How to Survive the Economic Collapse

00:01 Amidst the financial crisis akin to a financial 9-11, it is time once again for the program that comes to you from both ends of the spectrum of Gitmo Nation. Coming to you from Gitmo Nation East, I'm Adam Curry. And I'm John C. Dvorak up here in Gitmo Nation Northwest, Pacific Northwest to be specific. Washington State. Studio B today. Studio B. You sound okay. This is just on the headset, right? Yeah, I know. I don't have any gear here. Well, John, let me ask you a question. Do you feel the bottom yet? Do you feel it? That was the bottom. Oh, please. Oh, please. That was not the bottom. Well, you know, it was just the bottom was 10,000. I've said that a million times and it and I actually expected it to pass through to, you know, 98 or something like that, but didn't.

01:00 And it was just about to smack it and then it just said, well, I think this is close enough and now we're on an upswing. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed your, what did you call it, random podcast with Andrew Horowitz. Horowitz. Yeah, that was good. You guys really got down to some good stuff in that about the financial markets. Hey cynical, I mean he's like you are about the bottom. You know yeah, I could tell that's why I liked it most of the brokers that I know who are in the business They're all they're all singing the blues and then and then when the bottom is like saved you know we do with the bum you bounce off of it they and the government you know turns us into a socialist country Then they complain I said this baffling to me. I'd actually take it one step further and

01:52 I know we're just kind of jumping in the middle here, but I looked up the definition of a fascist state and I think we're pretty close to it. Isn't this when... Corporatism, yeah. Yeah, it's when the corporations and the government basically collude. But in this case it's not the government taking over the corporations, it's the corporations taking over the government. But I think the result is the same thing. It's been baffling to me. How we can let this happen? Yeah, so besides the stock market, which I agree, sure, it's going to go up mainly because you can't bet against it going down effectively with the ban on short selling or at least the ban on short selling of financials. But that ends October 2nd, I think? Yeah. Right. That's when you're going to start to see the bottom. That's when they'll come rushing up at us.

02:51 I don't think so. Really? I mean, you don't think that this has been a complete beginning of the destruction of everything that makes America's economy work? It's a base for the future. Really? And you're really that optimistic about it? For the next year, yeah. Man, I see this in such a different way, John. I really do. And actually, to be honest about it, even though I don't want to sound like a communist, we've had to do something with our financial structure to deal with the Chinese. Because they own so much of us? Is that what you mean? No, it's... well, that... but no, they run a kind of a corporate... although it's done in... it's in reverse. They have their...

03:48 government, you know, telling corporations what to do more than we do. We have our corporations telling the government what to do, but it's the same, there's this collusion between the government and these companies that makes it hard to compete with them because they'll have the government bail out. There's companies that are screwed up and we've never done that before because we believe that technically if a company, you know, because we talk a big game about free enterprise and capitalism, we believe that the companies run by a bunch of boneheads who are raping the shareholders and stealing the money and pocketing it and buying houses in Gestalt.

04:31 We believe that if the company fails that these people should be run out of town or run out of business or should go broke themselves but but a more corrupt system which doesn't allow for that seems to be what the Chinese have and So I think we're mimicking it but all but you know I mean, I'm really struggling with this, mainly because I've been talking about something like this happening and it actually taking place and now I'm trying to understand what it all means. But, you know, these, all these measures and these bailouts, that's, but that's not to save anything in the real economy. I mean, yeah, maybe saving the auto industry is one thing, but this is just saving guys who are pushing paper around. Yeah, I know, it's hilarious.

05:21 You don't hear me laughing. I'm almost shell-shocked. On Friday I went to Amsterdam for a number of reasons and I'll tell you exactly what they were and honestly, one, to go get some physical gold. I told you I was going to do that. And by the way, do you know what a bar of gold weighs? A lot. 12 kilos. Yeah, how much, how many bars? One? Are you kidding me? Did the plane take off? We barely, barely made it off the ground. But that's 12 kilos. That's huge. I thought it was a little more, uh, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, uh, well, anyway. So let me get this straight. You went to, to Holland. Uh huh.

06:07 and made this pod show delayed the pod show a day I might add yeah of course and uh... to pick up a twenty five pound bar of gold yeah amongst other things I also um... I was invited to a party which had been planned well in advance but turned out to be a very in the timing turned out to be really interesting of um... the private banking division of Mace Pearson which have been uh... I've been a client with them for ten years and uh... they were bought up by Fortis couple years ago yeah oops exactly and so but the party still went on and and I was the only client I might add that showed up to the party the only one and it was I mean people were just dude they were like shell-shocked

06:55 And the stories they were telling me, it was, I mean, it was, they, the past two weeks have been so horrible, just for them business-wise. And they, I don't think they even believe that they're gonna, that they have any type of future. Everyone was pretty much like, well, that's it, you know, it's over, done with, forget about it. And they felt this way because they thought that the government now will be running the finances and they are out of business? No, they felt this way because of the enormous outflows of cash. So, you know, they're... Yeah, so, you know, they manage private individuals and also like non-profits and, you know, they... Oh, I see that. So people are pulling... It's like, for example, clients might be buying bars of gold instead of giving them... Yeah, that would be one example. They'd be like, why don't... You can buy the gold, you can... It'll just be on paper. Like, no, no, that's not the point. We can do that too, but... That is not the point. I actually want to have the physical gold. That was not easy to arrange, I'll tell you.

07:56 That's because they don't want anybody having the gold. No, of course not. But it's also not easy to obtain is what I found out. And they were like, you should go buy diamonds. I'm like, I don't know shit about diamonds. And that's not a very easy market. That's a cartel, you know. That's De Beers runs that show. Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah, you can go into any kind of old west honky tonk bar and you got the gold, you know, you get a drink. So what I also did is I spent some time because the actual the equivalent of the FDIC guarantees in Europe are a little different. They're significantly lower I might add.

08:36 So I think per account, they insure 20,000 euros, they insure 100% of the first 20,000 euros on deposit and then 90% of the second 20,000. So it was at 38,000 combined. But you know, it's like, where are you going to go? You've got Fortis, you've got ABN AMRO, which, oh, by the way, part of that bought by Fortis, part of that bought by Royal Bank of Scotland. And they only have one other one which I really like is the Rabobank, which is not publicly listed and it's a cooperative. So they have hundreds of small banks all across the country and they're open on Saturdays. So I don't think there's a bank in the United States that's not open on Saturday. Oh, it's very atypical for the Netherlands to have a bank open on Saturdays. Very atypical.

09:36 Yes, but I was just, you know, I'm just amazed at what's going on. It's, people are, you know, money markets are now also, you know, returning negative equity, money market funds. Yeah, well that's because, yeah, that was that one, I think we talked to, if you listen to the first Dvorak Horowitz market discussion. No, I didn't listen to the first one. I didn't hear the first one. We talked about that. Back up to the first one. But anyway, so I mean forget about... By the way, anyone who wants to listen to that stuff, it's on Dvorak.org slash blog. Yeah, do you have an RSS feed for that? Are you going to do more? What's the deal with it? I think it's an outstanding conversation. I really like... Well, the RSS feed exists. Yeah, it's all a prelude to this book that I have to finish.

10:27 I'm laying the marketing groundwork. And Horowitz and I are actually gonna do a little thing together, which is going to be to dissect Yahoo Finance. Because he can answer the questions that I've been asking around. Like, for example, if you have a book value of three billion dollars, and an enterprise value of two billion dollars for one company, and you have a book value of three billion dollars and an enterprise value of 3.5 billion dollars for another company, which is the better investment? Oh, okay. My head hurts. Yeah, no, I know. It's just like, you know. That's, that goes with that. You know, I know because I've always asked that question when I look at these numbers and I say, does that mean this is better than this or that? And he's going to explain it. Right. The guy's amazing. Anyway, so,

11:26 We'll probably do one or two more of those before I shut it down. Before the big crash, exactly. No, the big crash is, you know, we've got a year to go on that. You know, I don't think so, John. Well, okay, maybe it is a year, but... Can I just play out my scenario? First of all, what has been done here with this, and I guess they announce it tomorrow, the, what do they call it? The Resolutionary Trust Corporation? The Revolutionary Trust Corporation? The Resolution Trust Corporation. So basically everyone gets to put all their bullshit in there, and the only ways to actually pay for that

12:10 or to be able to afford it is by either, well I guess one of three scenarios, maybe four. Collecting higher taxes, printing up more money, borrowing more from China, which I think is pretty much out of the question, or complete collapse. Right, I think the last alternative is to be avoided. Right, but how can you avoid that? I just don't see how it can happen. You know, it's like a deflationary crash, which we tried to avoid, with uh... a buyout that you've been talking about this for a long time which will be hyperinflationary. Yeah. It just buys us a little bit of time.

