We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP353: The Best Performing Asset Is Not Bitcoin w/ Marin Katusa

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. On today's episode, we welcome back New York Times best-selling author and investor, Marin Katusa. Marin is a contrarian value investor who specializes in gold, uranium, rare earths, and most recently, carbon credits. In this episode, we cover how we should view the recent performance of gold and silver as inflation starts to rise, how uranium is an asymmetric opportunity but comes with a lot of nuance, how carbon credits are the best performing asset of the last three years and why Marin thinks that this opportunity is worth over $16 trillion. And ultimately, we cover how America's golden age is still ahead.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Marin is a wealth of knowledge and experience, and I learned a ton from this very fun and wide-ranging discussion. So without further ado, sit back and enjoy my chat with Marin Katusa. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial markets and read books that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Welcome to the Investors podcast. I'm your host, Trey Lockerbie. And today I'm super excited to welcome back to the show, a fan favorite, Marin Katusa. Maran, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the show. That's my pleasure. So one of the reasons we love having you on,

Starting point is 00:01:31 Marin is that there's always just a wealth of knowledge that you bring to the table and it's always such a wide-ranging discussion. And today's no different. There's a lot to cover and I want to go ahead and dig right in. One of the most interesting headlines I think we've seen recently is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releasing some new CPI numbers. And the CPI has risen 4.2% over the last year. So given your knowledge in the gold and silver markets, I just wanted to take the opportunity to ask you about what your stance on those metals looks like right now and if you've been expecting maybe better performance out of them lately. As my subscribers know, when you have such a lockdown and so much pent up demand, you look at

Starting point is 00:02:13 what's going on with copper, with lumber, so many sectors are hitting it and people are going, well, what about gold and silver? I remind everyone that $1,800 gold is a phenomenal price for me and the companies that I'm heavily invested in. And I get it. People want the two-handle because the four-handle and CPI came and 2000s better than 1800. I agree. But when you're all in sustaining cost is 8,900 and you know, you have 100% margins. That's a pretty good business to be in. So yes, the investors want Bitcoin-like returns and they want that action. But mining is the, you know, remember gold is the oldest currency in the world. So it moves a lot slower. And it's a much more global. There's 186 mines

Starting point is 00:03:03 with over, for example, with over 2 million ounces. It's everywhere. And it's a big business. Same as silver. Silver's not as much of a currency metal like gold is because over half is used for the industrial uses. So it's got one foot in the industrial sector and one foot in the precious metal. So you would expect silver to be doing better than it is. But from a gold, perspective, it's fantastic where it is from a free cash flow standpoint if you're invested in the right producers. And speaking of the right producers, one of the most interesting things I think we've seen in the last year was Berkshire Hathaway taking a position in Barrick's gold, but then also

Starting point is 00:03:44 selling it shortly thereafter. Do you have any insight as to that company in particular and what that turnaround looked like for them? Yeah. So, look, Berwick is run by Mark Bristow. he's kind of a big personality in the business. And when that happened, I said, yeah, Warren Buffett's just a businessman. He's buying value and he's going to sell it when he catches that value. The gold investors use that as here it is, you know, we finally got Warren Buffett.

Starting point is 00:04:11 And Warren Buffett does what Warren Buffett does, which is make money. And that's what I got to remind everyone to get in the gold world. And I get so much hate, tray, from this. People are like, you don't believe in the conspiracy theories and, you know, that Goldman Sachs and the Fed are suppressing gold. Guys, it's just a business, just like anything else. And it's about margins. And it's about free cash flow. It's about dividends. So do I own Barrick?

Starting point is 00:04:36 No, I think there's better places to be. Do I think it's a great company? Yes. But that's not what I do. Like, they're the biggest gold market cap, them in Newmont, number one and two, battling for that throne. But I think there's easier places to make money. that are cheaper, because if you're the big ETS that want that 5% exposure to gold, Barrick and Newmont are the easy way to play at Franco, Nevada, the world's largest

Starting point is 00:05:03 precious metal royalty and streaming company and silver wheat and the now called Wheaton precious. Those are the easy ways to play. So they carry a higher premium than the not so known multi-billion dollar market cap companies that are on their way to produce a million ounces. That's the sweet spot where the value investor should be looking at just before the big money comes in and starts overvaluing the deal. So I look at it as a slow and steady strategy. $2,000 gold would be great.

Starting point is 00:05:33 I do believe we'll see it. But for my valuations tray, I've published this for years. I use $1,400 gold from my metrics. And at $1,400 gold, I want to see three-year paybacks. There's traditional value metrics used in the mining. world, but I haven't seen a single research report in the world valuing new hidden costs that are going to come across a board. And not just from increasing taxes and government take that you're going to see in non-swap, negative swap line nations. You're hearing the rumblings in Peru.

Starting point is 00:06:05 There's going to be more government hate. You know, Chile is rattling the cages in the copper world. Well, 28% of the world's copper comes from Chile. South America is very key to a lot of these metals. And the market is kind of priming it up and there's no shortage. I was involved in financing it from day one on Canada's third largest copper producer. It's the third largest mine in Canada. I know the copper markets really well. There's absolutely no shortage of copper at four and a half dollars. There's a timeline to get it online with permitting and the cost, which means the costs will rise. And we're in a crossflation environment where you're seeing certain assets really inflate, other assets deflate. So there's this crossflation going on.

Starting point is 00:06:49 But for years, I fought the whole peak oil crowd. And I said, guys, never bet against human ingenuity and entrepreneurship. And this is before fracking took over. Guys were making fortunes off this peak oil concept or the peak gold or peak copper. No, there's peak government take at the point where they take it all. But other than that, there's no shortage of any of these commodities. It's just the time lag and the cost to put it into production. Well, you mentioned there are better places to make money that are cheaper. And one of those things that comes to mind is uranium, which has been doing decently actually over the last year, but still less than half of what it was in around, say,

Starting point is 00:07:31 2011 after the Fukushima disaster. And it seems to be sort of turning a corner. But talk to us about the narrative around uranium use and how it's turned, the sentiment has turned a little bit more positive recently? The uranium market, since my first book came out in 2014, I've been the largest finance year of uranium. And the market created this kind of, there's a big anti-Katusa push on this because I'm basically saying, why do I need to go somewhere in Africa or South America where these projects

Starting point is 00:08:02 are not that new? They've been recycled. The management teams who own these projects in the past broke their promises and the big dreams that they sold the locals and the government. And nothing really happened. In addition, I'm one of the few guys that have been to all the major producing uranium mines on the planet, not just in Canada, in the Athabasca Bayesian or the U.S., but in the FSU, former Soviet Union. And what people really forget is the importance of Kazadiprom. Kazakhstan is the, you know, think of all the OPEC nations and Russia combined in the uranium market. And I remember in 2015,

Starting point is 00:08:37 I was asked to come give the keynote at the World Nuclear Fuel Summit. That's where all the utilities buy the uranium from the producers. And they brought me up there. And I basically just talked about the elephant in the room, which was Kazadaprop. And people forget to understand the FX advantage that the Russians and Kazakhs have. And when I look back into these assets, these were all developed, you know, this drilled out by, you know, the former USSR. are, then they came in and brought North American technology and money to build these things. And then they started production.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And then what I've trying to explain to everyone in these negative swap lines, Kazadiprom has done the same thing. You know, when you look at some of these assets that some of the Japanese or Kamiko, you still own a majority and it's reverted now Kazatoprom owns a majority. What is some foreign company or some Canadian company or some American company or some French company going to do in Kazadiprom? Let's really think about that. You know that they have all the advantage on all their tools, and it's just a matter of time.

