader conversation, but they'll do so from a geopolitical, geostrategic perspective. In other words, we'll be talking about what the implications are, not just domestically within a country, but in terms of that country's role in the world in the global economy. To me, that's the right context, so I'm excited for that shift.

But for now, I appreciate you listening. Until tomorrow, guys. Be safe and take care of each other. Peace.