12:48 Yeah, and that's bad? If you're in a sinking ship, you want some more time. You don't want the thing to go to the bottom in two seconds. No, I understand that, but no one else understands that. The Joe public doesn't get it. And, you know, and, and... No, there's one other element here that everybody seems to overlook. Okay. And I've had a conversation on the plane coming up here. Virgin America by the way, they should be sponsoring the show. And... We sure as hell seem to be sponsoring Virgin. Well you in particular. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, really, they should cost some of that money back up. We keep mentioning them fondly. Richard Branson... You know, we have to start slamming him. Maybe that'll work. Well, Branson's now gonna buy Gatwick Airport. So, he's busy.

13:38 You're kidding me. Yeah, it's up for sale because BAA, which is run by the Spaniards I might add, um, you know, Senor. Yes, Senor BAA. Get on the plane. Please, but ticket and passport. So, you know, they own Stancid, Heathrow and Gatwick and all three airports are shit. I haven't actually tried Terminal 5 yet, but we know they had plenty of problems, which was attributed to BA, British Airways. So they've been broken up essentially and it's for sale for two billion pounds, four billion dollars, or actually a little less now. What, BAA? No, no, not BAA. Gatwick is for sale. Just that one piece they have to spin off. And so immediately, well, you know, Richard Branson is just the brand and he has these huge hedge funds that sit behind him.

14:28 Or he stands in front of them, I should say. So that would be interesting. But I don't know if anyone would put up $2 billion. I don't know if they can even get that type of financing in today's situation. So he's working on some sort of a deal? Yeah, well that's what the Financial Times said. Financial Times by the way, I went out and got the Saturday Sunday edition. There's not one, yeah there's like two articles about sports and one of them was about the owner of Newcastle United who just lost 300 million backing HBOS, the bank, which was just taken over by Lloyds TSB to avoid the financial meltdown in the United Kingdom.

15:09 But everything else is all about this financial crisis. Nothing else in the paper about anything. Anything. So what did you learn? What I learned is that this is just the collapse of a like a multi-level marketing Ponzi scheme and I and I... Yeah, seriously and I think it's it's gonna take everything down. I think it's gonna be really really serious, you know, because... You don't think it's serious already? Yeah, no, but I don't think it's painting people yet. I don't think they understand what it means. When markets collapse, we need markets even just to, you know, for our food to get transported. You need all kinds of financial markets to make shit run.

15:57 And when that all comes down, they're probably going to close markets and try to make up new regulation. How is business going to be done? That's what I don't see. There's a real risk in that. There really is. I think the whole basis for this is to get the housing market jump-started. Oh, see, now, that's interesting you say that because there's a couple things that I'm picking up on and so here's the general, here's what the public is being taught and I learned this from Sarah Palin who, and I'd want to talk about her specifically because I've been paying attention to her as well.

16:35 So, the message going out to the average American, which I would say is 99%, when it comes to understanding this type of stuff and what it really means and what they're fed through corporate news media, is this problem was created by short sellers. Bad guys, bad, bad, gonna stop them. Which is the, I read a great great quote about this, the analogy of banning short selling is the fire department, fire investigators investigating a number of arsons by, you know, and then saying okay we're going to stop this, we're going to ban the sale of matches.

17:16 So that's the main message, is that this was done by rogue traders, bad bankers, short selling, shouldn't have it, shouldn't be done. And of course, the real blame is being put on homeowners. You bad homeowners, you lied on your application. It's all your fault. and this man not known better than sarah palin because i've been studying her man that wow did the republican party do a great job by getting her in you know what now i know why she didn't do an interview for about two weeks after the uh... after the convention is because she went to the george bush uh... training school of uh... uh... repeating the talking points and she's and if you listen to her she sounds just like george bush not not in the voice or anything like that but she's she's

18:02 spitting out the talking points in the simplest way by saying, and she talks really fast, well of course we've got the financial crisis, we have bad traders, bad practices, gotta regulate that. And she's just like George Bush, only faster and prettier. Have you listened to her? And then it's like, well did you see the Saturday Night Live skit about you? And she's already been trained to say, so what they told her to say was yes, tell him you saw it, you loved it, but you didn't actually hear it because of course she can't respond to any of what was discussed in that skit.

18:40 And if she's asked about policy, then all she has to say is, of course John McCain has the right policy for that. John McCain has all the policies on the table. And she says, oh well, I saw it, it was fantastic, I loved the skit, I laughed. Well, I couldn't actually hear what was being said because I had the sound turned way down, but boy, I really loved it. Miss Palin, could you play Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live? Absolutely I could, you better believe I could. And she'll be on too, you can count on it. And she is an actress and a really good one. Well, here's the thing that got me about that. Now, you're her and you're just in and out of Alaska and you sound like you're from Minnesota and you're somehow sitting around or you've heard about Tina Fey on a national television show is going to imitate you

19:34 And you're gonna keep the sound down. I mean, how about that for a bold-face lie? What? That's an out-and-out lie. Yeah, of course it's a lie, but that's... Because I don't care who you are. Even if you know they're gonna slam you, you're gonna... If it's gonna be Tina Fey doing a comedy act, you have to see what she's saying so you can at least be upset about it. So, gee, that's a revelation. Liars. politicians wow that's a big one it could happen now but anyway so that was that was pretty lame but pay attention to it John pay attention she's passing on the talking points just beautifully in very short understandable Joe Blow bursts of sound bites it's awesome with it it's awesome yeah well that's what you're supposed to do

20:29 The problem with Obama is that he doesn't keep track of the talking points. He's always going, uh, uh, he's thinking and making these Berkeley-like sounds. Um, uh, um, uh. Going through the list. Yeah, of which one to pull up. Well, you know, you can see when John McCain, when he said, he alluded that the fundamentals of the economy were strong, and then, You know, the press jumped on that. I guess the press being maybe CNN jumped on it. And then they gave him new talking points for him to explain what he exactly meant. And you can see him looking down at his cue cards the whole time, bumbling around, trying to read the line, still look kind of comfortable because there's no teleprompter in one of these kind of like stump speech scenarios.

21:20 It's just that they're actors and they're not writing any of this. They don't know what the hell to say. They're not in touch with anything. Not in touch with what's going on. They don't even have time to read a newspaper, except for the headline. Let alone listen to the sound of the skit. Right. The sound of the skit. Hey look, I'm on television. I haven't got time for it. I don't want to hear it. Ah, shit, who cares? But she looks like me. Man, actually that was a pretty funny bit. It was great. It wasn't it wasn't particularly insulting by any means It was actually quite funny. Yeah, it worked Yeah, I thought it worked so um if she did that thing the thing that she did the most would which I because I was Annoyed by this apparently Tina Fey who's a fairly good mimic. She does a Donner or a condoleezza rice that is absolutely hilarious

22:13 But she did that thing with her mouth that Paley kept doing, which was either... It's like putting your lip up, your lower lip up above the upper lip and then I guess wiping your teeth with your tongue while your mouth's closed. It's kind of like a MySpace picture pose. Yeah, so Tina Fey was just doing that just constantly. It's this funny looking thing that she does. Yeah, it was very good. Which is not attractive by the way. Palin, somebody in Palin's camp should tell her to stop it or wear better lipstick. Because the only reason, you know, a lot of women get into the habit of cleaning their teeth with their tongue because they get lipstick all over their teeth. And she's wearing her hair down now, which I like. I was waiting for that. We didn't actually see the transition, but yeah, I like that.

23:08 What a circus, man. What a circus. Anyway, so here's what I predict will happen, John, if you don't mind me just going out on a limb, because you're much more positive than I am. I think. But I see the market moving along, I see this RTC getting put in place and I see October 2nd, they take off the short selling restrictions. It takes about a month for shit to start barreling down. We go into full-blown crisis and the elections are postponed. Oh brother. I think that's a very feasible scenario.

23:47 And it won't be because the financials are dead, it'll be because food's not rolling. Elections are postponed. Alright, well that's a good theory. Keep it right. People out there listening. You think that's crazy? People out there listening, take a note please because I can't... I've... you know, we've said stupid things on the show before and nobody documents it. And the two of us... It's all a matter of history. Let me finish. The two of us are too lazy to ever go back or even take notes while we're doing this show, so it'll be some vague reference six months from now. Yeah, didn't you say when everybody's like two old men?

24:29 So I want the public out there that listens to the show to do it, you know, to somebody out there. There's got to be some guy out there that just likes to document everything, besides Bubba, who does a good job with the notes, but he's not going to go back and give us the history. But no, no, no, people are documenting this because they've all called me on my $200 a barrel oil, which of course is because you keep calling me on it, which I've since said... Oh, you mean before you bought into that bullshit? Like, we got pretty close. We got to almost $150. Well, sorry, I'm just... Yeah, come on. But anyway, so I said, alright, I'm wrong, but now I'm pretty sure we're gonna ride it down to 60. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, that's alright.