Starting point is 00:09:42 So with the FX advantage, $30 uranium before Fukushima, that's like $75 uranium for the Kazak. So they produce about 42% of the world's primary uranium. Then you look at where to go. And even though the spot price is still half of pre-Fukushima, it's actually been not the utilities trade that's been buying it and moving the market. What's happened here is quite interesting. It's been the equity companies, the actual holding companies like Yellowcake, uranium royalty corps, even explorers that don't even produce uranium that have raised money from the markets and gone into the market to buy the uranium.

Starting point is 00:10:22 And it's such a small market, a fragile market, that the pinch will come. Plus, the sentiment in the market is changing because, in my opinion, as I wrote in 2014, You can't have a net neutral world without nuclear. Now, like anything, there's been a big learning curve, and the old reactor designs did have mistakes and there were issues. The new designs are economic, and they don't take that big $10, $15 billion capx hit up front that the utilities can't afford.

Starting point is 00:10:55 So it's a gradual, like the gold business, it's a business and you have to look at the right market. If you're sitting on a 300% gain, sell some. Take your initial capital plus enough to cover your cat taxes plus a little profit. And if you do believe in it, let the rest ride without any pressure because it is a very volatile market. And that's what I've been preaching to my subscribers. But you don't need to go in the middle of nowhere where you need security to take you

Starting point is 00:11:24 to the project where the locals don't want you because there's some pounds in the ground found from some oil company 45 years ago, but this management team's going to do it. There's easier ways to make money in the uranium market. Stick to wiser, warm ISR, and the Athabasca Basin, and you're going to make a fortune. Well, we're going to talk a lot about climate change and initiatives and how to kind of invest in these new initiatives. And you mentioned nuclear being almost a cornerstone of this, but obviously it has sort of a stigma around it that's, I think, changing. And there was that recent documentary on Bill Gates where he's going over this new nuclear reactor that they've developed and how much safer it is, et cetera. If that were to go into effect,

Starting point is 00:12:10 say these countries really start adopting something like nuclear to power the base electrical grid. What kind of uranium consumption does that require? And what should we expect for the demand of uranium if that were to go into effect? Bill Gates's company's kind of getting a lot of the attention because it's Bill Gates and came out with his book, how to prevent the climate crisis. It's actually a pretty good book. What he said about nuclear is correct. But there's one company ahead of him in America right now.

Starting point is 00:12:39 They're actually building the reactor and the DOE put it ahead, put Billion into it. And it's called X Energy. And they're building one in Washington State right now. The CEO of that is a guy named Clay Cell. I sat down with him. We had over an hour, two hour. We went through the numbers.

Starting point is 00:12:55 And think of it as smaller, so it's quicker to build up front, but these things can add on. Think of it as modular reactors, kind of like a Lego piece. Instead of building four big reactors all at once and putting up that cost up front, you can add on as a modular reactor. So right now you look at the uranium world and it's just not economic. America doesn't produce any. There's zero actual economics at $30 in change. Conventional uranium, that's digging up rock, crushing it, extracting the yellow cake out of it. Realistically, you need about $55, $60 to make somewhat of a return for investors.

Starting point is 00:13:39 Wiser uranium is the cheapest form of production. You need about $40, and that's in the U.S. if you're permitted and built. And what I'm trying to explain to everyone, like I've said on your show two years ago and last year, I built mines. It is incredibly hard to build a mine and finance. These are expensive. Building a uranium mine is like being a troll, going to the high school prom, expecting to get the prom queen. Like the odds of that happening are so hard. And with the nimbie crowd of a uranium, but you can go and buy permitted, built uranium assets that are just waiting for the price at a discount to nav, meaning it's cheaper to go buy these things that are built. permit it, then to go actually build it. So why would I go and build it? And that was my whole thesis on our place. So let's just say in the next five to 10 years, Biden's administration, they're not

Starting point is 00:14:33 there yet, but there are rumblings that it's going that direction. And the reactor being built in Washington State right now is going to happen. And it's going to be kind of the case study for North America and Europe. There's another one going to be decided. in Ontario. That's the largest province in Canada. I believe it'll be X energy, also the same group, building the one in Washington State, run by Klaisell. So it's going to be slow and steady, but the growth's not going to be in America. Even though America consumes 25% of the global uranium today, the growth is the emerging markets like China, Saudi Arabia, and what's going on in the Middle East. That's full steam ahead. And trust me, in the Chinese administration, they're not focused

Starting point is 00:15:20 on what the protesters or any of the NIMBY, not in my backyard crowd are saying. It's full throttle moving ahead. And that's where the big growth is. Now, they're going to get their uranium domestically and from Russia and Kazatadro. And that's been a big issue with what's going on with Australia. Remember, Australia is a Commonwealth nation, just like Canada is, former the UK. And China always believed that they would get all their nuclear energy from Australia. And They did sign contracts, but all those are at risk. So that's a bullish catalyst point for China. Russia plays key into that because Russia has the centrifuges to actually create the uranium

Starting point is 00:16:02 that the mines need. America today does not have the infrastructure set to downblend their nuclear warheads to meet the needs that they have for the DOJ with all their military needs or their energy. And at the same time, the market because of Fukushima and the low, low cost of borrowing of Japanese money, they haven't needed to really focus on a strategic standpoint because it was cheaper just to buy Kazakh or former Soviet Union uranium. But it's reaching that headpoint where now the DOE is going to have to build up their stockpiles. You're seeing the utilities are going to have to step in.

Starting point is 00:16:41 The mining companies are actually buying these things. So things like Uranium Participation Corp, you know, they're going out to raise money to buy more supply. Yellow cake listed on the US, which is owned, I think, about 6, 7% by uranium royalty corp. They're going and buying the yellow cake. The NASDAQ, the only NASDAQ listed company that has uranium exposures called ticker symbols, U-Roy, Uranium Ruralty Corp. They've gone out and bought this uranium and they're going to store it at Comradite. So all of these things, it's not just the nuclear reactors, a lot of the supply that has been sitting there because a Fukushima and the low cost of capital, just the market, you know, the dynamics at the time,

Starting point is 00:17:21 they're kind of cleaning itself up. So yes, I think the price of uranium is going to go a lot higher. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys to imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord, and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st through the 3rd, 2026, the Oslo Freedom Forum is entering its 18th year, bringing together activists, technologists, journalists, investors, and builders from all over the world, many of them operating on the front lines of history. This is where you hear firsthand stories from people using Bitcoin to survive currency collapse, using AI to expose human rights abuses, and building technology under censorship and authoritarian pressures.