25:06 Okay, here's what I think is going to happen then. If you're going to make the prediction that the key element of your prediction is that the elections are going to be postponed. Yes, correct. Yeah, well, that's not going to happen. Okay. What's going to happen is kind of what you're seeing. There's going to be a hesitation around the day that the short selling is reinstituted, but it's probably going to just be a blip. And then people are going to know there's an election coming and things are going to change because the administration is going to be swapped out. The election is going to take place and everyone knows what I think is going to happen, but it doesn't make any difference. Either guy can win and whichever guy wins, the stock market starts to take off.

25:49 And it'll be on that within a week. People re-evaluate everything and they're gonna, you know, say it was Obama, oh he's got all these experts, he's got the economic experts, he's got a new way of doing things. The Democrats have had a lot of prosperity under Clinton, even though he's more of a Republican in my way of thinking. And then this thing's gonna skyrocket. Same thing with McCain. Oh good, the Republicans at least don't have to worry about the Democrats screwing things up. So things are gonna skyrocket. So the market is going to rocket. And here's the basic... premise that I always have about the... But you're talking about the market, John. The market is one thing. I mean, the market can do whatever the fuck it wants to do. But what's actually going on is what's happening to the economy, the real economy and the wealth of people and the value of their money. I mean, the market, yeah. Yeah, no, I'm just saying, but when I say the market, I mean the stock market plus the general economy. It's taken me 48 shows to understand that when you talk about the stock market that way, that doesn't actually have

26:48 anything to do with what the actual economy will be doing. Yeah, I know we'll still be in the toilet, but people, there'll be more jobs and the housing market will recover, the value of things will go up and the value of the dollar will probably improve and everything's going to be rosy. And the reason for that is, and this is what I was trying to say earlier, which is that you can't really have an economic collapse the way you're describing it. Why not? because the public's not involved enough. The only time you have an economic collapse is when the entire system, and I'd be a little cynical about this and people think, well, you're just kidding as usual. But I think that if you look at the way these things work, it's never the guys at the top, and we see some evidence of it with these creepy executives who took $200 million a year out of their companies while they were losing money.

27:41 Until the public at large is invested into the market where it's their money, where they're the end result, the suckers at the very end that are suddenly back in the market. And we haven't seen that for a while. I mean, they were in the market in the late 90s when it tanked. They were heavily in the market in the 1920s when it tanked. They were in the market in the late 60s. I remember my parents bought some stock in some dipshit company in the middle of nowhere out of the blue in like 1968 or 1967. I'm a little kid, but they're going, oh yeah, we had to buy this stock because my sister-in-law is working for this company and it's gonna do this and that. They never owned stock ever.

28:26 But now they're buying stock. So until that, so you have to set up, the game has to be set up in such a way that the public at large jumps into the market, pushes this thing into some ridiculous highs. I'm thinking Dow Jones 30,000 by the way. And then you pull the rug out from under it and everybody's out except the public. They're the ones who take it in the shorts. You know, this is like the, you know, everything else that the public is screwed over with, like the lotteries, for example, where you get, where they only return 50% of the money. But who buys those stupid lottery tickets? It's the public.

29:01 You know, so every state now has some lottery so every dummy in the world can like give their money to the government freely. You know, they like it. You know, they like to gamble, you know, and maybe they can win the ten billion dollars. It's ridiculous. It's a joke. It's hilarious. Okay, but so following on... So that hasn't happened. So there's not going to be any collapse. Okay. Well, I just see it differently. I mean, I think the collapse of these, you know, Look, every company, every publicly listed company has all kinds of debt and you know, it's just, I don't know, I just don't, I don't, I see it more as a direct hit to, well, A, to the value of the dollar which they can only keep propped up so long. It's going up. And I think the pension funds, those are pretty much wiped out.

28:26 But now they're buying stock. So until that, so you have to set up, the game has to be set up in such a way that the public at large jumps into the market, pushes this thing into some ridiculous highs. I'm thinking Dow Jones 30,000 by the way. And then you pull the rug out from under it and everybody's out except the public. They're the ones who take it in the shorts. You know, this is like the, you know, everything else that the public is screwed over with, like the lotteries, for example, where you get, where they only return 50% of the money. But who buys those stupid lottery tickets? It's the public.

29:01 You know, so every state now has some lottery so every dummy in the world can like give their money to the government freely. You know, they like it. You know, they like to gamble, you know, and maybe they can win the ten billion dollars. It's ridiculous. It's a joke. It's hilarious. Okay, but so following on... So that hasn't happened. So there's not going to be any collapse. Okay. Well, I just see it differently. I mean, I think the collapse of these, you know, Look, every company, every publicly listed company has all kinds of debt and you know, it's just, I don't know, I just don't, I don't, I see it more as a direct hit to, well, A, to the value of the dollar which they can only keep propped up so long. It's going up. And I think the pension funds, those are pretty much wiped out.

29:54 Yeah, that's the public. They won't get their pensions. But what I miss is the outrage. If we can spend, I guess it's going to be at least a trillion dollars, maybe much, much more than that. How come we couldn't fix healthcare with that kind of scheme? That's what that's the one that kills me. What the hell is that all about? We can throw a trillion dollars at these crooks and we can't spend a couple of billion on healthcare. It's hilarious. Unbelievable. I mean even the 180 billion for... I've lost track now. It was 85 billion for AIG. Right. I mean that could have fixed healthcare for a long time.

30:38 I know, we could have had colonies on Mars for this kind of money. But so how come no one's pissed? Am I the only person that's like pissed off? No, there's a lot of guys that are pissed off, but they're all like you. They read the Financial Times, you know, it's just a minority of people. It turns out to be inconsequential. Unless there's riots in the street. Well, why wouldn't that happen? You know, you know that there are now there are tent cities being built in every single major metropolis around the United States. And don't think about, you know, like green, you know, like the Green Army tents. I mean, these are like commercial tents, you know, and these people just have no, have no home anymore. And they're just going to go live in a tent. I don't know of any tent cities around the San Francisco Bay Area.

31:35 There's one, I know there's one in San Diego. I was reading that. Well, it's probably for the illegal aliens that came over. They need some place to stay. No, no, these are people like you and me who happen to have a tent in their garage. And people living in the garage want to stay in that. Because they get kicked out of their houses. In hard times, tent cities rise across the country and they show a map. This is an AP story from two days ago. A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer. Then others appeared, people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy.

32:16 Or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work. This is a Reno story. And discovered no one was hiring. Within weeks more than 150 people were living in tents, big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a camp. This is written by some novelist wannabe. Why are they a foot apart? I mean, how much... There's just building tents in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada desert. They could give themselves a little space. I mean, this doesn't spring right when I'm reading it. It is kind of a nice piece of prose there. It's a little corny. And that's only in Reno? It doesn't have any other places listed? No, no, it goes on and on. I'll continue. Let me read another couple more paragraphs or another paragraph. It was in weeks, blah, blah, blah. It was building its homeless population.

33:06 Patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters. Reno is building for its homeless population like many other cities. Reno has found itself with a tent city, an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go. From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the more visible rise in homeless encampments. in a generation. Nearly 61% of local and state homeless coalitions have said they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began. Oh, that's the reason. You know, does anybody remember Hands Across America? Yeah, I remember that, sure. That was supposed to end homelessness. Are you telling me it was just a big scam? It didn't work! Crap!

33:55 Well, it's not like we don't have homelessness in San Francisco, John. I mean, you can't walk down any street without tripping over someone. This has been going on, this has been the earmark of the entire eon beginning in 1980. Actually, it began probably in the 70s during the economic crisis of that era. But it's pretty much established itself as a as a just gonna be here. You know basically it's it's kinda medieval in San Francisco there's so many homeless people that you have to pay toll literally like you would have to in the in the Middle Ages and when you're crossing some part of Italy. Yeah, when you're walking down a certain block.

34:37 Yeah, you gotta give this guy some money and that guy some money and you can get to the end. I mean, it's not a lot of money, but you know, it's basically a redistribution of wealth. You know, a buck here and a buck there. You're the big spender, you give them five. It was funny, so I was outside this party in Amsterdam, I was going for a smoke, so I'm standing there, I'm looking at my mail and stuff, and a guy walks by, homeless, and he says, mumbles something, whatever, I think he spoke German. I'll give you some money. So I reach my pocket and I give him a coin which I wasn't quite yeah I thought I gave him a 2 euro coin. The guy comes back he said this is not real money. It was a 2 pound coin. And I said well it's 2 pounds it's real money yeah but I can't spend that. I said well keep it for good luck. Go away. He gave you the finger and walk away? Yeah he came back god damn it. Came back. Came back. This isn't real money dude. This is a real money from England.