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Starting point is 00:21:41 bit, I really want to talk about carbon credits, which you know a lot about. And it's actually a topic that's really interesting to me and certainly a burgeoning industry as well. Let's just start out by please just lay out your thesis for us about how the world's obligation to decarbonize will produce what you deem to be a $16 trillion opportunity. Probably going to be bigger than that. I'm being pretty conservative with the numbers. So when I kind of sat down, in March of last year. We had an incredible run in our fund and in our newsletter, like incredible, top 1% of the funds in the world. And sadly, what happened was I realized I was working crazy hours. The stress was big. I gained about 25 pounds that month. And I went, whoa, this is kind of bad for

Starting point is 00:22:29 me. And I'm locked up in Vancouver. I'm a guy that usually lives on the road doing what I do. And it was new to me. And being home, which I'm never home, you know, that fridge became every hour visit. And I started kind of just thinking about things. And I wonder, geez, you know, with everything shut down, how is this going to play out with the environment? So the conception at the time was, wow, we're going to have a big reduction in carbon emissions. But what actually happened was, even though the world essentially shut down for most of 2020, the global emissions, greenhouse gases, reduced less than 5% for 2020. And that was kind of something that I was thinking about and researching, Because what a lot of people in your audience may not know, I was one of the largest financiers

Starting point is 00:23:14 of green energy in 2014-50. So, for example, the United States' largest ever geothermal project built in the last 15 years, I was the largest shareholder that financed. Canada's largest pure green energy company was run by a very close to your friend of mine named Ross Beattie. I was the second largest shareholder. But my style is coming in at the boom, bust, and echo. It's this strategy that I really took.

Starting point is 00:23:40 talk about in my new book that's been kind of a key framework for my investments. And I get in when people are kind of done with it and they think something doesn't work. My wife, who's got an MBA and she's a geologist, brilliant mine, was telling me about when she was doing her MBA, a lot of their case studies in 2009 were about carbon credits. And I would go to these lectures and I would listen about it. And it was just too early. It was in what I call the boom phase. It wasn't properly regulated. What is a carbon credit? Is a carbon credit that Trey creates the same as a carbon credit that Marin creates or that

Starting point is 00:24:16 the, you know, some mafia creates? What's the validity of this credit? Who says that it's a credit? These are all questions that were early. Now, let's fast forward. So how did this all start? In 1997 at the Kyoto Protocol, 180 nations signed up to this agreement saying, yeah, this is a problem. we obviously see what's going on with China.

Starting point is 00:24:37 And back then, they projected quite accurately where we are today. For example, if you take every car on the planet and add up its carbon emissions in a year, China produces more carbon emissions just from the concrete they create every year. Think about that. And every year, there's a new New York City being built every month for the next 40 years. That's the magnitude of development that's going on in the planet. There's even a whole audience that don't even believe in global, you know, the climate change and all these aspects.

Starting point is 00:25:08 But let's just really hone in on what is the real situation. Now, 15 years ago, ESG funds were a concept, the environmental, social, and governance aspect. But we've gotten to the point, as the boomers are phasing out, the millennials are phasing in, there's the largest pool of capital ever coming in into this sector with what I call a stakeholder capitalism perspective. It can't just be good for a bunch of rich, white, old dudes who go around the world and extract value. It has to have value for the locals, the indigenous population that was there before the company got there, the environment, the government, and down the road. And China's not going to tax themselves on this. In all honesty, why should they? You know,

Starting point is 00:25:56 you think about Europe and North America for 100 years, all of that development that came and moving society forward with the electrification and the industrialization. There was no carbon tax for Europe or North America. So saying, hey, the carbon emissions just from China's concrete every year equals all the car emissions on the planet, China's not going to tax themselves. So you have a whole perspective of what's going to happen, but these public companies. So when I ripped through the data, there's over 4,500 public companies in North America and Europe with over a billion dollar market cap. That's a B, a billion dollar market cap. And you have about 8% of them in the last 12 months came out with some form of, hey, we have to reduce our carbon footprint.

Starting point is 00:26:46 So they came up with a plan. Did they all of a sudden do that because they have a conscience? maybe, but really, when I've talked about in 1997, 180 countries signed up. Trey, how many of them do you think actually met their numbers for reduction of emissions? Two. Zero. I was being generous, I think. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:27:08 So what my point is, you can have good intentions, but without skin in the game, nothing changes. Because bureaucrats and politicians, they change, and, oh, well, we tried. and generally they're champagne socialists. They want to talk about change, but they don't know how to make change. Well, the biggest impact the millennial investor is going to make through these ESG funds, they're going to put the fire on the ass of these directors of these public companies and the CEOs, and it's going to be something called cost of capital. So these ESG funds, people don't realize that it's the largest growing sector in the bond market.

Starting point is 00:27:43 We're talking about over 25 times growth from 2013 to today. And here's the wild part. The U.S. government, the U.S. sector has been 2% of the capital for that. It's been majority EU. So once the American Eagle wakes up to this, which it will, and under the Biden administration, it's going to be one of the impacts. Now, whether you agree with what Biden's doing or not, but one huge fact that is going to happen is the trillions of dollars that is going to be invested in these sectors are going to have

Starting point is 00:28:14 a mandate. It's kind of like when you, I do a lot of lending to companies. You have covenants, right? Trade's got to have your leverage ratios, your cash flow ratios. The management has to meet covenants that they agree to. These green bonds come to these companies, and not only do they have to meet these financial covenants, they have to meet the E, the environmental covenants, the S, the social governance.

Starting point is 00:28:36 So they're going to have to have, what is your carbon footprint? How are you including the indigenous people? And then from a governance standpoint, the G is, for example, a big pipeline company came out and they tapped into the green bonds and they had to say 40% of our population workforce is going to be females by 2030. And if they don't mean that, their cost of capital goes up to match the bond market of the non-green bonds. So the green bonds, if you meet this, is a lower cost of capital. These companies really want this because it means more free cash flow for their shareholders, which means they got skin in the game. They make more money for

Starting point is 00:29:15 This is the facts of how it's moving forward. So how does this all go about? So if you, since 1997, there's been about four billion carbon credits created. Now, that's including the good, the bad, and the ugly. And during that time, there's been a lot of ugly. Remember, it was this boom phase. Then there's this bust phase, which we're at right now. You're in what I call the echo where people are starting to figure out.

Starting point is 00:29:39 Hold on a second. We have to be verified. So you can't use a carbon credit twice. It's used as an offset. It's a commodity. It's going to be the biggest commodity over the next 25 years because you have to go and create these. And just planting trees isn't the solution. If you look at the average American, you know, just the footprint of an average American

Starting point is 00:29:59 would equal about 50 acres of forest planted over 40 years to offset one American. If you just quickly do the numbers, that would be something like 45% of the global landmass would have to be planted in over 40 years. That would just negate the American population property. So that's not a solution either. It's important and there's ways to increase it, but then there's blue carbon. What about the ocean? And that's going to be a growing sector. Apple, Apple computer just came out on Friday after market with the press release saying, we've invested in all this and we're coming out with 30,000 carbon credits a year on our Blue Carbon Project, which is kind of a mangrove, which is about 80 or 70% underwater, 30% above

Starting point is 00:30:44 water. And it's 30,000 credits and it's about 20 bucks a ton for their cost. These trade in the European on the EPS is at about 60 American equivalents. I think it's a little over 50 euros in Canada. The prime minister, like our president, he mandated in law that by 2030, it's $170 per ton to offset. And the Alberta provincial governments, that's the Texas of Canada, the oil producer and the gas producer, majority in Canada, took this all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to fight it and lost about three weeks ago. It's law. It's done. And one thing, what is the one

Starting point is 00:31:25 thing you can guarantee that politicians are going to do? Tax more. But here's the beauty of this. This is the only tax I've ever seen that you and I can participate and take our fair share of. Where we're going to be in 10 years, green bonds aren't going to be this new thing. It's just going to be all bonds are going to require this ESG aspect. Today it's still pretty early. And remember, 91.5% of the public companies haven't even come up with this. We're just talking about the beginning. We're not even in the first inning of this game.

Starting point is 00:31:56 We're still in the farm league of this baseball game. We haven't even got to the big leagues yet. It is a sector that's going. And if Exxon just wanted to negate its impact, there's S1, S2, S3, S1, it's direct carbon. So it's like actually lifting or if they crack at the emissions, they actually create. S2 is direct and indirect. And then S3 is all of the above combined. And I never use S3.

Starting point is 00:32:24 But if you just take the five largest oil American companies, they would need to soak up all of the carbon credits created since 1919. 97. That's including the good, the bad, and the ugly. But that was then. Where are we going now? Now you have, it's starting to get globalized where you have like the big three verifiers, you know, like an accounting after Arthur Anderson scandal, PWC, Ernst & Young. They really created an international standard with GATT. Today it's IFRS. That's what's happening right now in the carbon credit world where verifiers like Versa or gold standard, there's three big ones and they have ledgers.

Starting point is 00:33:00 And these actually trade. And in the first three months of this year, we've already traded more carbon credits and dollar value than the last two years combined. And it's not just speculators buying it. It's corporations looking to offset because their cost of capital will become lower and then they can meet the needs of the pension funds and the sovereign wealth funds. And what exchange is this trading on? So the three big ones. So for example, you can go, think of it as like ledgers or it's not like you can go on your e-trade account and buy these verifiers. You can do it through the ETFs for that way. I think there's better ways of doing it than that.

Starting point is 00:33:37 You could go on to the European EU ETS. That's one way of actually if you just have an online brokerage account, but you can actually kind of like in commodities, you can't really buy a lot of the commodities on your e-trade account or your online brokerage account. You can buy an ETP that does it. But if you actually contact the ledgers or the commodity markets, you can actually buy these contracts. That's eventually going to change where they're going to list, just like Bitcoin had its

Starting point is 00:34:04 transition and it listed and it became easier and easier for. for the retail person and the institutions to buy it. That's where we're going with these carbon credits. But a company doesn't need to go online and buy it through these ledgers. They can contact the actual ledger like a Versa and contact them or the guys who are actually creating the commodity of carbon credit. And that's the hardest thing. A lot of people are like, what the hell is a carbon credit?

Starting point is 00:34:27 What does it look like? I can't see it. Well, it's the equivalent to a ton of carbon dioxide. It's got an equivalent aspect. So if you think about it, a million carbon credits is the equivalent of about a quarter million cars a years of emissions on a standard average car that the average American household owns called the average mini-bath. So it's just over a quarter million.

Starting point is 00:34:54 So it's a way to visualize what this is. You know, if you think about it even in a simpler way, one tree, a traditional fur or an oak, take a big Douglas fir from beginning to 40 years of its peak absorption, it's about worth for carbon credit. You can see how difficult it is to go and create these. Now, if me and you, Trey, said, we want to go create these carbon credits, like, let's compare it to Bitcoin. We want to create a Bitcoin farm and you have an algorithm.

Starting point is 00:35:22 You and I cannot certify this. There's a process to actually go and certify the science is there. Then you pop it onto the blockchain, and these corporations are going to want the highest standard. So like I mentioned, the big three verifiers, like a Bursa or a gold standard, these different courts that you have to pay. But you might think you have a million credits. Like Apple got it certified, and they came up with 30,000 credits for the next 20 years. And their cost is around 20 bucks, US per ton. And then they're using that to offset. Microsoft went into the market at the end of last year and bought 1.3 million credits to offset their thing because they're trying to be a leader

Starting point is 00:36:03 But there's a bigger angle here that I think this is kind of the last chapter of my book, which I call The Rise of America. And it really hit me one day because of quarantine and we're not allowed to go anywhere in Canada. And Canada is that such a horrible job managing COVID. So, you know, like every average family in Canada, Amazon and deliveries to your door. And I started thinking about this and came home one day. And I looked, there's this huge box. And I go bend down.

Starting point is 00:36:31 And the thing weighed like nothing. And I opened this up and had a bunch of packaging. And my wife bought one white out pen, one pen, had this huge box. And I started thinking, what is the carbon footprint of this? So I started doing the math on it. And I started realizing that no wonder, with the world shutting down, we've only reduced our carbon footprint by less than 5% globally. Amazon's making a huge push, huge push, that they're going carbon neutral.

Starting point is 00:37:00 Net zero is really hard. It means you don't create any emissions. Net neutral is saying, hey, I offset the emissions we make. And they're investing billions of dollars to make their delivery trucks electric. And they're doing step one, the right things. But imagine if in my household, my wife manages all of the inside house, everything, ordering everything. And imagine if you empower the average American, the average European, the average Canadian, on your online purchases to go net neutral.

Starting point is 00:37:31 The industrial revolution that would come from the green bonds. And this thing that's polluting from China is coming here. And everyone's turning a blind eye because it's cheap. But we can today. We have cheaper power and clean green power in America like Texas. I finance 200 megawatt projects in Texas, the top flats, which is cheaper than lignite power in China. That's where we're at on the economics.

Starting point is 00:37:57 Texas is the Saudi Arabia of wind power. It is so cheap right now. With the low cost of capital and the robotics and technology and the IP, Amazon can reduce a huge, remember, $700 billion of goods comes into America through Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, and Costco. Think about the footprint that that makes from China that's unchecked. Remember, China's not going to be going into the market, but by empowering the people, by going net neutral, just on that, that has nothing to do with the whole companies are making this, but that's going to be a a huge catalyst. We've already had companies contact me regarding this concept. And when you see that

Starting point is 00:38:36 the average person does want to make a high paying job in their local community and make an impact with the environment because you're going to significantly reduce emissions, that will be a game changer to China also because they're going to realize, oh, we've got to pick up our standards. Think about the threat to the communist regime on that standpoint and their agenda. And if you're Taiwan, And you're definitely paying attention to what I'm doing. And I know they are because they've contacted me on this. So you sit on these second order effects here that by just doing the right thing, the companies get a lower cost of capital and it becomes higher cash flow.