35:40 One time I was in London floating around and some really guy with a sad story, some homeless, whatever you want to call him, beggar, comes up to me. So I gave him like a pound or something like that. And I swear to God, a truck was driving by with a bunch of guys in it and they stopped and started screaming at me. Yeah, because, yeah, yeah, don't give money to them. Yeah. I mean, they were really mad. And I said, wow, the British, these guys are harsh over here. You know? Has there ever been an instance in US history where the elections were postponed? Nope. Well, maybe in the 1700s or the early 1800s, it's possible. I mean, I don't know if there was even a firm date. That's a good question, as a matter of fact. I should know that, but I don't. But no, not in modern history.

36:41 Because there is all kinds of stuff on the internet about, I guess, some policy or something that the Bush administration has done to be able to cancel the elections. Here, now that the Bush administration has let it known, it's laying the foundations for the postponement and cancellation of the elections. Yeah, this is a big meme, right? I'm sure this is running right. It's some crooked crap is what it is. It is a meme. It's bull. I mean, they want to get out of there. You think? Bush doesn't look like a guy who wants to... They're gonna be... they have to get out of there. They're scrambling to get out. I don't think they even care who wins. I mean, the logic would... and by the way, if they postpone this thing for one day, they might as well just give the country to the Democrats. Well, they can't do that. All I know is I think our founding fathers were very, very, very, very smart when they introduced the Second Amendment.

37:52 Seriously. What's the difference between armed to the teeth? Well, it says right there to protect the country from enemies from, what is it, the outside and from within. I don't know, does it say from within? I think it does. I think it literally says within. That's why I like it so much. We're referring to the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. Because of course if you only had 1% of the guns in America take to the streets, that would be millions of guns. Millions. And we could actually take back what's rightfully ours. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed on. It's about enemies within. Are you sure? Read the whole thing. I'm looking at it. There's got to be some fine print there.

38:48 I thought it said, I've always understood it said enemies from the outside or where they would protect it from evil. No, it sounds like a... I mean that's... Well, are you reading it or what? I'm looking at it but I'm gonna have to get the whole... I'm trying to find it. You're looking at the... The problem is it had two versions that went out. What, two versions of the Constitution? There was a... No, there's two. This is a Bill of Rights. A Bill of Rights, I'm sorry, yeah. Yeah, there was a version that went out that was passed by the House and Senate, and then there was another copy, worded slightly differently, that was sent out to the states. Really? I didn't know that. That's interesting. So which one is valid? The difference is like one or two words. It doesn't mean anything. But I don't see any enemies. I'm trying to find a... The text is simple, straightforward. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That's it.

39:44 It doesn't say anything about enemies from within and without. Okay, then I'm wrong. Then I stand corrected. No, everything's pretty succinct. You know, they don't go into a lot of theoretical reasons. Okay. And in case anyone named Bush is president... Well, anyway, I can still hear you calling Ron Paul a kook. I like Ron Paul. Yeah, well he's definitely been predicting a lot of this shit happening. He was Mr. Get rid of the Fed, investigate the Fed, this is all messed up. They've created a bubble. Well, I think he totally nailed it. We should have him on this show. He should be the guy calling the shots here. He's actually predicting stuff that's happening.

40:39 We don't need him here with you on the show. Here's something really cool or cool or interesting that popped up on some of the aviation forums. You know what a NOTAM is? It's a notice to airmen and they're issued, a couple of people can issue them, FAA in America of course can always issue one. But certain air sectors, JFK could issue, every airfield has NOTAMs. It just tells you different stuff to look out for. And you can also call a temporary restricted area, TRA or TRS, which would be for space.

41:21 where you're not allowed to fly. And what's interesting about this no-fly zone that was set up all along the coast of Texas, where Ike went through, there's a no-fly zone there, and no one knows who put it up. which means it was probably FEMA at the end of the day and so none of the news helicopters can get any footage. It's a really thin strip of land right, you know how if you look at the, what's it called, what's that area called? If you look at the south coast of Texas there's this kind of like Long Island strip, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Galveston, yeah Galveston's on it.

42:08 So that entire island is now a no-fly zone. And so news helicopters are not allowed to shoot any footage. Have you seen the pictures that were shot? Yeah, it's nothing. There's nothing left. It's flat. It's unbelievable. They literally flattened the place. But did Ike do that? Yeah, I think so. What else would have done it? Well, I mean, that's pretty devastating. Yeah, it's a mess. But then, but why, why aren't news helicopters allowed to fly over and take footage? That's pretty new. As far as I can tell. I think it's probably just some, you know, some bureaucrat for some reason or other, you know, who knows? I mean, the problem is these things get into the system and then they, nobody can reverse it because nobody knows who did it. Yeah, well. You still there? Yeah, yeah, no, I'm looking at the,

43:11 What does it say? It says, uh, reason for no temp to provide a safe environment for disaster response and relief operations. They didn't do that with Katrina. It's suspicious. I don't know why they wouldn't. I mean, it doesn't make any difference. They've got plenty of pictures and it looks like crap. It's suspicious. And the place is just obliterated. And, uh, I'll tell you what else is highly, highly suspicious, John. We have had since Friday, the most absolutely stunning weather It has been beautiful, I mean, almost no clouds in the sky, blue skies, nice and warm. It's the 21st of September, right? And this weather is all of a sudden is beautiful all across Western Europe. And of course, I completely attribute that to the switch off of the Large Hadron Collider.

44:05 I don't think it was ever switched on. Yeah, of course it was. They switched it on on September 10th and that's when the weather went bad. It didn't work. No, no, but that's when... My understanding is we blogged it. There was a thing came out. It turned out that they never got to do the experiment. No, they haven't done the experiment, but they were spinning it up. They were spinning in one direction, then the other direction, and they didn't get to the actual collision part. But the spinning it up, I mean, there's stuff going on with that as well. Do you have a lot of magnets around the house just so you know that... Magnets are magical things, man. I'm telling you. There's magic in them magnets. There sure is. Yeah, you laugh at me. You laugh at me. I don't know where you get this stuff. From YouTube.

44:58 So the... You should look at some of that shit. I like the way you just make the leap of faith. It's not a leap of faith. Strange occurrence of actually nice weather in the British Isles, which is like rare in itself. Something worth noting. But not just in the British Isles. But it can't be just a coincidence that the weather happens to be nice for whatever reason. It has to be because of some man-made, you know, hadron collider spinning, you know, some magic. Someone sent me a scan of the New York Times. I don't know, you need to blog this if you haven't seen this already. The New York Times misspelled large hadron collider.

45:40 and made it late in the large Hardon Collider? That's funny because I accidentally typed it in a post when I was talking about the Hadron Collider. I typed in Hardon, which is easy enough to do, and the spellchecker had the little squiggly... I said, what? Oh, jeez, that's hilarious. So the New York Times did it. But the New York Times apparently doesn't use a spellchecker or Hardon is in their dictionary. Particularly a large one. Oh, yeah. A large hard-on. A large hard-on. I'll make that the album art. That was too funny. Way too funny. Man, we have... Skype is weird today. You just have the headphone? Do you have nothing else? No mixing board? I hear myself coming back from time to time. Oh, that makes no sense. Yeah. Alright. What else you got there, John? You've been thinking about something besides how to make a buck when the market goes out of control?

46:38 I was looking at the Bill of Rights. No, everything is very succinct in here. Yeah, what does it say about who's in control of the frickin' money, huh? What does it say about that? Doesn't really care. But isn't, yeah, isn't there something about the currency can only be controlled by the government? Please tell me there's something like that. That's in the Constitution. Okay. Oh, okay. That doesn't really matter, I guess. No, apparently not. Little booklet called the Constitution. Well, anyway. There's not that many, Guy. I mean, yeah. Well, it depends on, you know, there's two schools of thoughts about the Constitution. I mean, one's the Scalia thing, which is that it's a fixed, it's not fixed, but it's a document that has to be... Oh, that is meant for interpretation over time? It's not meant for wild, it's not thought of as a living document that's changing, you know, with the times. So, you know, suddenly it's, you can have gay rights or gay marriage when the Constitution...