Starting point is 00:39:14 We improve the stakeholder capitalism. And this is just growing, just beginning. And last year, they created about just under 200 million credits of carbon, just 200. Right now we produce over 50 billion globally. But if we just attack 10% of the S&P 500 companies to go net neutral, you're going to need a couple of billion credits just to be absorbed in the market. I have never seen such a supply and demand, ARB, in any commodity. And, Trey, I was the largest finance here in uranium.

Starting point is 00:39:47 I've been there and done that. I am the largest in the gold sector. And I have never seen an opportunity like what I'm seeing right now in the carbon world. That's what I'm not quite clear on, I think, is that, okay, the value in my opinion, I guess initially looking at this was that it's from some kind of fixed supply of sorts. And maybe that's why there was a downfall, as you kind of expressed earlier in the initial days of carbon credits. And there was a little bit of a bare market that happened.

Starting point is 00:40:14 And now you have to verify the supply chain of sorts. So that's what's not quite clear to me, Marin, because it seems like we do need to add a lot more supply of these things to the market potentially. So where does the value derive from? You've mentioned that this asset class is the biggest outperformer over the last three years, including surpassing Bitcoin and performance. So how are you measuring that? Is it Apple buying their tons for 20 bucks a pop?

Starting point is 00:40:43 That's actually what is trading right now in the voluntary market. Like if you want it, like you trade could go on and buy these credits. That's what it is in the European market. The head of the European Union just came out. that that price needs to over double or to make an impact on the company. And again, the governments are starting to figure out that a bunch of bureaucrats, a bunch of Champaign Socialists aren't going to make the change. The companies are going to make the change.

Starting point is 00:41:07 But it's the flow of capital that is, remember how big the bond market. Everyone focuses on the stock market, but the bond market is the smart money. And this huge explosion of ESG green bonds are going to fund this revolution. And it's happening now. And you want to go build a gold mine? okay, your cost of capital on one mine is going to cost anywhere between depending on the project. I'm in this market. So I know the exact numbers anywhere between 8 and 12%. Now, if I'm now certified, bond, green, and I can get there, my cost of capital is somewhere between 3 and 5.

Starting point is 00:41:40 And you're talking about if the management understand this, I'm having all of the senior executives of these cold companies phoning me up. Remember last year when I came up with this whole negative swap line concept, they hated me. Because they're like, what the hell is a swap line? And why are you freaking out my shareholders saying that the governments are going to start taking more? Well, they are. Look what Argentina is doing. Look what Peru is doing. Look what is going on across the board. And it's starting to create this value driver for large tier one deposits in North America and politically stable jurisdictions with the respect to the rule of law. And now these companies are starting to realize like, Gonschish, you know, if my margins are 14, 15%, for this commodity I produce, but my cost of capital is costing me $8, 9%,000. in, they're clipping a 4% R2. But if they can reduce their cost of capital to say 4%, that doubles

Starting point is 00:42:28 their free cash flow. And there's a huge surges in this. So they're starting to realize. So for example, the CEO of the largest builder of nuclear reactors on the planet today, I had a call with it. And he was like, okay, we're net zero. I go, well, no, you're not. Think about the concrete and everything that goes on when you have to build it. But imagine now you can truly, because that was the whole thing that the anti-nuclear rule talked about going, well, hold on a second. There's a footprint to producing uranium. True. Well, there's a footprint to building your reactor. That is also true. But you can offset that. And out of the gates, you truly are net zero. And when I walked him through the math and how he can go about this, he goes, this is a no-brainer. We're on this. Can you introduce

Starting point is 00:43:13 me to these? We're in the infancy here. And it is going to be a huge growing trend. A mining company in the 1940s or 50s, do you think they even had local educational seminars or any of that? They came into the town. They built and they left, right? Think about the evolution and change. Stakeholder capitalism is where the world is going and moving forward. It can't just be good for the company.

Starting point is 00:43:39 It has to be good for everyone involved. And this carbon offset is going to become a massive play moving forward. And it would be one thing doing this 10 years ago, the technology. wasn't there, A, to verify it, put it on the blockchain, the cost of capital, there was no incentive for the companies to do this. And China could produce everything cheaper. It's just we already set up the factories. And the cost of electricity in America at the time, we were so fossil.

Starting point is 00:44:06 Remember, 15 years ago, half of America's electricity generation came from coal. Now it's half of that. And it's going to continue to decrease because the technology has gotten down so cheap for the materials for wind and solar and it's going to continue to improve. Now, look, I'm not here to support or cheer for any of these companies or what's going on, but the trend is your friend. This is where the sector is going. I think this is going to continue to outperform Bitcoin. And I love Bitcoin. You know, I've invested in Mark Hart's fund. And if anyone knows who Mark Hart, he was talking about this five, six years ago. So I'm one of these guys that rather than trying

Starting point is 00:44:44 to have my fingers and everything, I figure out who the best is in their specific discipline, put a bunch of dough in and then ride their victory. And with Mark and Worth, it's been an incredible journey through this crypto benefit and rise. But as I was digging more and more into this carbon sector, I realized that it started, Tray, with exactly that, you know, governments. Think about the screw ups the UN did. I've read case studies about a year ago when they would go into Brazil and they would plant

Starting point is 00:45:13 what they thought would be a faster growing tree in an area where that species didn't belong. And then what did it do? Rice inflation. They attracted the local farmers, which screwed up the farms beside it, created hate from the existing farmers. It absorbed way more water, introduced new bugs and pesticides, and it was a disaster. So that's the evolution curve of where it was in 1998 to about 2014. That was kind of its first phase, and just like anything, whether it's Ethereum or mining

Starting point is 00:45:43 or fracking. I remember when a four-stage or an eight-stage frack was big. Remember, I wrote an article in 2008, one day we'll get to a 24 stage fracks. Now they're doing like a 128 stage fracks, and that's just like normal Monday business. They don't even talk about that anymore, zipper fracks and all these things that, you know, think about Murphy's law. That's where we're getting into the sector. And I get it's a really hard thing for people to get their heads around.

Starting point is 00:46:12 This reminds me of Bitcoin in 2010 and 11, and it was difficult. and the adoption wasn't yet there, that's where we're going. And it lines up in the best interest of the management teams, the stakeholder capitalism facts. And overall, it empowers the average American household to really support an industrial revolution that America hasn't ever seen since the 1940s, cheap power, you've got the robotics, you've got the cheap cost of capital, the green bonds coming in, the IP is already there. and they can produce the same gadgets and everything that China does at a cheaper overall cost

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Starting point is 00:50:31 or result from the production is not taxed or captured in any sort of monetary penalty. I guess my question is with carbon credits, seemingly, you know, they're coming on. online to offset and decrease the impact of these global emissions, but we're going to need more and more of them. Do they seemingly lose value then over time as there is an increase? Okay. Talk to me about that. Opposite. So if you think about it, as the price goes higher, it's demand increase. It's, it's, it's, Giffin's good. First of all, there's no other replacement for it. You can't create the rare earth. I was a big rarer player about 15 years ago. there is no replacement for carbon credit.

Starting point is 00:51:12 That's the fact. Number two, I totally agree. Think about China's emissions are greater every year than all of the OECD nations combined plus more. You're not going to get Xi Ping to say, we agree. It is an air apocalypse. We agree. What we're doing is in such a large scale that the planet has never seen it before. He's going to argue, yeah, but we're doing it for you because you guys need the stuff,

Starting point is 00:51:39 because you're not doing it, you're not polluting where you are. That was the whole argument of the emerging market, specifically China. But what I'm getting at is saying 10 years ago, that was a correct argument. Because even if it was a low cost of capital, and even if the robotic technology was there and the IP was there for America, the electricity cost to generate, to power this stuff, was just too high. It just wasn't economic. All of the stars of the line now, and the platform is for this resurgence.

Starting point is 00:52:07 So it's not just going to be by American. Remember what Trump did, whether you like Trump or not is irrelevant. He rattled the cage with China and he broke the foreign policy that America's had with China since WHO, which was an engagement of cooperation. Trump broke that and said, no, no, no, I'm competing with you. Where he screwed up was he didn't have the EU on board, which is their second largest customer, because he pissed them all off by saying, you're going to pay your fair share for the UN. and NATO. And so they were like, hold on a second. Now you're going to tell us to pay more and you want us to do what we want in China. And remember, other governments kind of took a different strategy saying, well, let's see where Trump is in three years. So Trump didn't have the right strategy. But what did Biden do? With Anthony Blington's strategy, did it change? No, they're totally continuing with it is the engagement of competition with China. But what was Anthony Blington's first mission as Secretary of State? He went to France.

Starting point is 00:53:07 And remember, that's where he was educated. He was a rich kid in the U.S. His parents got divorced. He went to France. That's where he got educated. He's seen as one of them. He went there, Macron, and they kind of kissed him neat up, and he got a line. Then he went to Italy.

Starting point is 00:53:20 Then he went to Germany. And this move is moving forward. Now, you look at, for example, pools of capital. Mark Carney, who was the governor of the Bank of England, his book just came out. Now, Mark Carney works with Brookfield. And that is the biggest pool of capital in Canada. And he's saying this carbon initiative is the number one thing. It is going to be, after COVID, the governments are going to be this war on carbon.

Starting point is 00:53:47 Politicians always need a war on something. But they've realized that sanctions aren't good. Look what it's happened to Iran. It's pushed them towards the hands of China. But if you empower the American household to empower their purchasing power, And that will be a huge catalyst in coordination. At the same time, these green bonds are happening totally independently because more money is being controlled by passive funds than ever before.

Starting point is 00:54:15 And it's continuing to increase. The carbon credits become a key vital aspect. And it's a giffing good, which essentially means as the price goes up, the demand for it goes up. And okay, so how do you go and create it? I've actually broken down in my research reports. Think of it as a gold mine and just pretend we were talking gold here and all these countries needed gold.

Starting point is 00:54:38 Okay, well, you'll just go take the gold. Well, it doesn't work like that with carbon credits. There's one project on the planet, one that has been verified that can do 10 million tons a year for 20 years. That's it. Just like a gold mine, you've got to go and explore and dig and drill and do the calculations and feasibility studies to see if it's economic. That's what happens with these carbon projects,

Starting point is 00:55:02 and you've got to put up the money up front. A lot of people think that a carbon credit is a tax, that the government can just create them out of thin air. No, it is not. It is a commodity that you have to get certified. And like I said, back in the early 2000s up to mid-2010, these were cowboy territory. What was the certification?

Starting point is 00:55:22 And those credits aren't really valued anymore, and you can't really put those on exchanges. People are like, wait a second, what bucket shop verified this? What I'm saying now is not all carbon credits are equal and a carbon credit that is, say, like a blue carbon, the second order effects of creating a, for example, coral reef, an algae and the effect of the biodiversity impact and protection, those blue carbon credits are going to have a huge value down the road, not just from the price of them, but they cost more to produce, to create, to verify. But, you know, if you're Delta Airlines, they came out and just said, hey, we're

Starting point is 00:56:00 investing in this stuff. And it's going to be more and more companies. And it's going to be the opposite of, well, we can just create these out of thin air. And the price will crash. That's, that was kind of phase one of the cycle. And those weren't even yet certified and verified by it. Look, there's a lot of companies that claim balance sheets. And then you look at who the auditor is, and you're like, I've never heard of these guys. That's probably not real. That's where it was. When a PWC signs off, it doesn't guarantee that it's 100% correct, but you get a lot more comfort if PricewaterhouseCoopers or Ernst & Young or any of the big accounting firms have signed off and done the verification of the financials.

Starting point is 00:56:39 Another thing, Trey, mark my words, guaranteed within 10 years. Just like the changes in accounting have to incorporate different things like liabilities, bonds, and projects, they're going to create on your balance sheet what your carbon footprint is. And like I said, the government of Canada mandated this by law. It's going to be just like when you go to a mine, you have to certify your bond for your tailings pond, and that's a liability for the life of the project. Your carbon footprint is going to be on the balance sheet. And that's going to be mandated by the law. And step one is what Canada just did.

Starting point is 00:57:13 And they mandated by law that the carbon price is $170 per ton by 2030. Right now it's $40 a ton. That's a mandated by law, and they're going to keep increasing it. So I expect it to go a lot higher than it is right now. And I'm not saying you use $60 in your valuations. Just like I use $1,400 gold in my companies, you can find companies out there that are using $10 in their valuations. And you invest in these companies because they can sell it to Microsoft or some mining company for $20 or $30. If the company is in a pinch, they can go to the exchange and buy it at $6.

Starting point is 00:57:52 dollars, which is happening, but that's one way of doing it. I'm saying a bigger bang for your buck, just like in mining, you find these companies that are producing these things that nobody is paying attention to. They're cash flows. Like, for example, one company is using $10 per ton. Their IRAs at $10 per ton right now, cash flows. These are certified, built projects, are four times the IRA of the big four precious metal company IRAs using $1,800 gold. Is this a public company or? Yeah, it's a public company. So I sit there and I say to myself, wait a second, this is kind of interesting.

Starting point is 00:58:32 I'm not saying put 100% of your net worth into Bitcoin or gold or anything, but I'm going, these numbers are insane. If you start using from an IRA standpoint, right now, the average IRA for a good precious metal royalty stream that's producing is somewhere between four and six percent. You can buy using $10 carbon 20, 25 percent IRAs. Now, you tell me, first of all, Apple just came out and said, they're doing 30,000 tons between 12 and 20 bucks. You know it's going to 20 bucks and they put that price range. This is still one third of what the price is that's trading on the exchanges. There's this incredible arm. And then the government in Canada mandated by law, whether you like it or not,

Starting point is 00:59:14 you're paying $170 per ton by 2030. These projects roll out for 20, 30 years. And you build a giant blue carbon mangrove project. It's not like a mine where, okay, we've got a six-year mine life and the gold's gone. These are all verified and certified. So I can only imagine what people are thinking here and they're probably like, what is this guy talking about? But there's websites out there, like the Bloomberg of Carbon Credits is www.