47:35 Like Scalia will say that gay marriage isn't covered in the Constitution one way or the other, it doesn't care. And other people would say, no, the Constitution guarantees it, but it doesn't. I mean, there's this, the reason that people have to be, you know, whoever wins the presidential election is one thing, but there's a big concern that There's about two or you know, there's always a especially if somebody stays in for eight years, which won't happen this time, but it can happen That they appoint, you know these various judges like That that one woman, you know whose nickname is actually Kiki a Supreme Court judge. Yeah, what's her name Ruth Ginsburg? Yeah she's like a

48:23 Like a communist, I mean, for all practical purposes. Like a communist, dude. America is a socialist communist state now. It's the end of it. Yeah, well that's the irony, I suppose. Although somebody should maybe sue them and then see if they can get to the Supreme Court. I mean, yeah. But listen, you're an old school American. I mean, they don't come much more American than you. You know, you like your cars, you like your guns, you like your money. Doesn't this piss you off? Cars, guns and money. Yeah, that's... and women. And babes. But doesn't this piss you off? No, it doesn't actually.

49:05 Why? I mean, you don't feel... This pisses me off, these guys who walk away from these companies, and this has been going on for years and it's very annoying. Guys who run companies into the ground, they don't care about the community whatsoever. They run the company in the ground, they rape it, they take the money as much as they can, give themselves bonuses for doing a lousy job, and then moving to Switzerland and not even paying their fair share of taxes on all this ill-gotten good gain. That's what pisses me off and that's going on constantly. You were the big defender of this some months ago. Oh, the CEOs, people bitch about their pay but they do so much hard work. I'm not talking about CEOs of financial companies who... By the way, I think a lot of these guys hedge funds, it's all in fees and it's set up a little bit differently.

49:55 You know, look, that's a game that doesn't concern me. I don't give a shit what they're doing. That's not a company that makes actual stuff or provides anything of any real value. It's just so they can go buy one of those... They provide the financing for people who do make real stuff. Ah, thank you. That's what I was waiting to hear. So this is why I feel bad. Not, I don't, you know, so, okay, so they say stole money. They took a whole bunch of money. I don't really don't care. What's happening is all the real companies that make real stuff that employ real people, speaking as an employer here, by the way, you know, they get hurt. You know, people get really, really hurt by this shit, but maybe I'm more of a socialist than you are. You might be.

50:40 I mean that's what really pisses me off. I'm really, I said earlier, I really feel shell-shocked by this. I just can't believe it. And the billions and the trillions and it all starts to run together at the end of the day and you kind of forget, right? And then, oh, this was so fantastic. You remember Nick Leeson? Does that name ring a bell? No. Well, it does, but I don't remember it. Nick Leeson was the derivatives trader, I think, who brought down bearings. Oh yeah, that's a famous guy. Right. Well, he was famous back in the day, so he wrote an excellent article in, I think it's, maybe it was the Guardian, I'll find it for you. And he said, you know, it's pretty amazing, I went to jail for six years because I basically stole 600 million.

51:27 You know, I've been in all kinds of programs, my reputation has been ripped to shreds. And now, we've got these guys who are responsible for a huge multiple of what I did, and they're just walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars. He didn't go all the way. He's probably resentful. What am I doing in jail? Look at Michael Milken. This poor guy can't even trade stocks anymore. He was like a financial genius and he really didn't do much more than invent junk bonds and get involved with some little bit of shady trading that the whole company was doing and he took the fall for.

52:09 He must be irked. I'd like to get his take on this, by the way. We need to find, somebody out there needs to find Michael Milken's press secretary and let me get a hold of him. It's the same press secretary as Michael Jackson's, I think. Weren't they buddies? Weren't Milken and Jackson buddies for a while? Not that I know of, but it's possible. I think they might have been. I don't see how that could even happen. I'd just really like to just pick your brain and just, you know, when you look at all of this debt which the Congressional, what is it, Oversight Committee or whatever, you know, feels should be on the books of the United States. I mean, isn't something going to happen? Aren't we just out of financing, John? Who's going to pay for it? Forget the stock market. That's not important right now. How about just the money that America owes the rest of the world? How does that work? Does it just keep on going?

53:06 Well, it seems as though we're doing our best to keep it going forever. I mean, essentially, you know, it's like you keep borrowing money to stay...eventually, you have to pay somebody. It's a problem. I'm trying to find this list of debting countries. It's on one of the CIA fact books. And they have the worldwide list of all the countries in debt and how much debt they owe. We're like so high, it's like, it's, if I find it in the Senate, you're gonna go, you're just gonna go, holy crap. Isn't it 9 trillion? No, I mean, there's actually something, we have an, according to this is 10, but there's another thing that's even more frightening list. While you're looking at that. Supposedly this, we're 10 trillion in debt, this is,

54:05 on some, I don't even know what this website is. Hold on, John, while you're looking at that, March 27th, 1993, Michael R. Milken, one of the world's most infamous financiers, claims to have the backing of Michael Jackson, one of the world's most famous entertainers, to form an interactive educational television network, as spokeswoman for Mr. Milken said today. Take that. I told you. I remember them standing together. Yeah, well, you know, that's important stuff. You know, 10 trillion. I've got this weird site that shows all these debting countries. I was listening to the BBC today on Radio 4 and I heard them talking about, for the first time I heard someone use the word quadrillion, which I guess is a thousand trillion? Is that a quadrillion? Probably. I don't know. I would think of a petatrillion or something. Anyway, so this is interesting. If we're 10 trillion in debt, what do you think the UK, which has only a portion of our population, is in debt?

55:08 I'll bet you they're pretty high, man. They've got to be... So we're 10 trillion, I'll bet you they're 3 trillion. 8.3 Wow! Really? Yeah, no wonder you guys are in the tank. Shit. Germany's 3.9, France is 3.5, Italy's 2, Netherlands 1.9, which is high for that little country. Spain is 1.6, which is probably low for them. Japan 1.5, Ireland 1.4, and Switzerland, why are they in debt? 1.1 trillion. Well, they had their own financial crisis years back, didn't they? They must have gotten out of it somehow. I don't keep track of the Swiss finances.

55:49 Wow, 8 trillion. Yeah, so you know, United Kingdom, that sounds worse than R10. That's pretty outrageous. And that's from like the CIA fact book? This actually comes from a thing called SWIVL, which I think is derived from the CIA fact book. But now, meanwhile, now those come, for example, now if you look at the countries that aren't in debt and you compare the lifestyles, and let me just name a few. Samoa, Solomon Islands, Bermuda, Etria, Namibia is not in debt, Belize is not in debt, and Guayana is not, Haiti, Haiti's in good shape, Uganda, there you go, you wanna go there? Mali. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Have the home movie. Laos, you know, Iceland's not in debt, which is a nice place. Hardly, you know, a jumping place, but. Cuba, Morocco,

56:51 You know, Vietnam, all these places. Oh, Vietnam is doing great. Yeah, actually, Vietnam I think is gonna be a... Especially if McCain wins, because he's supposedly gonna... He's gonna go hook him up. Hey, thanks! Hook him up, just so they can punish the guy that was beating him, I guess. Sweden is in debt to 600 million, it's not much. That's pretty amazing. Denmark. point four well over here Gordon Brown is in you know is under severe severe pressure and Here's here. I mean he's a real dummy. I don't know if someone set him up for this or not but one of his big one of his big campaigning slogans or Slogan is not in the right word, but he promised the British public there would be no more boom-and-bust cycles in the economy It's like huh

57:48 And now of course he's being called on it, but isn't that how the economy always works? You always have a boom and bust, that's just the way it goes. It's the business cycle, you can't do anything about it. Yeah, and now he's sitting here and they just had their big party, poo-how, pow-wow, whatever, and he said to them, what will I do to fix the British economy? Whatever, no, three words, whatever it takes. So, uh, I think the British populace is about to get raped some more. Whatever it takes. Can you believe that? Can you just believe the bullshit coming out of these guys' faces? I think one of our guys said something stupid like that. One of our guys? About to eliminate the business cycle. One of our guys?

58:41 Oh, you mean something like that? Like what Gordon Brown said? Yeah, I think it was almost identical. It was like the same thing, you know, somehow you're going to magically eliminate the business cycle. We're not gonna let it happen anymore. It's like, how does that, how do you do that without having a communist central controlled economy which you call all the shots from some government office and that, we already know how that works. Yeah, you never have a boom and bust again. It's just all bust. Well anyway, I mean, I don't like it because I've got an 18 year old daughter who is about to enter the workforce, you know, is about to... What is she going to enter? What kind of economy, what kind of non-prosperous times are it going to be? That just bugs me, John. I know maybe it doesn't bother you, but it...

59:22 It sure as hell bothers me. Just give it to her. It has nothing to do with that. Come on. Why don't you have her work for you? Why are you so cynical? In the olden days, people had family businesses and they weren't... You didn't raise their kids and say, well, I hope they get a job. They say, no, you're going to be a blacksmith just like the old man. Well, yeah, but... Okay. Right. Yeah. You're going to be an ex-DJ. You have a daughter who's a preceptor. The daughter of two relatively famous celebrities, depending on the country you're in, because I'm sure that you're not as well known in Hong Kong, but famous celebrities that know... Tokyo Joe would have to argue against that, John, but okay. Okay, well it's fine. It's good that you're... Actually, there's big money there.

1:00:10 So you have this situation, it's essentially a family business, a show biz family, and now you're worried about your daughter getting a job as a secretary? Who are you kidding? Okay, well, I understand your point. But what you're saying is we are going to have to radically adjust the way we, whatever we do, I mean just suddenly radically because of whatever circumstances have been created which were beyond our control. That's the end. I'm not saying that's not true. I'm just thinking you're disingenuous with this concern of yours. Okay, well so I'm not just talking about her. I'm talking about all 18 year old. I'm talking about your kids It's the same thing, but it would you know so great Dad can I can I join the family business of being grumpy and cynical? Please please teach me how to be I Mean come on that's not fair I'm just saying there's adjustments need to be made well

1:01:16 yes okay alright you're not gonna get into it with me are you Now with that, I think it's not a legitimate argument. Especially when I'm the one predicting the gloom and doom when it really boils down, because I'm talking about a longer cycle, a more impactful collapse. I'm not seeing what's happening now as that meaningful. Okay, then would you please explain how long is this collapse going to take and what will be the end result, and when does life get back to something fun again? I'm not saying normal, but something a little more positive. Well, it's not a pleasant story. That's okay, but I'm interested. You might as well, I mean, please. The way, if the cycle is what it appears to be, which I pretty much... I've got to interject from time to time. First of all, you're calling it a cycle. So you're saying this is a cycle of how things go and it's not because of a bunch of jack-offs who want to ruin the economy and kill everybody.

1:02:19 Exactly. Okay, so it's just a cycle. If the jackdaws weren't around it would still happen. That's the truth that nobody or the ugly truth that nobody wants to... Nobody likes the idea of cycles, economic or otherwise. Even though they exist, seems to me the sun comes up at a certain time, you know, and it's not exactly the same minute every day, but it kind of comes up and goes down. In your conversation with Andrew Horowitz, may I point out that you got awfully close, awfully close to actually agreeing with multiple theories about dates and time. You even at one point said, these cycles, it's almost like the earth is standing still and then everything changes. That by the way is the 2012 conspiracy theory right there. Yeah, whatever. So the 2012 thing is interesting because it would be right at the bottom of an economic collapse.

1:03:11 or close to it. My year would be 2013. But essentially what we're seeing now is just nothing. It's just the kind of, that's why I don't take it too seriously. In fact, I think it's a good time to invest. And that's why I keep saying to people, you know, if you can get some mortgage money, buy a house now. You know, although... I would wait a little bit longer. No, you don't want to wait forever. So anyway, no it'd be a 10 year down cycle, it'd be just like the Great Depression, you know, it's just a mess. Yeah, 7 million people starved in America in the Great Depression. Yeah, there'll probably be more this time. Yeah, I mean like actual starvation. Okay, so be, alright, alright, alright, okay, you're pretty light about that. Well, what am I supposed to do about it? It's a cycle.

1:03:59 It's a cycle, it's a cycle you get stuck with if you're in the wrong side of the... you know, you get in a situation you can't get out of and you can't get food because it'll be food riots and you're living in a city. You're predicting this in the 10-year cycle, this downturn that's coming up, you're predicting food riots? Yeah. Well, this is the kind of stuff I want to get to John. It doesn't matter how it's happening. The fact that it's happening. That's happening now in the next 10 years. That's that's that's here. It's so people can prepare they can do something. Do you think that gold bar is going to get you food? No, but I'm also planting it somebody over the head with it. And then eat them. I'm also

1:04:43 I'm also planting vegetables. I'm doing all kinds of stuff. I'm getting a diesel generator. I think power could easily, in 10 years time, yeah, I think power could go off. Oh God. You know, these things always look worse. I mean, yeah, there'll be food riots, but they're not gonna be like, they're not gonna be like a bar room fight scene in a sleazy bee movie where everyone's just punching each other and going crazy. I mean, these things are isolated. Okay, I mean it's like the riots that took place in the late 60s. We had all the you know Detroit caught on day through burned Detroit down and there was a Bunch of protesters that were burning down certain cities. They were burning down the ghettos It wasn't happening in like, you know, Fremont, California. I

1:05:30 You know, it wasn't happening necessarily in, you know, Bellevue, Washington. It was happening here and there, and that's what, you know, downturns do. And it's, yeah, 7 million people over a 10-year period starve to death. I'm assuming that's true. I don't know that any facts are at all. I don't have, this is just what I've heard. But just assuming, let's just take it as a possibility. That's what, 700,000 a year in a population that back then was what, 120 million? you know it's not even one out of a hundred people uh... in unemployment was low-high probably one out of so that means about thirty five thirty million people could starve to death during this next uh... ten-year cycle i mean let's face it we're not do kind of we're not equipped i mean the the farming businesses become this big you know it's been become a a a manufacturing business

1:06:29 We don't have that many self-sustaining communities that have small farms where you can buy local year-round and actually do it. I mean, it's like we can't appear in Washington because we're in a rural area where we have a lot of farmers. We get raw milk here and we get dairy products. In fact, we just got a pig butchered and we got it in the freezer. It's like 200 pounds of pork meat. So let's just say that this depression comes, money's tight, there is no money or the money that you had is... Oh, it could be a hyperinflation. Don't forget that. It could be either way.

1:07:05 absolutely uh... what's too much what skill are you going to use what trade are you going to have to get your fresh milk and uh... and your chickens and uh... and your other food supplies what is john c dvorak going to use what is a couple things you should note about uh... if you look into economic downturns. There's a number of businesses that always flourish. The restaurant businesses do well. In fact, in 1933, I think more restaurants were opened in the United States that year than any time previous in any one single year. In fact, some of those places stayed in business until deep into the 70s and 80s. Sure, because you're providing food and whenever someone has some coin, it's probably easier to go buy some food that's prepared.

1:07:50 So being in the food service business is a good one. But curiously, one profession that usually does quite well during a downturn is writers. Yeah, how about entertainment in general? Entertainment in general does very well. That's what I thought. So you got writing, if you think about it, these are things that get people to think about something else. Food, you have to have, so food's always a big deal. So being a farmer is a winner. Running a restaurant, having a deli is a good thing. So you have access to the infrastructure of food distribution itself. Shit, you're already set up, man. You are a true survivalist. I hadn't even thought about the deli. You've got your ducks in a row, Dvorak. Liking that.

1:08:35 And so you have that, that's always important. And then there's other elements like being in entertainment, you know, it usually does very well. You don't make as much money as you did in those other eras, but you survive very easily and you do well. And then being a writer for some reason, because I think people need to read and write and they need to mostly read about trying to understand what's going on around them and there's no shortage of punditry. Once you've established yourself, people will see what you have to think about. What does this idiot think? And they read it. Oh, that's interesting. Did you read what this guy said? Yeah, yeah, I read it. The guy's an asshole. I mean, that's the basic response I get to everything. But they're still reading it, so I mean, that's the main thing, no matter what they think. And there's probably some other ancillary things that are safe.

1:09:27 It doesn't help people with manufacturing who's on, you know, who would rely on being on the assembly line. But I think handmade products and things like that. Do you think my airplane and pilot skills will be of any use? Maybe. To you. Oh, okay. You know, you're an entertainer. I mean, it's not going to, you're not, you know, you keep up with technology, so whatever is happening in the technology scene is not going to go backwards, you have the internet now so there's new opportunities that people can make money by exploiting it in some way, shape or form. There's a lot of new businesses that start.

1:10:09 I mean, because you know... It's not World War III, you know, where the bombs would be placed, with a bunch of A-bombs. Yeah, that would be different. No, but remember, I don't think that's going to happen. I do not believe in a global thermonuclear war. I don't see that happening. But, I grew up, the images that I grew up with of the Great Depression is Little House on the Prairie. I mean, so that's basically my image of it. And I think a whole generation of me like that. You know, that's kind of what we envision. Yeah, well if you were on the prairie I suppose that's the way it would have been. I know, I'm just saying. If I'm not mistaken you're in a small mansion in Guilford. Remember. British Isles. Yeah, then there's the other side which is like escape from New York. You know. Right. This is what we've grown, my generation has grown up with these images. Oh man, they had, was that on... Mad Max, don't let him out. Was that on, that was on Dvorak.org slash blog.

1:11:02 I think. The new radar imaging? I'm sorry, X-ray. It was in connection with the TSA headquarters now being called the Freedom Center? Oh yeah, right, right, right. The Freedom Center. Yeah, McCullough, who's our Seems to be our most left-wing-ish of the group. Went nuts and posted a whole bunch of stuff. But that one, I mean, that was great because you, for the first time I'm seeing these full body scans of this new x-ray that they've installed in, I guess, a couple airports. I don't know if it's rolled out wide yet.