Starting point is 00:59:40 carbon credits.com, you can educate yourself on this sector. And I just think if you want to see where the sector is going, these companies are going to have to do this. And every, you pull up any mining company before they get into their assets, they're talking about their ESG, because they're not going to get, they cannot get invested. Think about this. Do you know what the seventh, or sorry, I think it's top eight company on the SMP 500 in the ESG ETF is Home Depot. I don't know. I'm a second. I don't How the hell does that make any sense? That's how early we are in this sector and go look at where most of the tools and equipment from Home Depot is made from China.

Starting point is 01:00:20 Once this goes with the option, you know, like when you go buy any food, it has like your calories and fat, once the government gets to a point where they educate the, you know, provide the information because remember with AI, all of that is known. That's how good their AI is. They know exactly where these carbon credits are coming from. They know this. Jeff Bezos is going to get on this. And this is part of his, you know, you want to create a huge impact.

Starting point is 01:00:44 Imagine now 100 million users clicking net neutral, buy American, clean American. Let's talk about America a little bit because you have a new book coming out called The Rise of America. And it seems like somewhat of a contrarian idea at the moment. So talk to us a little bit about the premise of the book and what drove you to write it. I'm Canadian. And there was this because of Trump. Canada's very left. Think of Canada as California.

Starting point is 01:01:15 And my wife and her friends, and they're all well-to-do, great people. But I would be sitting there. And one comment was made, imagine how much better America would be doing if Hillary was president. And I kind of just sat there and I went, well, okay. And there's this anti-American theme globally. And I guess you can say rightfully so. America's been a bully. Think about what they've done around the world.

Starting point is 01:01:42 But at the end of the day, when I started looking at the data on this, and you locked me up in a room for a year or in a house, after that first month when I gained 25 pounds, I realized I better stop doing this and start putting my energies towards something else. My first book I wrote when I was locked up after my heart surgery, I had a quadruple bypass. And then this time with quarantine, I said, you know what? I've got some really contrarian views.

Starting point is 01:02:08 And as I was writing these views, we were killing it in the market based off of these framework that nobody's talking about. In fact, I was getting mocked and ridiculed, but I'm sitting there going, we're pulling like three, four, five, six, seven baggers and liquid. And I start realizing that, wait a second, it's cool to hate America. It's cool to think that, you know, America's empire, its greatest days are behind it. Everyone's saying that it's MMT is here. And I'm saying, wait a second. I actually think that what Biden's policies are doing, we're in a new normal. So I started writing about that.

Starting point is 01:02:45 And then I talked about understanding the U.S. dollar. I've built projects around the world. I've been to over 115 countries. When you start doing that, you get a different perspective. And then I started going, okay, we're in a new normal. Try to understand the U.S. dollar. We're in a new monetary world, too. There's no doubt about it.

Starting point is 01:03:02 Things are very different. But people keep talking about, I link the old world, the Keynes world with the 2% target. And I really break down using data. Why was 2%? What did New Zealand do? Why was 2%? Linking it back to natural gold production, using the old framework. Is MMT really here?

Starting point is 01:03:23 Is UBI on the way? Or maybe we're taking a new accelerated version of the longest serving Fed chairman of all time, which was really the guy from the late 30s, the name was Marion, and he was there for over 20 years, and that was more about FMC, a fiscal monetary coordination. And you can see that playing out. So I questioned those aspects. Then I talk about, okay, let's understand what money is, the short history of money and what is gold and why does gold matter. And I talked about where I really have an advantage over all these other fund managers is actually the building of these energy projects, which I've done for my career, funding these things, being the largest shareholder.

Starting point is 01:04:05 You know, Trey, you can be an analyst, but then when you put your money on the line, you try to go build something, just try doing a rental in your house and see how that goes, or try to go build a house. Imagine building a huge 300 megawatt wind farm or a 500 megawatt run of river project. You start learning how difficult it is and where the costs are going and the cost inflation, cost deflation, all these different aspects. And then by fluke, because what I did in my past, I was heavily evolved into critical metals like the rare earths and the uranium. Don't bet against America. America does its best when it has its back to the wall. And this market, and I start talking about how where we are from the flow of capital, demographics,

Starting point is 01:04:48 the situation where we are debt globally. I explore this whole concept of what people are really talking about a debt jubilee and how would that work and the second order effect. So as I was writing about this anyways, based off my investments, I came up with a very contrary in view. And I'm the largest investor and financier of these gold projects. And most people invest in gold to fight the US dollar, right? That was the old thesis. Gold up, dollar down. And I'm coming up saying, wait a second, we're in a new normal.

Starting point is 01:05:20 And the guys that I used to work with and invest with, they were like negative interest rates can't happen. Maren and I was arguing back then that they can happen. And I started talking about quantum economics and how things are changing, where things are going, and the deflationary effects with technology and all these aspects. And I wrote a chapter that my publisher was like, hey, man, you're going to get us banned from Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and Wall Street. We just can't publish this. This is so out there.

Starting point is 01:05:47 And I said, well, the one benefit of having a bestseller in your first thing is negotiating what you put in your publishing contract. So I knew ahead of time where I was going with this. So the last chapter, I think, is the biggest outside the box concept. And it's called the Forbidden Chapter. And I really lay out piecing the first eight chapters together and where the rise of America, the specifics of how it will happen. And at the end of the day, I get it.

Starting point is 01:06:15 People are tired of America. And it's never been more divisive politically. that people have never had less trust in the media and the government. And it sounds like, you know, if you looked at the media, it's never been worse. It has. This is not new to America's past. And remember, this is a nation that went through a civil war, and it prevailed. And my argument is, yes, we are in a G2 world where it's America and its allies on one side and China wanting to rattle. And I really discussed the whole U.S. dollar as the reserve currency of the world. And whether you're a Bitcoin fan or not, whether you're a gold fan or not, whether you're a U.S. fan or not,

Starting point is 01:07:00 I lay this out not in an opinion way, data driven, because that's my strength. I'm excited to read it. Listen, I'm not a macro economist by any stretch of the imagination. But it's just so interesting to me to hear you talk about America thriving in this way because my general understanding is that there's this juxtaposition of sorts by maintaining this world reserve currency that we have, meaning it's either negative or positive. The understanding I have is that, you know, the right of having this world reserve currency ultimately results in us constantly running this deficit that we're doing right now because we need to get more

Starting point is 01:07:36 dollars out into the world. By doing that, we're essentially mercantiling these other countries like China and giving them rise to a lot of new wealth. And a lot of those dollars going out into the system are going to buy things like commodities and mostly oil because since the mid-70s, we essentially transitioned from, you know, U.S. dollar backed by gold to now what's called the petro dollar system, right? Because it's essentially that we created an agreement with Saudi Arabia that said, look, you're going to price your oil and dollars. And so therefore, we essentially backed the U.S. dollar by energy.