1:11:40 and you know it's like you standing in your underwear basically. Yeah. But it reminds me of exactly like one of the Terminator movies when you walk past security and you see like the skeleton right? And you see anything else that's trapped in it and we're there we're living in fucking Terminator. That technology has been around for a while. And did you see I think I sent it to you the YouTube video about the TSA with their new badges. No. I guess I didn't. Yeah the TSA well normally the TSA has a patch which says, you know, if they're a TSO, a Transportation Security Officer, now they've been given badges, an actual, like a police badge. Oh, please. Uh-huh.

1:12:22 I'm telling you. And there were people and they gave them out like in an awards ceremony. That's what the video is of. They gave them out like an awards ceremony. They called up each officer. So they're screening officers, right? They sit there and they yell at you to take your laptop out of your bag. They're calling them. They're calling them cops. Exactly. They're fucking cops now. They call them up one by one. You know, team leader, blah, blah, blah. Transportation security officer Jones, come on up. And then the guy ceremoniously pins the badge on them. And then they interviewed people, a couple of these you know, these screening officers later and they were like so proud that they had this badge and finally they felt like they really meant something in Homeland Security and they were crying, John. They were crying with how happy they were that they have this badge and the new uniform and they looked like cops! So here's the deal. Taser's are next. Most people who carry badges around or have them, they like to flash them

1:13:22 when they get pulled over by real police for speeding. Now I know there's got to be a couple of cops out there who listen to the show and a lot of people out there know policemen. If anybody ever pulls over one of these jokers And they flashed their TSA badge, hoping to get out of the ticket. You should just give two tickets. Arrest them. Arrest them on the spot and beat them. Yeah, that is true though. And actually the TSA people themselves should have said, you know what it was, it was in lieu of a raise. Oh, that's a good point.

1:14:09 It's like, oh, now here's a badge. You get a badge because you're so, you know, stupid that we'll give you a badge instead of more money. I think they already made pretty good money. And then they get all worked up about it. I think they already made pretty good money. I mean, it's fine. I mean, but I mean, I don't like seeing badges on every jerk-off that works for the government. Why don't we just have everybody get a badge? We should just marginalize the whole concept of a badge. Well. Let's have some badges at Mevio. Let's just have a Mevio badge. You and Ron can have a big gold one and give everybody else a silver badge. Sheriff star, sheriff star, that's what I want. Get a sheriff star and then it's a Mevio boss. When we lived in New Jersey, I'd been pulled over like three or four times by the same cop.

1:14:53 for speeding in this one particular spot where it's like 20 instead of 30 or whatever and I won't say his name. But I got friendly with him because he let me off every single time. He said, hey man, you should come work out with us. And he was maybe 50, 53 or something like that. And I said, yeah, you can hang out with the other guys. They're from the fire department. All right, you know and then it so it happened like I got stopped too many times for me to like no longer actually go and work out with them and you know, I don't exactly have the physique of a guy who works out so I started working out with him and Actually, I it's I just chose some pictures It actually kind of worked on me and I should do that again one day as you get back into it but you got really you know was friendly with these guys particularly this one cop and we had a babysitter and

1:15:46 for when we'd either be on trip or whatever and see we had she would often be there, she really was more like a house sitter but then this guy also knew her because you know just of the association and when we were gone we're out of the country he would park in front of the house and call her up and say and she was heavy big-boned shall we say and he would say hey baby you know I take care a lot of the big women in this town why don't you let me in And that really changed my perception of the, I mean, of course not all cops are like this, but that was scary. Yeah, well, you know, welcome to the world of some cops. Yeah, but that badge thing, it has a lot to do with it, man. I think there's a lot, you know, ugh.

1:16:39 Yeah, no, these guys will be flashing that badge left and right. I don't think they'll just be... If you walk around town with the badge. You know, I mean, I think the real police have to be very annoyed by this sort of thing. Annoyed, absolutely. But I have a feeling, John, that I think we're going to see actual behavior change in the TSA staff. You watch, they're going to start being a little bit more militaristic. Well, you know, at some of the airports it's already... You know, the weird thing is in the smaller podunk airports is where the guys are the worst. You know, there's like nobody, there's the chance of any terrorists even passing through some of these little towns is zero. And these guys are all, they're all stuffy about everything and they're released formal and they're all, you know, big shots and they're making people do this and take their shoes off. And then the worst part about it, which really

1:17:31 bothers me to know, because I do fly out of small airports every so often, is the passive docility of the locals who just think it's so cool to get this kind of attention because they're flying from, you know, Wichita to, you know, bumfuck North Dakota and they just think it's cool that they have to take off their shoes you know and their old Jim you know in his wheelchair has to take his shoes off and they have to carry him drag him through the the metal detector and he just thinks this is fine. Yeah it's not fine. It's so wrong in so many ways. But anyway so that's yeah you run into it's it's actually annoying to say the least.

1:18:16 But I haven't had any real bad experiences recently because I'm flying on a... like a... when you fly Virgin America, since they were a new carrier, they're always in some screw-up. Like in San Francisco, they're in the international terminal where they don't belong. And they're at the far end of this... it's gotta be one of the worst terminals in the world, by the way. They just built this thing new. You can't find anything in there. You don't know where... Which terminal is this? Which terminal? The international terminal at SFO was built recently, they closed the original one which was fine and dandy. The original one worked just great. What's wrong? I fly out of that all the time. There's nothing wrong with that terminal. It's fantastic.

1:18:56 No, it's a piece of crap and I'll tell you why. If you're walking down toward the end where you get to the A gates, which you're talking about for the Virgin America stuff, look into those areas where all the ticketing is and tell me if you could even guess where your Air China flight is checking in. There's no signage. There's no indication any place. When you're checking in? I mean, you have to literally wander around like you're in Vietnam, by the way. This is the last airport I ran into that you had to do this in Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City. You had to literally go from counter to counter looking up at the little monitors up there to see what airline was checking in where, because there was no signage anywhere. And that's where this crappy terminal is. Yeah, if you're flying in and out on Virgin, you know where your thing is, it's fine. But if you

1:19:41 Just go in there casually and see where find out where the Louvre Towns of flight to Frankfurt is checking in Just by wandering around you have you can't find it. Huh? Okay. I don't have that problem I mean, there's a there's a because you're not taking a variety of flights. Yeah, but you know The sign on the outside of the terminal where you were you dropped off says, you know This is where the the check-in is for these airlines and that's it. Yeah, but when you're in there, oh, it's It's not the case. It's not like the ticket, the ticketing at the international airport or the international terminal, terminal whatever the hell it is, has, where you get out of the car and you go right to the ticketing, that's not what it is at that part of the airport. You have to go around and through up to the escalators and over to a spot where there's, you know, it's just a random thing. It's unbelievable. The thing is, I've got, I took, I have to post some movies, it's the worst

1:20:39 place I've ever been. Well I have a very different experience. And it's huge. I'll walk you through with it. Walk with me through that terminal next time you're in town. I also invite you to come and enjoy Gatwick Airport, okay? We'll see what you think is really bad, my friend. It's worse than Gatwick. Gatwick does have... And it's ugly too. Gatwick does have the new Dyson hand dryers. Have you come across these yet? You know Dyson, the guy who remade the vacuum cleaner? Yeah. And he has these... So you know the traditional blow dryer where you hit the button and you rub your... you lightly but rapidly rub your hands underneath the scalding hot air until hands are dry. So he's got this thing, you stick both your hands into this like slot. It's like a kind of a wide, but it's like a male slot. And within three seconds your hands are dry.

1:21:38 It's an amazing, it's like a suction blowing experience and your hands are dry. Three seconds. It's the kind of thing you want at home. Do you stick your hand, do you have to push a button? You can't. You can't push a button. You have to push a button and shoot your hands in? No, it has a photoelectric sensor or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because those other things are unsanitary. They're nasty. You know, you gotta, yeah, you gotta press the button that everyone's hands been on the button. Right, and their hands have been in, you know, whatever. Covered with your feces and urine because they're, you know, they just, and so they bang the thing and it's just... I gotta tell you, I am not a fan of men's bathrooms at airports, dude. That's pretty nasty.

1:22:21 Well, apparently nothing like... The women's bathrooms. I've never been into these bathrooms. I was warned years ago, don't go into the bathrooms at a European train station. Oh no, oh, horrible. It's like, no, no, don't go into those bathrooms ever. Yeah, I mean, the best thing that could happen to you is you find George Michael there, but... Well... Poor guy. You hear about that? That he got busted again in a bathroom? This guy's got a problem. Well, Patricia and I were talking about that and well, unfortunately it's not just marijuana, they say that he also had crack, which is, that's a pretty bad sign. So he was smoking crack in a bathroom looking for some guidance? No, I don't know if he was smoking anything or at least any drugs in the bathroom, but this is a big part of a particular form of gay lifestyle, is this bathroom cruising.