Starting point is 01:08:11 And I guess my question is that the negative effect I've seen from that is that it's essentially carved out our middle class here in America because instead of we now created this incentive to buy goods, mostly importing our goods from other countries. So it's basically exported our manufacturing. And so the U.S. is now more of a financial services and healthcare center in the world. But there's been a lot of that middle class eroded away. And I guess my ultimate question is, A, do you agree with that? And B, if Petro, if we go back to our earlier conversation here about moving towards renewable energy, as Petro goes more and more away,

Starting point is 01:08:53 how do we maintain this reserve currency status? Is it backed by renewables in somewhere? Are we making deals with Texas, as you mentioned, you know, who's the new Saudi Arabia? I agree with you everywhere up until when you said that the Petro dollar was backed by oil, which it facilitates that, but also, don't forget the other side of the equation was the military, the greatest military on the planet. That's what the Saudi royal family got out of this was guaranteed support. In my book, I really break down the critical role Israel plays in all this, what's going to happen with Iran. And remember, I've traveled through these places. I've actually done business in these areas, and it's a unique area that's full of broken promises. Now, in my first book,

Starting point is 01:09:37 I had a whole chapter breaking down everything on the petro dollar, and I said, we're at the beginning of the unwind of the petro dollar. So as crazy as this will sound trade to a lot of the haters on the U.S. dollar, when you unwind that petro dollar was actually a shortage of U.S. dollars in this market that was so used to the petro dollar being flooded into the market. But you set a key part. So much of these petro dollars or U.S. dollars went into commodities and things that people needed and manufactured. and debt, and that debt has to be repaid in U.S. dollars. So, you know, that's the one thing about debt. You have to pay it back or you default and someone else takes that asset. So then we get to the part.

Starting point is 01:10:19 And you said the key part was America's played this cheaper manufacturing from importing things, but we are changing. The form of energy is changing. It's a transition. Just like we went from dial up internet to cable, fiber optic, and now we're going to be getting into the 5G and then who knows what will be after 5G. Everything is changing. And now, if you can build these low cost operating, robotic, the technology, that wasn't there 15 or even 10 years ago. So that's going to start and it's coming and leading the way. I'm not just saying

Starting point is 01:10:57 buy Tesla or do with this stuff, but think about where the markets are going for these platform companies because they see so much growth. Jeff Bezos said it the best on his AGM. 28% of all of our sales happen in less than 90 seconds because they're telling you already what you already want. They have Amazon's choice and you just click it. And I fall for the stuff all the time. I just sit there, I don't know, I need paper, whatever.

Starting point is 01:11:22 Order it. And when your profile is set up and all these moves in this way, I know it's hard for people because people are thinking in this linear world or I call it the when you talk about debts and how much debt America has, for GDP or per capita, it's still much better than the euro or Canada. As bad as America is, it's much better than Japan or the Europe. Like, what is Europe, at least with the U.S. dollar, I know who owes you. With the euro, who, you know, is it the French?

Starting point is 01:11:53 Is it the Germans? Are you going to rely on a bunch of Croatians? Like, what is the euro about, right? And now you've got to get 29 nations or 28 nations to agree on things and where that's going in the bureaucracy. So for Canada, you know, you look at Canada's situation. So I agree with you. It's a process. And this is, America's pretty beaten down right now.

Starting point is 01:12:16 And all I'm saying is this is not a linear, nor is it by far done. We're only at the beginning of the rise of America. And I'm going to say it right now and I know people are going to shake their heads. People think of America's height as the 1950s, that the 50s were the glory days. America yet has not seen its glory days. As good as it was, but this is all said and done, I truly believe America's best days are ahead of it. That doesn't mean this is a battle. It is a massive World War III going on with China and this G2 world.

Starting point is 01:12:50 But ask yourself, what happened to Jack Ma? What would happen to Jack Ma if you is from Silicon Valley? Let's quickly touch on China because they're one of the main countries that comes to mind who is a little bit disincentivized to keep investing in something like, you know, U.S. bonds, especially with interest rates being what they are and being so low, you're not getting much yield, and then you've got the idea of the U.S. dollar inflating away. I recently heard that six years ago, trade between China and Russia was 98% in U.S. dollars, and last year it was only 33%.

Starting point is 01:13:25 So they're finding ways to trade without the U.S. dollar more and more. And now they've got this Chinese digital currency coming out and that might, you know, exacerbate that trend. So they're one of the main countries, I think, trying to get away from this World Reserve currency U.S. status. So what are we to think about that or do about that? And how does that play into your kind of forecast here? Remember, my first book, The Cold War,

Starting point is 01:13:49 talked about how Russia and China will work closer together and all of the money. They have to do that. But also, you look at the prices. A lot of the devil's in the details, when you look at the data six years ago, you were using $100 oil. Now they're buying that same oil from Russia for $35 a barrel, $40. So there's different aspects that come into play there. Number two, long-term offset contracts, the big pipeline infrastructure.

Starting point is 01:14:16 And as they are going to continue with that strategy, the greatest deal happening on the planet right now is the deal that China is making with Iran because Iran has no. no other choices. So I agree with you 100%, and I lay that out. This is where the G2 world really is solidifying, but at the same standpoint, look what happened between March and May of 2020. We look at the swap lines, that America, that greatly exceeded any of the Chinese Wan swap lines that they gave to their partners. So yes, China's importance in the Belt One Road, what they're trying to do there is growing, but it's nowhere near as important as, is what America is to its allies today.

Starting point is 01:14:58 It's going to grow, but let's not forget how important America is to someone like an India. Is it just coincidence that India and China are battling on the border and Prime Minister Modi comes out and says he's got SwapLine envy quote, and you're going to see massive billion dollar investments from the big American platform companies like Google, Apple, Facebook into India. the next country to get a U.S. swap line is India. They're doing everything right to be on an American platform. Well, being an American, I certainly hope you're right. I love the title, The Rise of America. So the book is coming out May 25th, and we're really looking forward to reading it. So, Marin, this is why we love having you on the show. We just had such a wide-ranging discussion.

Starting point is 01:15:43 We covered so much. And I know that you and I could stay here all day and go over this stuff because we love it so much. I'd be remiss if I didn't give you an opportunity to hand off your latest book, your first book and also Catusa Research and any other resources you want to share. Sure. You can go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, The Rise of America. Go to Catusa Research.com. Marin, thanks again. Cheers. Stay well.

Starting point is 01:16:09 All right, everybody. That's all we had for you today. If you're loving the show, go ahead and follow us on your favorite podcast app. Go ahead and check out the TIP finance tool. Just Google TIP finance. It should pop right up. Go ahead and give me a shout on Twitter at Trey Locker. be, or if you have a question that you'd like to hear us answer on the show, go to Ask

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We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP353: The Best Performing Asset Is Not Bitcoin w/ Marin Katusa

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