1:23:24 It's pretty big. Soon to be an Olympic sport, I'm told. So he got caught again. Oh man, I wonder. People forget this, but I don't even remember the name of the song. He did the song that had a video of Tony Blair being George Bush's lapdog. Do you remember that video? That music video? No, I don't. It was in, I think it was right after, maybe it was 2003, right after we invaded Iraq. And he made this real big political statement and everybody slammed, I mean, I don't think his career actually, I mean, he's done his tours and everything, but he's been pretty much persona non grata in a lot of mainstream because of that. And of course everyone was laughing at him at the time and he turns out to be absolutely right.

1:24:19 And I think that pushed him over the edge or what something something happened from that moment on But people forget that he was getting busted left and right in bathrooms way before that now that happened it happened before that I mean that happened I think in 99 maybe but that was that might have been a setup. I don't know look. I don't know I'm sorry. I stopped following George Michael's career a long time ago Yeah, well, I didn't even know he was gay until he's busted that first time. Yes. You're kidding me No. No, you're kidding me. I wasn't a fan of the band. No, he's not a band. George Michael's not a band. He's just a guy. No, but he was the lead singer for Queen for a long time? This is probably what I sound like to you when I'm talking about people, the economy collapsing and people dying, is when you say, wasn't George Michael in Queen? Yeah, okay.

1:25:19 Like you said, I don't know. I mean, I don't follow the guy's career. It's not... That style of music is nothing alike. Wham! Wham was the name of the band. Oh, it was Wham? Wham. Yeah, Freddie Mercury was Queen and he's dead. He's gay? Yes, and he's dead. Oh, right. I knew that. I think I knew all this, I just don't really care. Well, useless 80s and 90s trivia is what I'm all about, John, because that's me. Yeah, well you were in that business kind of. Yeah, no, more than kind of. That's funny though, I gotta remember that. George Michael. I never liked that band, George Michael. What, wasn't he the lead singer of Queen?

1:26:14 Well, you have to get your shot in once in a while. Between the flying saucers. I haven't said anything about the flying saucers. I'm just waiting quietly for the 14th of October. Yeah, you'll be waiting on the 15th and on the 16th. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. You know, I looked at, you know, we did mention this I think, but I looked up that whole thing which was commonly mentioned here and there, but everything that comes out by all these crackpots is, and nutters, is the fact that this sighting, this saucer or whatever is supposed to arrive is going to be in the southern hemisphere.

1:26:53 Well, there's a whole... the name Alabama, the state Alabama, the southern... I mean, there's a whole bunch of different variations to this. So I don't know what that means. I would presume that if this is going to mean anything, it's got to show up and it's got to be clearly visible and it's got to mean something no matter where it pops up. I would think. But of course, if it pops up in like China, it's going to be no good. That won't be enough proof. That'll be no good. Or Siberia, that wouldn't work out either. It has to pop up in America, otherwise it just won't suffice. Well, you know, why would the aliens want to prefer America when they've had a warm welcome in Russia, apparently? Yeah. You can read Russian newspapers and there'll be mentions of, especially the greys,

1:27:45 casually walking around town. Yeah, but the greys aren't the good guys. The greys are not, they're kind of opportunistic aliens. Well that makes sense then, the Russians and all. Yeah, no these are the Pleiadians. Yeah, okay. So what else is going on? That's it man, I don't know, we've been through just about everything. That's all that I'm really interested in. at the moment. You're just preoccupied with these, with this, with the bottom here. Well, not with the bottom, I'm just, you know, this, I just don't take it for granted. This is historic stuff and I want to make sure that, you know, Grandpa Adam can say, well, I remember, I remember when it all came down, you know, and maybe we should watch this stuff so that we learn from it. So we got to learn something from it, but I'm, I'm,

1:28:41 What's the what am I what am I looking to say here? I'm sorry to hear that you actually predict such a bad economic downturn Yeah, but that's not tomorrow I know it's not tomorrow, but you know, so what are we gonna do? Sit around and wait until it happens or just let it happen slowly? I mean, I'd like to get ready for it and do something. Well, you already are getting ready for it. You've got your hold up. Yeah, but I can now... You're reading weird stuff. You've got a bar of gold. I need a deli. You're like the only guy I know that actually now has a whole bar of gold. Dude, you'd be amazed. I am not the only guy who has that. I am not the only guy who has that.

1:29:26 So what does a bar of gold sell for? Take a guess. Well I mean I could do the calculation, I just have to bring the calculator up. Yeah go ahead, would you mind? And that'll be the last thing we do on this show. Well let's see how many ounces in a pound. Or how many ounces in a kilo. Here hold on let me go to the... I can't do this because you have American pounds and you have British pounds and you have European pounds. Well no you're gonna do it by kilos. So we're gonna take, we're gonna go to Dvorak.org slash home.htm and go to the converter which is a converting tool. Oh, this is a secret little site we have here. Hold on. Go to the converting tool and we're talking about, this is what you say, two kilos? Home.htm or HTML? Home.htm. Dvorak.org slash home.htm. What are you running on a Windows server? And you go down to, for reference, special sites and click on converters.

1:30:24 Wow, this is a great site, John. With the converters? No, just your Dvorak home.com. Oh, the home, yeah, it's got a lot of good links. In fact, they're all great. Okay. So you go to mass and weight conversion, and then you click on, you find kilograms, and you have two kilos. Then you hit the tab key, and it converts it to all kinds of stuff. So we're looking for... Twelve, twelve kilos. Per ounce, how many kilos? Twelve. Two. Twelve. You bought twelve kilos? That's what the bar weighs. Oh, the bar weighs 12 kilos. Okay. All right, good. All right, 12 kilos. And so that's... That should be enough data for you to figure it out, right? Well, yeah, because now I just go to ounces, which is 423.3 ounces. I bring up the calculator and take 423.3, multiply it by... What was the going... What's the latest price? Let's just say 900 bucks. Okay. Fair enough.

1:31:23 So that baby cost $380,000? It's around that region, yeah. That's a nice piece of gold. It's not at home. Do not come to my home. It is not here. I wouldn't think. It is not here. Now because we're at the bottom, you paid probably, we'll say something like this, And the gold is actually probably only worth $400. No! I mean, it's actually worth... It's a couple hundred thousand dollars in that bar of gold. Yeah. But you'll have the gold. And it will be worth again $900 someday. Yeah. And it's cool. Well, it's not that cool if you don't have it in the house so people can lift it up.

1:32:16 Well, only certain friends get to hold my gold. I think it'd be cool just to, whoa. I was surprised. I'd never held a bar of gold and I'm like, wow, this is like heavier and bigger than I thought it would be. Oh, was it bigger than you thought? Yeah. Yeah, well again, what have I been watching? Oceans 11, 12 and 13. I mean, that's my reference for the world. Right, people are tossing bars of gold around like that's gonna be anything. Here Brad Pitt, catch this. Well, okay. Call me crazy if you will. Call me kooky. Well, you are kooky. Ah, it's something to do. Crazy like a fox. Something to do. So, uh... Are you gonna do another Andrew Horowitz call?

1:33:10 Well, not, we don't have anything planned. It's just that Horror Whistle call me once in a while, ranting about some crazy thing and I say, well, let's get this down on tape and we record it and then I just post it. Alright. No, it was good. It's not produced. Not produced. No, but it was cool. I liked it. I think it's gonna, you know, what's happening, you know, is I think it's gonna blow over in a week or so. So probably do two more of those and that'll be the end of that. Then we'll go do what we're supposed to do. Okay. Help people invest. Anyway, I'm glad Leo did invite me to be on Twitter again this week because I just can't concentrate on technology right now Yeah, why yeah, well, I'm not gonna be working this and twitch. I never get invited anymore I don't know why I bitch about it, but they don't pay you actually speak up on my behalf That's nice all the time. Really. I appreciate that. Well anyway. I don't know maybe I'm maybe I'm too wacky I

1:34:09 Well, you know, you come and do cranky geeks once in a while, it would be make up for it. Good point. Okay. Well, I'm coming out again soon. So we'll set it up. All right. Okay, John, good talking to you. You're supposed to say, yeah, it was fun. Nice talking to you. It was a ball. Coming to you from Gitmo Nation East in Guilford. I'm Adam Curry. And I'm up in Washington State, Gitmo Nation, Pacific Northwest. I'm John C. Dvorak. We'll talk again next week, right here on NO Agenda.